Milkman Max Productions presents "Marathon"

hansel960

Active member
marathon_banner_small.jpg


www.milkmanmax.com

I'm a long time reader, short time poster, first time starting my own thread. Hope you like our movie!

It was written and directed by myself (Tommy) and my brother Chris. HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!!


SYNOPSIS:
It was supposed to be Patrick's chance for glory. His chance to win the Pig to Whig Little Town Marathon.

With all his free time being devoted to training, his wife can easily hide her double life as an international spy. What she steals is the designs to quirky tech gadgets. This time she seduces a computer nerd to steal the designs to a Video Bubble Helmet: a large and awkward device that one puts over their head to watch TV in crazy 3D.

When Patrick finds his wife in the middle of her plan to seduce the nerd, he gets tangled in a circle of counterfeiting, spy agents, the F.B.I., computer nerds, and an overzealous security guard.

And all he knows is that he's just a marathon runner.


STATUS:
We are currently finishing audio mixing for the trailer and are cutting a few more minutes out of the main cut. Should be ready in less than a week. Posters are being designed for marketing. The website is nearly complete. Festivals are being chosen.


COST:
The final cost of this film (including festival fees and everything) will be around $5,000. Most of that went to equipment rentals and festival fees. We had a free camera (HVX200), we own our own audio equipment, and post-production is free for us (my brother works at a post house). Honestly, without some connections this would have been a $10,000 movie.


EQUIPMENT:
We shot it in 720p on the HVX-200. We lit with a couple of Arri kits and some kino flo lights that we had to rent. We also used some home made work lights with 5500K bulbs. We used a home made dolly (if you pay for a dolly - you’re an idiot) that was created with Roller Skate Wheels and PVC Pipe for track. We are editing it on Final Cut Pro.


ACTORS:
We got all the actors/actresses from Craigslist and a casting website called Backstage. They were all brilliant.


GOAL:
There’s obviously no money to be made in short films, so most people say what’s the point? Well, a very important question you will get asked when you are showing/touring your film is “what’s your next project?”. We have a few scripts tucked away and one really good script titled “The Whiz Kid” that Chris, my brother and film partner, has been trying to get produced for about a year now. It’s been close. Talks have been had with a few producers, investors, and even big name actors.

There’s one small problem…who are we? Why should we be allowed to direct this film? We’re nobodies. So the goal of this film was not only to hone our craft and get more experience, but we would like to be accepted to as many film festivals as possible (the larger the better). We need a third party to validate our skills. We need to win more awards. We need to hopefully meet somebody on the festival circuit that has money and says “I loved your film, do you have anything else?” That’s when we bust out the feature script and start rolling.

We have other short films on the website (which are pretty funny) but most of them are older and shot with friends and family as the cast. We needed to really make an effort this time.

Besides all of those important things, we met some really cool actors that would be awesome to work with again in the future.


HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!!
 
Thanks Romane19!!!

I hope people (and festivals) really enjoy this movie. You have to take it for what it's worth though. It was made for $5,000 on a crew of 5. It was shot in 4 days. It's not a thriller, there's no VFX, there's nothing crazy to it.

It's a short comedy in the vain of Burn After Reading, Bottle Rocket, or Napoleon Dynamite where I hope people see through the low-budget-ness of it and laugh. The script is fantastic, the acting was solid, and the soundtrack (done by Michael Mazochi - the best musician in LA) is SUPERB!

So if people take it for what it is - I think it can do well.
 
I have to say after reading the Synopsis I was not really interested in seeing this at all but I watched the trailer anyway and I was impressed. It looks well put together (especially for the budget) and showed some humorous potential, I like the scene with him going through his mothers underwear. After seeing that trailer I look forward to hopefully catching this at a festival sometime.

I wish you guys luck, Nice work.
 
I have to say after reading the Synopsis I was not really interested in seeing this at all but I watched the trailer anyway and I was impressed. It looks well put together (especially for the budget) and showed some humorous potential, I like the scene with him going through his mothers underwear. After seeing that trailer I look forward to hopefully catching this at a festival sometime.

I wish you guys luck, Nice work.

Thanks a lot!!! I'm glad you liked the trailer.

Now the thing I'm worried about is that the synopsis isn't written very well - or doesn't portray the feel of the movie well enough...:(
 
Here's some artwork for our short film Marathon. It turned out really good. Pink is back baby! It was designed by Ryan Strong. His website and work can be found at Purblind Design.


These were created from nothing but screen grabs from Final Cut Pro; we did no pre-planning for artwork, which is probably a bad idea.


If these don't stand out...I don't know what will.


Marathon_poster_spaghetti_smallest.jpg



Marathon_poster_run_smallest.jpg



Marathon_dvdcase_smallest.jpg
 
Just as a question or discussion (I'm not sure if anybody reads this, but oh well) what do most people consider the best film festivals for short films? And what is the best strategy for deploying a film at festivals?

I'm currently in the process of choosing festivals...

Do I try for big festivals first? Do you need a reputation by getting into smaller festivals and working your way up?

Besides the giant festivals that everybody knows I've heard that Palm Springs Shortfest, CFC in Toronto, and USA Film Festival are all great. But what else is there?

Any help would be great.

Thanks.
 
They finally put our movie on IMDB!!!!

So we've submitted to 23 film festivals now...some big (L.A., USA Film Fest, Palm Springs Shorts, Cannes, New Orleans)....some small. So we're just hoping for about a 60% acceptance rate.

We only applied to festivals that seemed friendly to shorts and comedies, unless it was cheap or free (Cannes)...so we'll see!
 
Back
Top