1930's Bank Robbery Short "The Headliners"

I enjoyed it. It looked really nice I only have two things I think could have been better

1) I did not like your casting decision for the "boss" I know you said the overacting was intentional but compared to the other two he didn't look or feel like the boss.

2) In the car shot outside of the bank the audio on the person in the backseat was barely audible for me compared to when the boss spoke.

I thought the shots were chosen very well and the color and feel of the movie was exactly where it had to be. I liked the humor and the ending made me laugh. Overall very nice job!
 
I wanted more foley sound. I would have liked to feel a little bit more in the world you created with the production design, the shining point of the film. Some nice camera moves in the bank.

I agree about the boss character. Overacting is one thing, bad acting another. "Miller's Crossing" has plenty of overacting and over the top stuff in general, but the performances are solid. One of my favorite movies of the Coens. I only harp on this because I liked it and wanted it to be better overall than some aspects prevented it from achieving. If something is total crap I'm not going to try and tell the filmmaker that--they'll figure it out eventually. But this I wanted to be excellent in every way because of all the other good stuff you put in. I love period gangster films. Come to think of it the only outstanding one I ever saw was Miller's Crossing...Last Man Standing was a fun watch but not on that level. I mean, come on...it's the Coen brothers. Shame about Public Enemies.
 
Thanks for the comments guys!

I would agree with you both completely. Thomas(the boss) is my friend. So is everyone else in the film. We did the movie for fun so all of my talent was free. None of them had seen the script prior to the first day of shooting. Not the way I would have preferred it, but, so it goes. Had the film not just been for fun, this would not have been the case.

The goal here was to recreate the 1930's as best we could and tell a short story within that environment. I understand the film may have suffered because I used "friends" but I wouldn't have wanted this project to be any other way.

I really appreciate the comments. They are very helpful. Thank you again!

Cheers,
Dalton Coffey
 
That was really well done, beautiful from a cinematic point of view. How did you manage to get all those cars and the location with such a low budget?
 
Elvis Deane said:
That was really well done, beautiful from a cinematic point of view. How did you manage to get all those cars and the location with such a low budget?
Click to expand...

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I was able to get the cars from the local Model A Ford club. I have a friend who is a member actually and he made some calls and they all said yes. The Robbers car is a 1931 Buick and was a little more difficult to come by. But through the same connections we were able to get it.

The bank location was a funny story. It is a completely restored bank from the 1920's and 30's that I heard about while on a commercial shoot one day. I stopped in, asked if we could film, and they said yes. That bank was actually robbed by John Dillinger while he was with Baby-Face Nelson in 1934.

Most of the budget was actually spent on the Thompson Sub-Machine gun, which is the real deal. The film is a result of over 3 long months of pre-production. I could have done it sooner but I would have needed deeper pockets:-)

Thanks again!

Cheers, DC
 
I agree with everyone so far, the film looks great. Some of the moves in the bank really work well. The music is a good touch, and really helps to put you in that time. I'm a sound guy, so I would have liked a bit more sound work done.. there were balance and clarity issues with some voices. More foley work would have really enhanced it as well. Overall though, great work!

What did you have for support gear? Was it all shot hand-held? What did you have for lighting? How large was your crew?
 
CDMI said:
I agree with everyone so far, the film looks great. Some of the moves in the bank really work well. The music is a good touch, and really helps to put you in that time. I'm a sound guy, so I would have liked a bit more sound work done.. there were balance and clarity issues with some voices. More foley work would have really enhanced it as well. Overall though, great work!

What did you have for support gear? Was it all shot hand-held? What did you have for lighting? How large was your crew?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with you about the sound. It was a quick turn around. We shot the film during the week of April 10th. So, unfortunately, we weren't able to spend alot of time fine tuning things like I would have liked. The audio in the car is the worst... I know. You should have heard it before we tweaked(more like wrenched) it in post. It was bad. We are in the process of remixing it and I will unload it when that is finished.

A few of the shots were hand-held but most of the bank and opening sequences were shot with a RedRock dslr rig on a steadicam. We had a crew of 5 and a grip truck. We used Kino Flos for the bank and tungsten/hmi(we broke out a Flo for a couple of shots) for the hideout. Outside the main windows of the bank we had two 12x12 silks for lighting control.

Thanks again for the comments.

Cheers,
Dalton Coffey
 
Really nice stuff, man. Production design was just awesome!

I too would have liked a little bit more audio work, but overall, I really enjoyed it!
 
I noticed a couple anachronisms in the outdoor shots that could be easily fixed...for example in one of the shots you can see some very tall very modern street lights or parking lot lights in the distance...very easy to comp out.
 
Wow, a beautiful short. I think many of the so called "movie buffs" throwing out comparisions to the only gangster movies they know like Millers Crossing, etc.. are completely missing the point.

This isnt a modern day gangster movie about the 30s (like Public Enemies, or Millers Crossing, etc..). This is a throwback to the actual films of that period. The Edward G Robinson, James Cagney, Paul Mooney days.

I really can point out very few technical problems. It sounded good, was shot well, and looked great. More importantly your story was engaging enough, and your characters bright enough that you just got lost in the story rather than nitpicking details.

I really enjoyed this film, in fact I enjoyed it so much I decided to make it the Short Film of the Week over at the blog i run, its the Diary of a No Name Film maker

You can check out your film featured as well as all the past winners here. By winning this you join the ranks of some very talented film makers from indie legends to the man Martin Scorcese himself.

http://jone5films.wordpress.com/

I always encourage winners to post a comment talking about what it was like making the film, how you did it, what you experienced etc...

If you have a poster or image id be happy to post it up as well.

Congratulations.

jon
 
jonE5 said:
Wow, a beautiful short. I think many of the so called "movie buffs" throwing out comparisions to the only gangster movies they know like Millers Crossing, etc.. are completely missing the point.

This isnt a modern day gangster movie about the 30s (like Public Enemies, or Millers Crossing, etc..). This is a throwback to the actual films of that period. The Edward G Robinson, James Cagney, Paul Mooney days.

I really can point out very few technical problems. It sounded good, was shot well, and looked great. More importantly your story was engaging enough, and your characters bright enough that you just got lost in the story rather than nitpicking details.

I really enjoyed this film, in fact I enjoyed it so much I decided to make it the Short Film of the Week over at the blog i run, its the Diary of a No Name Film maker

You can check out your film featured as well as all the past winners here. By winning this you join the ranks of some very talented film makers from indie legends to the man Martin Scorcese himself.

http://jone5films.wordpress.com/

I always encourage winners to post a comment talking about what it was like making the film, how you did it, what you experienced etc...

If you have a poster or image id be happy to post it up as well.

Congratulations.

jon
Click to expand...

Thanks Jon! You picked up on exactly what I was going for. When you mentioned Paul Mooney and James Cagney I went "Yes!" The entire film was designed to be a "throwback" as you mentioned. The actors had a lot of fun with that. I had a couple of them watch some period films. Not everyone could, but it still went well I thought.

Thank you for adding it to your blog. I really appreciate it. I will get you a poster style pic to throw up there as well. Asap. Thanks again Jon!

Cheers, DC
 
very cool man. You have some great images there.

I stopped after 1:30 though, i couldn't stand the acting, quite horrid. If you are going to invest time and money into this type of a project, that has very good cinematography, and nice art direction, with props and what not, why fall short on the actors?
 
Last edited:
PaPa said:
If you are going to invest time and money into this type of a project, that has very good cinematography, and nice art direction, with props and what not, why fall short on the actors?
Click to expand...

So the point could be missed by some, I guess. The only thing you can comment negatively on is something so subjective as the acting? I feel pretty good about that.

-dc
 
acting is very important to filmmaking. It's not photography after all, its story, and without characters to hold up the story, no one cares. Don't ever underestimate acting, actors hold the strongest production value. Had your film been well acted, i think that alone would have brought it into another league.
 
Great project, great effort, worth the watch for sure and I definitely wanted to post and say "good show".

I think it could be a bit shorter, tighter cuts. I say this because a lot of the moments are drawn out in what seems to be an unnecessary fashion. They don't really enhance tension, and I think I spy comedic beats but they aren't really selling right now.

It really hits home when I get to the end and realize there's a punchline. It's actually a good punchline, but maybe it's not setup well enough to warrant the total runtime?

Food for thought, anyway.

I don't really comment on too many shorts and such, this one was well worth taking the time out.

Thanks for sharing!
 
jonE5 said:
Wow, a beautiful short. I think many of the so called "movie buffs" throwing out comparisions to the only gangster movies they know like Millers Crossing, etc.. are completely missing the point.

jon
Click to expand...


There's no need to passively lash out at people who are expressing their opinions. If you have a discrepancy, why not directly address it by quoting and having a civil discussion?

This type of response only deters people from wanting to post their HONEST and OPEN opinions, the types of things that help Filmmakers grow.

Pats on the back are good for morale, jabs to the gut are good for tolerance training.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top