As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

Nathyn

Nathyn

Low Budget Ninja
The new trailers are up. Please take a look at them. This is not "yo momma's" low budget action flick thriller, trust me. The site as you all know is http://www.the4thbeast.com/ and all you have to do is click on trailers to get your choice of two new ones.

-Nate
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

Aight.. might as well.... I don't dig it. I don't have the attention span to look at one fight scene after another. As far as the scenes in the trailer is concerned, there is an absence of good cinematography. The restaurant shot looks bad, especially with the strong backlight behind the old white guy. I know you said you're going for a "street" style and WBing against the "scene". I guess this doesn't fit my taste.
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

looks good, probably just need to work on white balancing and exposure. maybe lose the actor title cards.
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

It's funny you say that Party-Pooper. I thought the same thing. For the television commercial I dropped the cards. I'll keep them online but not in the commercial.

-Nate
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

Well at least you "got it done". Most of us don't get off our ass's and make anything at all. Good for you man? What did you do the gun flashes in? AE?
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

"Boring" - Homer Simpson ;D

Just kidding. Not my cup of tea, but It looks like it was fun to make.
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

[quote author=Mark_Monciardini link=board=Clips;num=1081211098;start=0#5 date=04/07/04 at 22:59:58]Well at least you "got it done". Most of us don't get off our ass's and make anything at all. Good for you man? What did you do the gun flashes in? AE?
[/quote]

I did the flashes in After Effects. All of the agents carry those Tomb Raider guns.

[quote author=PurposeDriven link=board=Clips;num=1081211098;start=0#6 date=04/07/04 at 23:31:37]"Boring" - Homer Simpson  ;D

Just kidding. Not my cup of tea, but It looks like it was fun to make.[/quote]

Can't please everyone. But it was fun to make. I got to see if I was just full of it or could I really pull off a film like this.

-Nate
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

The agents all use the guns Laura Croft used in the first Tomb Raider movie. I thought it would be cool for the agents to have big threatening pistols and an a kill on sight attitude versus Daniel who has all the skills but doesn't really carry weapons and doesn't really want to fight. (He just came back from a war why would he want to fight on his own soil). So the agents have the big guns.

-Nate
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

aha.. thank you for the explaination. i saw the guns looked different in the preview.
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

You should check your levels on your music. They go up and down and when they go down its sometimes abrubt. The guy in the diner with a window behind him should have had a light on him because you cannot see his face. The fight scenes looked okay. Although some of it with the female looked too staged....just my 2 cents.
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

I've fixed the whole music thing in the television trailer. I may upload the trailer again with the fix. The window light was supposed to be haloish but it obviously got out of hand. I fixed that in post by adding some red. By the way which part looked staged?

-Nate
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

Actually these are the exact ones. We got ours from airsplat. We got another one from some other place and it's not so good (It was a UHC and I like the HFC ones better). We found another place that sales more realistic models. I need some more for my next film. I'll probably be the main guy so I won't be behind the camera.

-Nate
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

You're probably going to hate me for this, but only because you asked for comments am I giving you an honest opinion on what I see here. It's meant to help, not to hurt so don't take it in a demeaning way.

Some of what I'm about to say depends greatly on what your goals were. If this was a first time attempt at making a film to get some experience, then bravo, you've done it and you should take many of the lessons learned here into your next film and hopefully not repeat mistakes you made on this one.

If you were going for making the best film in the world (like your post suggests) well, then I don't know what to tell you because what I see here is indeed "yo momma's low budget action flick thriller".  Anyway, here's what I see in the trailer:

I have to agree with booggerg. Doesn't look like much thought was given to composition and lighting in these shots. Looks like there was an attempt to create some interesting angles based on things that have been seen in various action films or japanese anime, but I don't get the feeling it was done with an understanding of what the compositions storytelling intent is. Just done to "look cool". As a director, you need to think in terms of emotionally engaging the audience with your story. The shots and lighting you choose should reflect this.

Also, from a purely technical standpoint, I hope the scene in the diner was merely cut strangely for the trailer as you have some tremendous editing issues going on. The positioning of the figures lends itself to what's referred to in editing as "popping". We're looking at one character on one side of the screen, but when we cut to the other guy, he's in such a weird composition that it doesn't cut seamlessly. Our eye goes "whoa, what just happened? Where am I supposed to look?". Thus taking the viewer out of your story which is something you never want to happen.

The actors are completely untruthful in these scenes, even in the action sequences.  Just look like a bunch of people running around doing what a director told them to do and they don't believe they are the characters they're portraying. It's hard to find good actors in general, but a big learning experience from my first film was to spend a LOT more time in casting.  

In their defense, however, even morgan freeman or gene hackman would have a hard time making the dialogue in your trailer seem believable. Yet another lesson to be learned is to refine your script as much as possible. Perhaps go through cast readings before actually shooting them to hear how they sound to your ear. At the end of the day, your movie is the story you're telling. If the plot and dialogue aren't up to snuff, all the eye candy in the world won't save it and your viewer will say "that sucked".

Last thing is you need to do some sound design and color correction work on the footage. But I'm sure this is a "not enough time in post issue" and can be corrected.

Again, not stated to be harsh, but to inform and hopefully help. I hope you take the comments in the spirit they were intended. Remember the written word can come across abrasive as there is no inflection in the words.

Good luck on the next project :)
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

I think the title of the film 'The Mask of the Antichrist" Is too grandiose for what the film is (or seems to be).
 
Re: As Promised to the DVXusers forum and others

[quote author=TC5 link=board=Clips;num=1081211098;start=0#18 date=04/09/04 at 10:55:24]I think the title of the film 'The Mask of the Antichrist" Is too grandiose for what the film is (or seems to be).[/quote]

What makes you say that?

-Nate
 
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