"BLOOD PRICE" -- a Kung Fu Western -- by AJ Brooks

A.J. Great job man. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Most people have said what I was going to say. Very good cinematography. Good performances and casting. The knife/rope concept was pretty awesome. Liked the rainy day. Loved the location and lighting of the flashback.

If you punched up the sound design a little you could really add some power to the fight sequences. My only other thing (and this is minor) is trying different fonts for the title and the subtitles. Other than that, great work man!
 
Curugon said:
...very tangible atmosphere with the rain and mud. Kudos.
Click to expand...

The rain did work well, and I am very impressed with how it all cut together. (We shot all of this in one day and we had a full down pour, then overcast skies, then full sun and a clear sky, then a drizzle with a smattering of clouds, then full sun ...) I was worried with how it would all come together in the edit, knowing we did what we could on set, you really made it come together in the edit. Nice work AJ.

BTW- I know others are complaining about the fight scene- I still give you high marks for having the vision and the guts to shoot it mostly wide with a few insert shots. Way to stick to your guns and not give in to traditional practices.

Keep up the great work!
 
I like this a lot AJ, more so on the second viewing, it's really growing on me.
I think there is a good story, it's simple and really works. The woman who was killed and the baby she was carrying, which doubles the buyout, was a very clever twist. The leads were great, I really liked their acting and line delivery. The score was spot on spaghetti western and your location and costuming was all top notch. So overall i really like this short a lot.

Now let's talk about the fight scenes. I don't have a problem with the choreography, the actors did a great job. I think the problem lies in the lack of sound design, in order to sell the punches to the audience. You kept the punches and stuff very real, but for this sort of movie It needs big PUNCHES and KICKS. I have some amazing SFX I can email you if you want, because sound design is easily fixable and I think would help some of the fight scenes deliver more impact. my 2 cents.
 
Nice film! But dammit you made me read, I ain't no gooder at that. :) Now about the fight scenes. I think they were choreographed great, but they were the slowest fights ever. I like the choke out, but I would've liked to see the guy struggle a bit, so we can feel his anxiety realizing that he's lost before he fades away. And real interesting death. Good Job!
 
You tell an awesome story in Red and the Wolf, and you shoot it great, and then in this project you go to a more simple story, that's shot excellent, with an awesome set piece, and you go out on a limb and attempt--mostly successfully--to choreograph a pretty intense fight scene. Crazy range man. Sound and speed of some the actions aside, it's a solid short that I really liked.

Very well shot, I enjoyed watching it. Great work. Can't wait to see what you come up with next!
 
I liked this one, I love the rain, thats what I wanted in my film, but there was not a cloud in the sky when I shot. :( any ways, I love the location! where was this shot at? Really good, I like the fight scene, the gripe I have is that the fight seemed too choreographed. I think if you would have filmed it at a faster film rate it would have been nice. But I loved the look of the film and the death scene at the end. Also the last shot was beautiful. Great job guys.
 
Didn't follow your thread or read the tag line, just fired up the film and had super high hopes knowing who directed it. I was thrilled in the beginning with the first cowboy working the knife. I was so excited that you went with this kung fu type of western.

The fight scenes were too slow and obvious. Was so hoping for quicker cuts of the action instead of just a medium shot. The only other thing that was lost on me was the title and subtitles, would have preferred regular font that is easier to read.

Story wise this was one of the best. Yours was a perfect 6 minute story, while it is not a new story it was fit into six minutes and well told. One of the best of the Fest.

Thanks for your entry. Very entertaining.
 
Another great film AJ! I agree with a lot of what was already stated, but none of it took away any of the enjoyment for me.
I thought you did an outstanding job capturing the look, feel and sound of an old Kung Fu movie. (loved the spur sounds!)
If anything...I would beef up the fight SFX as was stated before... I wanted that to be bigger, louder and more over the top.

Congratulation on yet ANOTHER job very well done! :thumbsup:
 
Turned out very well, especially considering how fast you guys worked.

I'm a little split on the fight choreography. On the one hand I love that it actually plays out in longer shots and isn't cut up like a Michael Bay fight scene (plus is shows you actually had good choreography on the set, which is rare), but on the other I feel like it could've been a little more exciting with an increased tempo in editing. I'm sure you learned a lot shooting those scenes though.

Overall, nice job! (P.S. my sound gear finally delivered this Saturday, so I'll be ready and able to help out on your future stuff :laugh:)
 
This was a pretty good film. Definitely not bad. But the editing and acting was the weakest to me and is what kept it from greatness.

cinematography was excellent, and the first/main asian guy was good but the 2nd asian guy just baffled me because he sort of had the same look on his face the entire film and never truly showed any sort of expression besides what looked like confusion.

The editing was way too sparse for me. Not just the fight scenes but even in other scenes for example in the opening as he's walking down that extended porch and the camera is in that skewed 3/4 shot from behind his adversary, it just stays in that same shot as he walks and walks and even as they begin fighting it stays in that same shot. It was way too long and took me right out of the illusion of the imaginary 'film world' because it made my mind sort of think that I was just watching footage from a camcorder that someone dropped clumsily on the ground. Some of the cuts during the fight were EXCELLENT, I loved especially how you went from wide to medium shots and close ups at the appropriate times but the variety of the cuts was still just too far and few so to speak.
The fight choreography looked a little weak and the crazy part is NOT because it was weak, I've seen BTS footage of hollywood fights and that's exactly how they look when shot continuously with one shot. But the reason this looked weak compared to hollywood fights when you see the finished product is simply because hollywood uses all the tricks of the trade to cut chop and edit the fight footage a lot so all the 'weak' looking parts are cut appropriately to look more genuine. With yours however there wasn't enough cuts so you can see clearly fake punches, kicks etc not landing.
Other than that it was very strong as I said cinematography wise, the shot choices were excellent, angles etc were all very creative and expertly/professionally done, those excellent shots just need to be intercut a little bit more for my tastes.
 
Homunculus said a lot of the things I was going to say, especially the overlong dutch angle.

I really enjoyed this though. There were quite a few gorgeous shots. I thought Herman's score was very clever, mixing asian and western music perfectly.

The rope/knife set-up was very cool.

I like the idea of the ending, and it technically was done very well, but the acting doesn't sell it. I don't believe that the guy lost his wife and their yet-to-be-born child. You can't see it on his face at all. You had the opportunity for some real genuine emotion for that moment, cutting in to a tight close-up on his face as we the audience realize this isn't paid work at all, but a personal score to settle.

Technically very sound film, very ambitious and creative. But I think you can push yourself on the emotion and performance level.
 
I loved this asian interpretation of a western. The story was very clever and surprising. The quality on all levels was very professional. Compliments!

Susanne
 
Alot of my thoughts have been said already - cool idea, great location, east/west mix was spot on.

And yeah, the fight scene was well choreographed, but poorly edited. Someone mentioned Michael Bay earlier, and you DEFINITELY don't need that - but some of the impacts were lost because you didn't emphasize them in editing. And by holding the shots too long you really see how relatively slow the fighters were moving, and while they were really skilled - you didn't do them any favors by holding on. I'm curious, how much coverage did you shoot?

And considering this was a kung-fu film - some enhanced SFX would have helped too.

But kudos to you for being original - and entertaining.

Nice job.
 
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