Bravo Rising - An Elite Sci-fi short film

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ctbullet

Active member
Synopsis:

An elite search a rescue unit, called Bravo team are sent on a unique mission to retrieve an ambassador and his accompanying team from a distant alien moon

Cast:
Jackson.................Joe Greenslade
Alex.........................Femi Ogunbanjo
Adam......................Joe Maudsley
John........................Andrew Lindfield
Sam........................Dan Cheetham
Jenny......................Lena Andersson

Directed, Produced, Written, Filmed, Edited and Scored by
Callum Thomson
Anthony Richardson
Patrick Shelton
Robert Martindale

Special Thanks to:
Leanne Jones
Lorrie Parry
Paul Mills

Here are some still so entice you

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And Finally the link

Bravo Rising(2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_B9xaHoKxs
 
Try to post High quality version cause youtube isnt that good for showing films in its regular low quality,even 35mm film trailers look bad with youtube compression.
Heres HQ link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_B9xaHoKxs&fmt=18

Some takes are more filmic and some are less filmic,i wouldnt shoot handheld something like this.And steadicam is a must i think.
CGI effects arent convincing and seeing the same cloud coming from the gun 3 times one after another doesnt look that good.
Sometimes it looks like a tv series but it lacks some depth of field shots which we all love.
Get rid of this ,its first of all:
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If you shooting film then shoot it progressive ,you could deinterlace interlaced footage but it would never look filmic unless you would delete some frames but this would became choppy film.
You could make some more interesting close ups instead of regular zooming in,you could move back and use Depth of field cause it really adds something and can look good on progressive cam,this was done on regular 1/4 sensor and progressive canon optura pal version:
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Those particular shots might not fit your story at all but still you can use some imagination and use depth of field on small sensors.
 
First impressions:

Sorry if this sound harsh, but personally, if you can't do sci-fi properly, then you shouldn't do sci-fi IMO. Movies are about immersion, they're about getting into a story. Duct taped weapons, blue tooth earpieces, Halloween masked aliens, wooden or cardboard doors (not sure what they were made of, but they didn't look metal which was what you were trying to do), they just pull you out of the movie.

The special effects were okay, but a tad wierd even.

Now the rest is a bit hard to take because it's a lot of "bad" things about the film. However try an understand I'm trying to be helpful and constructive, I'm not trying to hurt you. This is to help you.

Halfway:

Just watched it halfway. I gotta say the scene with the black dude hitting the door really didn't work for me. It was far too staged. Not to mention there's a sound missing for when he hits the door. I thought they reacted to the loud sound he made, but when there was no sound it was wierd. Plus the reactions were just strange.

There are so many odd choices. For example, right in the middle of a shootout in an unprotected hallway, when one of the characters gets hit, the medic goes to him and rather than trying to find safety to help the guy, he stands there, looks at the wound (while being shot at mind you), and then looks at a guy and says "I don't know how to help him!" In the heat of battle, when being shot at, the first thing you should be thinking is "Let me get out of here to examine this guy."

Now I'm halway through to the "embassador" point. And they're having an argument because the embassador is dead and there's also this guy's girlfriend? So let me get this straight, they're mad at the leader because his intention was to save his girlfriend, rather than the embassador. They're acting as if the leader knew the embassador was dead. If the leader had secondary intentions, so what? They were trying to save the embassador. I dunno, maybe they would react irrationally like that, but it's still really strange and awkward.

Plus this medic (adam?) has braces? That also kind of pulls us out.

2/3 in:

Okay, I've got to say that the argument was really amature and is a really big beginners mistake. First of all, yelling doesn't make an argument. All they did was have a yelling match and it felt so staged and cheesy. It was supposed to come off feeling intense, but it was so over the top. On top of that, a big mistake beginners make is when they just add in all kinds of swear words. It just screams amature.

Why were they opening the door just to close it again? I'm a bit lost on that. Also, the tight close-ups made the whole scene confusing. All I saw was two guy struggling to get a door open, then the girls has this strange mudgy dot on her chest, the guy looks, she's standing there kind of "hrmmm" the guy looks at her and casually walks over, then next thing I know the door was opened and a rocket flies through? Then there's hardly a sound for the explosion and it didn't seem like anything exploded (no debris, or bright flash or anything). Then they shoot a few times and close the door. Why was she standing in the middle of the door as they were trying to open it anyways?

What a wierd cut as well. As soon as you hear the strangely muffled explosion it cuts to some random dude opening his eyes?

Then the guy comes by, and I thought it was the guy that was shot by the wierd weapon. Plus they say "WHAT the F is that?" (again swearing) as if they don't realize it's a person. Honestly, it looks like a person with an open wound on his shoulder, shouldn't they say "who is that?"

Plus the argument for saving the almost dead team... was kind of weak. Humanity, etc... what?

Ending:

Why a picture? Isn't the soldier taking out a picture of their loved ones just a tad too cliché? Especially at the end when the soldier with the picture sacrafices himself for the team...

And what about the loose end? The team with the strange weaponry? I expected them to turn into aliens or something, and nothing was explained.

Plus the fact they you shot above the pods was an obvious attempt to cover it up.

Overall:

Cinematography: This was so so. The lighting was really lacking in a lot of scenes. It looked like you just put down the lights and shone it in their direction.

Also a lot of times things were spacially confusing, especially with a lot of close-ups being used. You always always always always need a master shot to establish the actions, characters, placements so people aren't confused of where this guy is, or who's holding a picture, or if this guy is to the right of that guy, or if the door is opening, etc.

Editing: Really awkward cuts, and just kind of poorly put together. Again, this is where using a master shot comes in play. Try and slow down on cutting as well. Stay on a character for a bit, you don't have to always cut cut cut.

Music: Really lacking. Just felt like wierd midi music that didn't really get me into the mood.

Sound: Really needs a lot of work. Next time work with a sound guy. Remember, 70% of what you see is what you hear. This means sound is very very very very very very very very very important. A lot of people don't realize that sound can make or break a film. No matter how good you shoot something, and how good the directing, script, etc. are, if the sound is lacking, then it comes off unproffesional.

Acting: aside from wierd casting choices (such as braces), the acting was very poor, but doesn't mean your off the hook. A lot of it was poor also because of the script and directing.

Script and directing: A lot of really wierd choices here. The blocking and acting was all very staged and rough. One example of poor blocking is when they opened the door and the girl just stood there with a dot on her chest. A lot of "why are they saying that?" or "why are they doing that?" moments, which is a bad sign. Then at the end it didn't feel like it came all together. It felt like it was missing something. Plus the swearing and yelling matches were really amature and unproffesional. Not to mention the sacrifice and picture of loved ones ending (really really cliché).

Design/art direction: This was what really pulled me out. The halloween masks, the crappy looking guns, the strange looking door, the pods, the bluetooth headsets, etc. It just felt wierd. Not to mention the location didn't feel like a ship (because of the conrete), I thought it was just some really old building (which is why it looks like from our time).

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But look, keep working at it. I do see potential. Despite it's flaws, everyone makes a bad film, and it's all about your additude towards it. Use this as a learning tool and just convince yourself that next time you'll improve on thsi 100%, that's how I always do it.
 
wow, well I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion

I'm aware of some of these flaws e.g too complex for time scale but as for acting and direction I feel the actors did very well. We directed them based on how we wrote the characters and the majority of them delivered very well.

I don't like your attitude to 'if you can't do it don't'. I feel this is very defeatis and is no way to learn. I learn by doing and I'm sure I will get it right with enough practice therefore not doing is not going achieve this is it.

Overall I'd like to thank you for your indepth review and will work on your suggestions
 
not bad for a student film, ct et al. I agree with Starr, it does show potential.
keep up the good work -- enjoyed watching it.
 
Yes and i dont agree about changing some reactions or lines ,its his script he can do whatever he want ,we dont know all peoples you cant tell how they would react ,you have different kind of peoples,thats why i dont even talk about the lines and script cause people are so werid these days and they can say weirdest things in real life ,so why not in a film.I wont be judging script unless its really stupid/poor that i feel bad about the writer,but this wasnt that bad.Some things were overreacted ,some underreacted.And i didnt knew that guy with braces is a med.
Swearing was not needed it looks weird and like some uncontrolled acting.
 
I agree with many of Jon Starrs points, however I disagree with his comment on not attempting sci fi - there's only one way to learn.

No-one said to Spielberg when he was a kid, "Hey man, don't make adventure films until you know how OK?". He made them anyway, and practiced until he was freakin' good. Peter jackson was running around with shi*ty props and gear making backyard movies and now look where he is?

I wouldn't use expensive props in a short film unless I was planning on sending it to festivals/calling card.... Waste of money. Too many people waste time and money with short films that a handful of people will see, if that. Save the budget for the feature. However, you probably could have made them look a bit less distracting for a few $$.

The film could have been helped a bit more by doing things like removing the in camera sounds and just doing that sound in post. The first shot of the movie you can hear what sounds like camera noise or something thats been recorded with the on set mic...it's just footsteps. Add some ambient low noise to help set the environment, redo the footsteps in post, etc. The sound immediately took me out of the picture. This is something you can do on no budget.

I need to watch this again before I can give you a proper comment on some of the good things you did - I will come back to this later today. Either way - you made something - you made something that requires a lot of work, and it's actually pretty cool! That's a huge amount of work. Massive. You can only go up from here.
 
you know I'm really suprised at you guys commenting on the sound because all the audio is ADR and foley. I think I used the on board mic for one scene and that's the argument

As the for opening shot, it is a tracking shot and to use the on board mic would be an error as you'd be able to hear the rollers right? the sound I used then are a simple engine hum and some foley footsteps along with the score

Can you suggest other scenes in which the sound needed work because I did but quite a bit of tiem into the sound design so would appeciate a little more depth

thanks
 
Maybe I jumped the gun on the "not worth doing" comment I made. You guys are right, the only way to learn is to do.
 
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