SHORT: Echelon - SciFi Visual Effects Scene

[MacMave]

Hi!
I`m a young filmmaker from germany and I started to write a script for a Sci-Fi Actionmovie. Slowly the Idea of that Movie gets bigger and now we started to do some Testscenes ...



Here you can watch the 3 minute Short:

I shoot this with a Canon Rebel T2i on 720p/50fps to have more Options for slowmotion. Used a Hague MiniMotion Stabilizer and a Glideshot 4' Jib.
Sure we have a lot to learn and it would be very nice if you guys can help us to get better.

 

[jls4]

Well overall, for your first project I'll say you guys did well. Some of the things I see right off the bat that will help you is
More dynamic Lighting - The Overcast Day didn't help you'll, I think it hurt because there was no "roughness" to the scene
The Special Effects - some looked great most didn't look like much - to avoid this go for quicker edits and don't show shots that don't look perfect, i.e. the plane exploding could have been a quick 2 second shot then we cut to the face then we cut to a closeup of the guy with the plane burning behind him out of focus - this way we don't see the effect that long. You'd be suprised how many major movies get away with only ok special effects because of quick edits.
Up the grit everywhere including costuming.

Right now that's my 3 quick review. When you get a new one up let me know - would love to check it out.

BTW - where did you get your gun from - looked pretty good.

 

[Jon Starr]

Cool stuff. A few things stand out though.

Combat - now from a combat perspective (while I'm not an expert), the gun fight was a little bit weird for 2 reasons. First the guy hides behind glass. Now it seems a bit thicker, but these future weapons (as you show) go through the glass like a hot knife through butter. Plus the glass doesn't exactly keep the enemy from seeing where you or your head is. It's great that he went from cover to cover, but it wasn't much for cover. Second, the other guy in white was just standing there out in the open? Since he took him down with one shot, I doubt the armor actually does anything (why?), so why wasn't the guy hiding in cover?

Then, at the end, he runs out in front of this gun ship!? Why was the gun ship just hovering if not to shoot the guy the second he shows his head? Just too much set up and really ridiculous on a lot of levels. Why did the gun have to come apart to shoot grenades anyways? A futuristic weapon should at least have the capabilities of modern day weapons, like having both a grenade launcher and gun work in unison.

Gun - the main gun actually looked pretty nice. The problem was with how he held it. You could tell it was very light compared to how it 'should' be. My suggestion is to weight it down a bit, put some rocks or metal inside the gun to have the guy naturally handle it like a heavier gun.

Slow Motion - while this may wow some people, for the most part it did nothing but retract from the film. It didn't really have a point. Most slow motion, as long as it's done properly, is there for a reason. In the matrix it's designed to show how accurate or fast the characters are. The bullet time shows us that this average man can defy a program and literally dodge bullets (almost). Slow motion often get's misused in big special effects films, don't fall for it. However even with these films it works a bit better. For your film, it was pointless and slowed things down. Especially the big slow down just had no purpose. I thought it was the final shot that would take the guy down, but it didn't nothing and they just kept going. Then when he jumps after shooting the guy there's a slow motion? Just feels gimmicky. Remember, everything in a film, every choice, has a purpose.

Special Effects - they were okay. I've seen a lot of amateur special effects, and this one didn't feel like anything exceptional. Good muzzles, but the explosion at the end was way too rough.