Fallen Soldier Festival Film

Click on "Teaser"

In other words, not an official trailer quite yet. :thumbsup:

Well done guys! Though I'd love too see more.

Jesse
 
I"m working on something like this right now. Right now I'm in the process of getting good authentic cammies and weaponry. There won't be all that many scenes involving fighting, but more realism can only help.

any advice you could throw my way about shooting something like this would be helpful. (I DO have two friends who are USMC soldiers, so I guess that will help too)

oh, and the footage looks excellent. good choice in music also.
 
Matthew,

The overall look of the teaser/trailer is nice and professional. Your aspect ratio is off, it seems horizontally stretched. Something like that gives me an immediate bad impression so I'd fix that asap.

Some observations:

1. I felt the head shot where the soldier falls down was odd because it wasn't obvious to me what was happening. It looked like he just ducked out of the frame.

2. The part where the other soldier is (I guess) trying to stop the bleeding didn't seem convincing to me either because I didn't see any hint of a wound.

3. The scene where the daughter runs into Dad's arms is nice but the acting from the "daughter" seems forced and she seems to be self consciously looking at the camera. If it were me, I'd cut the scene before this became apparent.

4. The profile shot that follows this scene seems totally out of place. It looks different and it's not saying anything.

5.In my mind, there is too much time spent on the soldier's downfall, you are portraying it as a huge event and it's coming across like a fleeting moment that's being stretched out uneccessarily for this trailer. I keep saying to myself "Why are we going back here?". Doesn't have a point to me. Again, if it were up to me, I would paint the soldier as a family man first and then show his downfall. It would seem more monumental then and not so repetitive.

6. The final dialog scene falls flat for me also. It's not impactful, there is little emotion in the actor's expression and I think it could have been much stronger in performance. If I were cutting that, I would just use the voice over black or as the film title is forming on the screen. I think that would be more impactful.

Overall, because of the disconnect and repetitive nature of some of these shots, the trailer is not flowing naturally for me and it feels awkward.


Anyway, please take this critique in the spirit it is intended. This is just my opinion and I will not judge your work on a trailer. Like I said, the overall look and cinematography seems to be quite professional.

Good luck with it.

~ D.
 
Did you shoot this in squeeze with the anamorphic? I'm guessing you did, if so what system did you edit on and how did you do the double anamorphic? It looks great, did you use a post tool to do your color adjustments or what settings did you use while shooting principle? Please let us in on some of your tricks. - Thanks - Chad
 
Thanks guys, I am looking forward to premiering this. It has been a long time in the making. I shot in squeeze mode with the anamorphic it was wrong but it works. what you really want to do it shoot in full with it an letter box in post. I edited with Vegas and did my CC there. I had my camera guy adjusting the settings most the time, but I told him to back off on the ped a bit so we could play with the blacks more in post.
 
If this is going to be about the army, please be accurate in the uniforms.

Army does NOT - I say Again - DOES NOT roll their sleeves inside out. (Thats the USMC)

Dress blues scene : 2 possible gigs.

1) If the soldier in the taxi scene is the same soldier in the first part: The soldier in the first part was an enlisted. Like me. The guy in the "taxi shot" an officer. I can tell that immediatley for the style of dress blues.

2) Where's his cover? Unless this shot was supposed to be after 1700 (retreat time) you are supposed to wearing the service cap while in dressed blues unless inside a building.

People tell me that there is a rule against getting a uniform completely "accurate" for the whole "impersenation" of a soldier type thing. I have never heard of this rule. Somebody fill me in if this exists.

Thats just what I noticed.
 
x-angel said:
People tell me that there is a rule against getting a uniform completely "accurate" for the whole "impersenation" of a soldier type thing. I have never heard of this rule. Somebody fill me in if this exists.
Click to expand...

You've heard of it or you haven't? lol

Man, I had a budget of $500, I made it work the best way I could, I even had vetran advisors and people who are enlisted now tell me I was pretty dead on. I realize the hat in the building thing, but I had a vetran tell me he hated wearing his hat unless he was around superiors and I didn't like nor had a hat. I have had people email me from Iraq and tell m how awesome it was and how I had my stuff right.


Here's what an officer from Iraq wrote,

Cole said:
Hey matt
I saw your excerpt of your video and Id like to see the WHOLE thing, I thought it was really good. I wanna see how you did the rest. Maybe I can give you some pointers on your next bad ass video dealing with the Army. If I can contact you in another way, that would be great. By the way, you got it down in your excerpt. Explaining to your characters mom on why we do this (some of us) it was damn good.

Ok maybe I was wrong, you guys got it going good. I can see you dont need me, I just watched the excerpt again, I thought it was sweet with how whoever hooked you guys up with pac 2's on your rifles (IR lasers) and the M68's (scopes) for your M4's. That was good. Keep doing it whoever is helping you Im sure is on his game.
Click to expand...
 
x-angel said:
If this is going to be about the army, please be accurate in the uniforms.

Army does NOT - I say Again - DOES NOT roll their sleeves inside out. (Thats the USMC)

QUOTE]

haha, my friend who is in the USMC had to correct me on that once. He's sort of my military advisor in the feature I'm working on.
Click to expand...
 
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