SHORT: Memories of a Hitman - Short Film

S

Sebastian Vuye

New member
Hi!

Last year I've shot a short film called Memories of a Hitman. Shot on a tight budget of 8000 euro's with a skeleton crew over here in Belgium, very fun experience!

Would like anyone thoughts on it!

Thanks in advance

 
Sebastian Vuye said:
Would like anyone thoughts on it!
Click to expand...
I really enjoyed the visuals, the cinematography and the overall look of the short.
Maybe the pace was a bit slower than it should have been, but still, I really enjoyed it! Great job!
Could you share some technicals with us, like camera and other equipment, I'm curious! It really looks professional!
 
Good things:
-Effects, interesting locations and visuals.

Less good things:
-The voiceover isn't that of a vulnerable man, but of a Morgan Freeman voice-of-God. Doesn't match the character.
-The lead never says anything but still manages to overact.
-Why is there blood all over his hands and the paper bag after a perfectly clinical assassination? Why would they have somebody else do all the dirty work up to the point of the bullet? Why pay him all this money to simply finish the job?
-Unmotivated slider shots. These seem to be the Instagram filter of low-budget film these days. "I have a slider" and "Slider shots are cool" are not good reasons to use a slider.
-The final shot of the gun going to his head is unnecessary, unless you think the audience is very dumb. You can safely cut to black as soon as the car pulls to a stop.
 
What charliemcdanger said.

Higher level overview: no payoff. I mean, an assassin only understands that he's impacting the families of his victims when the final victim resembles his assassinated daughter? Must be the stupidest assassin ever. The thought "but that's what happens when you kill someone" occurs to the audience the second it's revealed that the guy became a paid killer because someone killed his family. That's like literally the first thought that occurs when we hear the guy explain why he became a killer "uhm, dude, that's what you are doing to someone right now!". So then to have to go through the whole tedious piece just to explicate that thought is the definition of lack of payoff the audience has anticipated from the first moment "duh" - and then a beginning filmmaker ending "suicide" (by the way, have you noticed how often suicide is the go-to in student films? Kind of like the fascination student filmmakers have with shooting closeups of feet). "I thought I only killed bad guys" - must be an especially stupid assassin - the kind who only lives in student films, not in the real world. I mean, which hitman thinks that? Every time a criminal boss has someone killed it's only a guy who deserves it??? Gee, makes it sound like that criminal boss is some kind of vigilante batman cleaning up society of all the bad guys, so he's not really a "criminal" boss but a good guy, kind of like Charlie Bronson in Death Wish, except he pays others to do his dirty work for him - and I mean only the last bullet, since he goes to a heck of a lot of trouble by himself to find, kidnap, torture, deliver and tie up his victim, but that last bullet... he's out of bullets, and needs someone else to do it.

A lot of time for no payoff - bad. You are inviting the audience to come along on a journey. Don't disappoint them by promising to take them on an amazing trip, taking them out of their apartment into the corridor and going "yeah, that's it, that's the whole journey!". To the comments about pacing - it's not so much that the pacing is slow, as it's not delivering any charge (payoff) to the audience... that's why it feels slow. If you show something boring, even one second is too long. That's your biggest problem - payoff all along the way. When an audience is watching a film, they need to get payoffs all along - every scene - otherwise they get bored and think the "pace" is too slow.

Here's a pro tip: if your footage starts off with slo-mo, odds are 99.999999% that we are in for a terrible, terrible experience. And if you continue to use slo-mo, it only confirms the depressing statistic. Slo-mo is used by amateur filmmakers to add "seriousness", "gravitas", "importance", "weight" to a sequence - because it is lacking otherwise completely. But you cannot fix lack of dramatic tension, or importance or weight in the script or in the sequence just by adding slo-mo. It just becomes boring, lack of dramatic tension, ordinary stuff - except now in slo-mo, so it takes even longer to get through the same boring scene or sequence... consider the opposite - when the sequence is so unimportant and boring, speed up the footage instead of slowing it down - the audience will be grateful. Slo-mo is like filming a bowel-movement - to be used very sparingly and only in special circumstances. Oh, and btw., a boring scene is also not fixed by heavy use of music (not saying that about your film, just how beginning filmmakers think).

Another tip: if your first thought is to go to a voice-over, that idea should be like a FIRE ALARM: DANGER AHEAD!!! Because this is so often used by filmmakers who don't know how else to convey information, give background, MAKE A MOVIE - so they resort to giving it to us by dripping it in directly into our veins like in a hospital IV... but just like in a hospital IV, the nutrients delivered through the IV may keep the patient alive, but it's not enjoyable food by any means - people want to go to a feast and fantastic food, not to be given the nutrition through an IV tube. Again, a VO is something to be used in special circumstances - that don't happen too often. It should not be the lazy way out of not setting up your story and not knowing how to. Create drama by content and the scene - not by telling us all about it in a VO, it's not radio, you know.

So as you can see there are many alarms going off when your film starts (the very title, slo-mo, VO, etc.) . That's about when I give up - and only waste about 20 seconds of my life - because from experience I know nothing good is coming of this from a beginning filmmaker. But I watched the whole thing, because you are a filmmaker and want feedback, so the only way I can give an honest evaluation is by watching the whole thing.

It's a good idea to think about the implication of your concept - because this piece feels like you didn't give the concept any thought. If you did, for only a minute, you would realize it's pretty insulting to state that somehow the assassin is doing anything at all by giving his blood money to the couple whose daughter he killed - as if that pile of cash is somehow going to make their grief any less by even a tiny bit: "yeah, my daughter has been murdered, but hey! CASH! Yeah, baby!". The assassin might have spared himself - and the audience - that grand gesture.

On the positive side, there are some nice visuals, and some nice mood night footage. But remember: all the exciting (to you) technical stuff can't make up for hopeless content. Never forget - the technical aspect of your film exists only to support your content, the audience experience.
 
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The pacing did seem a little slow at the start, but then I settled in, and thought it worked just fine.

You have a lot of really cool locations!

Curious to know what was practical, and vfx, specifically the fire extinguisher, and the light that broke.

Also would love to know the tech specs, like camera, and lenses.

Got any BTS photos? I would love to see some!

Overall great job!
 
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