SHORT: Ruins Ignite - Short action film

tommetass

tommetass

Well-known member
The time came to finally release the film online.
It's been a ride.
This is a $0 budget project. It's shot guerilla style on the Lumix S5 with the Blazar Remus 45mm anamorphic lens.
Minimal lighting is used. All interior shots in the library is the existing lighting in the library, and we used 1 COB with a soft box for some fill for a couple shots.
Other than that we chose right before sunset as the time of day for when we shot outside.

We really hope you enjoy it.

 
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I skipped through it (it's not the film, it's my attention span), but I saw a handful of nice angles and coverage in there during the battle scene.
 
It looks great. Well done. I'm impressed with the music work. But the plot, or what there was of it; meh; I guess it was just a vehicle to show a 4 minute sword fight.
 
Paul F said:
It looks great. Well done. I'm impressed with the music work. But the plot, or what there was of it; meh; I guess it was just a vehicle to show a 4 minute sword fight.
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Appreciate it! Thank you!

Yes well the plot was a way to make it a bit more credible for two guys to fight rather than the countless videos of 2 college dudes fighting in their hoodies and crocs... or even a straight up fan film, which I didn't want to make.
So maybe you can at least appreciate the effort? :ROFLMAO:
We even had a prop designer who made the box and the necklace, and we chose some cliche costumes ;)

The "cliche" was there to sort of communicate for us since we didn't have any dialogue.. We resorted to two familiar "archetypes"..
 
rob norton said:
The YT title 'Ruins Ignite (2025) - Award-Winning $0 Budget Action Short' - what award did it win?
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Yesterday it won best Sci-Fi short at a monthly competition at Rome International Movie Awards. It's a smaller festival, I've tried to vet the ones we sent it to and this one has run for over 6 years and has an OK Instagram following, so I'm taking this as a win :)

But I'm more happy that we got honorable mention (top 3) at Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival and a monthly pick at the The Rome Prisma Film Awards.
 
A little festival update here.
The film has done better at genre festivals than standard festivals. Which isn't surprising since this is a lightsaber fight film, albeit with a twist.
But it's been a part of several official selections, but also screened in some locations around the world (which is just crazy fun).

It has been screened at:
- Envisage Internaional Film Festival in Birmingham (UK)
- Won Best Editing
- May The 4th Sci-Fi Film Festival in Portmagee (Ireland)
- FantaSci Short Film Festival Orlando (USA)
- Won Best Fan Film

It's screening at PopCon International Film Festival in Indianapolis (USA) today actually.
And it's screening at International Toledo Action Films Festival & Expo next week.

This is the first time I'm submitting a film to festivals, so it's been a good learning experience in terms of what type of festivals go for what type of films.
The competition is crazy.. I understand that there are just immense amounts of short films being made all over the world and being submitted to many festivals..

So would I submit to festivals again? Yes. But I would be more restrictive in which festival to submit to? Definitely. And I would not make a fan-film / IP-challenging film again, yes I think I would not do that again.. Just in terms of the possibility of it being picked up anywhere.
 
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Nice work. While light on plot the cinematography and fight choreography make it an enjoyable watch. Glad to hear it got some well deserved recognition at some festivals.
 
tommetass said:
The time came to finally release the film online.
It's been a ride.
This is a $0 budget project. It's shot guerilla style on the Lumix S5 with the Blazar Remus 45mm anamorphic lens.
Minimal lighting is used. All interior shots in the library is the existing lighting in the library, and we used 1 COB with a soft box for some fill for a couple shots.
Other than that we chose right before sunset as the time of day for when we shot outside.

We really hope you enjoy it.

Click to expand...
I really enjoyed this a lot. The silhouette fight scene was awesome. I thought the whole thing looked great. I loved the shot selection. It was constantly shifting and the camera work was clever. I enjoyed the way it looked and there are lots of cool frames in here that I really enjoyed. The use of the ruins itself as a framing device was great.

I am a huge fan of visual storytelling and boy did I have questions, which is good cause I wanted to know more. What is the supernatural element? Is blue sword the good guy? The bad guy? The priest doesn't kill him when he can. Why? How did he get the code? Why was there a pentagram? What happened after? What did his look or lack thereof mean? Why are his hands shaking at the end?

The true hero though is your sound. Man I loved the sound throughout. Whether it was the sabers diegetic or the score it really worked for me. It carried a lot of the emotional weight that dialogue would have.

This was a fun short film that showed lots of promise. I would watch another one that explored the world more. Either way this is good stuff and I top my hat to you for making it. That goes for the entire crew that put in the work on this too. Great job all around. Thanks for making this I enjoyed watching it.
 
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