The Return - World War II Diary

A

Alan Uran

Member
Hello,


I just finished my recent short movie "The Return" that you can watch now online.
It's a story based on some events that took place in 1945, in the forests of Ardennes. However war is not the main plot here but rather man, and his life.
I wanted to show few days from a soldier's life. You won't find here blood, battle scenes or explosions. You may find instead something, that hopefully will allow you to see your life a bit different.

http://www.vimeo.com/8149845

The movie has English subtitles, I hope they will work well for you. Sorry for any translation mistakes.

It was a lot of fun to complete this movie but also very hard work.
We had very small crew (5 men including actors, that helped as they were technical crew) and very little time. But we managed to complete this project almost as planned. It was done without any budget at all.


Equipement we used : Canon XH A1 + Brevis and Canon Lenses. I will post some BTS photos soon.

I was a director and a dop on the set, also wrote the main script and tied everything together. Hope you like it ! Take care.

Please be aware that all the clothing, props, and symbols are not meant to propagate Nazi ideology, neither we approve any military actions taken against people. War is never good.
 

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Last edited:
wonderfull

wonderfull

Hello Alan!

I must say this short was the best cinematic experience for me in a long time (including the 'big Hollywood movies too). In all terms it was an uplifting and hearth-warming experience. (In terms of cinematography, shooting, editing, acting - and I loved the music to.)

Please tell the composer my gratitudes that goes from a fellow music composer.

Relly great job. And I loved the message of the whole short. Really uplifting and hope-giving.

So congrats on this and keep up your great work!

Greetings:

Gregory Bakay
 
Thanks very much! I'm glad you liked this movie.

Of course I will forward this to the whole crew, they did great on the set, and they will be happy to hear those kind words.

Take care and have a nice day.

Alan Uran
 
Wow... great job! The music is superb and everything was very good! Congratulations! Hope to see more of your stuff very soon.
 
that was really well shot and acted.. I really haven't seen many German perspective films but this one was really well played, acting only on emotion feels like no side did any wrong in war, men were only men fighting for greed and the hatred of one man. very good story.
 
Thanks a lot guys.

That's true Brett, that's why I decided to look at war a bit different. Wanted to interpret it by myself a bit. I'm glad it worked.
 
Very nice!

I really liked the DOF shots, and the careful tracking around when they were walking. Good job setting up some nice stuff for us to look at (simple brush and snow) and then having the characters walk through it.

Did you use any other lights other than just natural light? What was sound recorded on?

You said you filmed it all in a couple of days? Where was this shot that you had all that snow? IM guessing the snow is real? (i live in a place where we have no snow)

Are you all german? Or just happen to know german?
 
Hi,

We only used existing natural light (snow acts quite good as bounce cards).
Sound was recorded on external m-audio recorder, with consumer level mike from sony.
We filmed it in less than one week. During that time the weather was unpredictable from snow as you can see in the snowy scenes to no snow at all. That made things harder because we couldn't reshoot some scenes when the scenery changed every day. It was shot in Poland, the snow is of course real, I wouldn't dare to fake it in post. We are Polish guys, and Poland borders with Germany. The movie is in Polish language. As you may know Germans were Polish enemies in WW2. In my country Germans are still often considered as enemies, and German soldier from WW2 equals pure evil. That's why I decided to break a bit this stereotype.

Cheers
 
That ain't German... That's Polish.

Great job. Shows that it is possible to mimic a bit of hollywood with Prosumer products!
 
Gregory Bakay said:
Hello Alan!

I must say this short was the best cinematic experience for me in a long time (including the 'big Hollywood movies too). In all terms it was an uplifting and hearth-warming experience. (In terms of cinematography, shooting, editing, acting - and I loved the music to.)

Please tell the composer my gratitudes that goes from a fellow music composer.

Relly great job. And I loved the message of the whole short. Really uplifting and hope-giving.

So congrats on this and keep up your great work!

Greetings:

Gregory Bakay
Click to expand...

Thank You Gregory!:) Thank's All for kind words,
best regards

Pit Hummel
www.soundclick.com/piotrhummel
 
The whole plot was planned to fit the weather and the mood (unfortunately the weather was unpredictable so it messed some shots a bit).

Thanks again for your comments. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. We don't have much bts stuff mainly because there was no time to do it, neither we had a spare person to take care of it.

Take care.
 
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