SHORT: "Three Guns" Short film

J

jerfai

Member
poster.jpg

Hi Guys,

I've been working on a 35 min short movie which is about to be released soon.

Title: "Three Guns"

Pitch:
Three murderers are competing to kill the same target.

Synopsis:
Winston is contacted by Lenny a powerful local mobster over a series of murders in Lenny's gang. Lenny asks Winston to find and kill the people responsible for this, to which Winston agrees. Winston faces a real challenge as the job isn't easy and involves dangerous individuals but Winston eventually finds a way to fulfil his objective: he's hiring three murderers and the first murderer to get the job done will get the reward.


the trailer can be found here:
http://vimeo.com/17969644

Your feedback is much appreciated!

Thanks,

Jérôme


EDIT:

As stated in my last message, I've put a screener online:

http://vimeo.com/20670713

password: jeromefilm1

Feedback is great!
 
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Good question.
For many practical reasons I guess. The recognised length for a feature is around 120 min which is four times the work I input so far... which is still a lot of work (considering the size of the team, 3 people).

I try to go step by step, I think my next one will be a feature. I've still made some mistakes on "Three Guns" and I think I've reached a stage where I need more people and (hopefully) some money to do a proper feature.
 
120 minutes is pretty long for an indie feature. Most I've noticed are around 90 minutes.

That being said, the trailer looks pretty good (especially for a crew of 3). I can't wait to see how it turns out.
 
Dave, my mistake. And thanks for your comment.
You are right 90 min is more an average length for an indie. But even 90 is very long! Apart from getting a bigger team, spending more time ion set and in post prod, I think the most challenging thing is to get a good script that is good for 90 min and imo only a few films manage to be very good for 90 min...
 
Yeah, this is a really odd length.

Shorts should be 7-20 mins or so.

Your right in the middle thats super long for a short, or super short for a feature. Either trim trim trim, or add some more.

Trailer looks good, when can we see it?
 
I've seen a lot of festivals seem to accept short of max 30min. I may be able to trim 5 min.

Jones: I'm not sure where I can upload a 30-35min movie. Also, I've seen some short on sale on Amazon, is it something that you guys have been doing?
 
I've noticed most academy award nominated shorts are around 25-40 minutes, so yours should be right in there if you can cut it down some. Not saying that you'll get an oscar nom (not saying that you WON'T get one either). I'm just sayin...
 
:) I'm not expecting an oscar nom! But thanks for that I think i'm not too off the track.

by the way dave how do you use the "Letus Ultimate"? which difference does it make in your projects?
 
I Did ADR. But for some reason, it's in sync when exporting in HD.... don't know if the compression tend to put the sound out of sync.
 
I wouldn't worry about length, there are a bunch of fests that accept short films from even 50 minutes or less. Just search withoutabox hard enough you'll find more than enough for your length if you want.

also, if the film's good, and story well told the length won't matter. I can't tell, as am not at home at the moment and this friend's iphone isn't the best for viewing video right now.

But I've watched (or rather, tried to watch) many short films that were only 5 minutes yet seemed to take longer to get through then films that are an hour +


Also - I've had the same audio out of sync problem when uploading video to vimeo before.
The file on my desktop was fine (in sync) but when I tested it online it was all off by a couple seconds, even the music was off.

not sure how to fix it....instead I uploaded to a friend's hosting website.



but of course, if there's many moments in the film that could be cut as in they don't add much to the plot, or aren't interesting, repeat information already shown/told, etc... then I'd try to cut to 29 minutes if I were you.
And if you love the footage that was cut, just keep the long version as a "director's cut" to give out to friends and family / fans of the shorter version.
 
Hi Everyone,

I eventually made it through post production and I had a first preview with people who participated to the film and some friends. But you know how it is: everything is fantastic, they love it all and while you feel grateful and full of confidence, it might not be always the truth...

now I'd like to get some feedback from you guys, tell me what you like, what you didn't like, what doesn't look pro, etc....

http://vimeo.com/20670713

password: jeromefilm1

As I consider it as a screener, I will leave it for a week and then remove the video.

Thanks!

Jérôme

Note: although I've stick to Vimeo guidelines for uploading, the film is slightly out of sync.
 
Hey dude!

I watched it. Good work , I dug it!

Just a note - this film is 36 mins, another pass at editing and this film could be 15 mins long,
 
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Hi John,

thanks for the feedback.
I'm not sure how I could reduce it from 36min to 15min without modifying the story or its understanding. I have a cut down version to 30min and I've removed a few scenes and a few shots. I think if I cut it down more, the story wouldn't make sense anymore....

J
 
I hope some others chime in here, I might have overstated the 15 minutes, but what I mean more specifically there are a lot of long pauses on your scenes thst don't convey any additional information. As the director it is absolutely your choice, and you feel that matches stylistically the story you want to tell at the moment that's excellent.

Just as a note from another film maker learning the evolution of telling a story - long pauses can be heat for dramatic effects, but a llot of times, especially in action shorts, they slow the story up. There are precious seconds tagged onto each scene that could shaved that could cut the time of the film down and help the story flow and strengthen the performances.
 
remember, it's better to have a very good short of 1 minute then having a very boring, annoying feature of 420 hours.....
 
Hi peeps,

I've decided to leave the screener up for another week. if you fancy having a look and giving me some feedback, that woud be great!

J
 
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