World War II Film - "After The Reign" Sneak Peak / Teaser

K

KennonF

Active member
Here is a little sneak peak / teaser of what we've got going on. Please do not look at this as anywhere close to final, I had some people who really wanted to see what we were working on so I just put some stuff up to give an idea. The actual final film looks a lot better, and a lot of the shots you will see in here have either been reshot or aren't being used.

But hey, I wanted to share this with you guys anyway!

http://vimeo.com/11485423

If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends or other people you know who are interested in war films.

I hope you guys enjoy it and can appreciate how large of a project this is to tackle on absolutely no budget. HDSLR's made it possible for us to get the look we wanted at a reasonable price. Thank you for viewing this!

Also, if you have time, take a look around my Vimeo. I have numerous other videos shot on my 7D!

http://vimeo.com/demedia
 
Visually it looks gorgeous obviously. I think the kicker is going to be how the story, characters, and acting turns out. If you get those things right, you just might have yourself a ticket to success here. Good luck with the film!
 
It looks incredible, will it be out in Cinema's?

You could have a award winner here, If you play your cards right.
 
Shaneuk said:
It looks incredible, will it be out in Cinema's?

You could have a award winner here, If you play your cards right.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much. We're intending to put it into film festivals and see where it goes. The compliment is very much appreciated!
 
jghenderson said:
Visually it looks gorgeous obviously. I think the kicker is going to be how the story, characters, and acting turns out. If you get those things right, you just might have yourself a ticket to success here. Good luck with the film!
Click to expand...

Thank you very much! We're using guys who aren't actors so much, so we're coaching them and trying to get them to give us what we want - and so far we've been doing well. What you saw in this teaser isn't final at all; there has been a lot of hard work going on to make everything even better and much tighter.

Briefly I will tell you the storyline:

Time: April, 1945 (Near the end of the war)
Location: Rohr Pocket / Dortmund-Ems Canal region

Story: A squad of soldiers is activated to patrol a potentially hostile area outside of Dortmund after communications with a forward listening post are lost. Part of the squad is the main characters, Johnny Dinoso (medic) and Tommy Holmes (pfc) who are eager to return home to their normal lives and have seen a ton of combat during their stint in the war. A storyline running along side theirs is the survivor of the listening post attack, James Metcalf who is surviving in a very hostile area hoping for someone to come help him or escape before he is found.

Eventually the stories intersect, etc. There are other small little subplots and some home life footage, etc.

This film is literally $0 budget. The re-enactors passion for their hobby and the passion of my crews filmmaking is what keeps this projects heart beating so hard. All the props are supplied by the guys who are in the film. I'm convinced that it would be impossible to find better WWII re-enactors anywhere!

Also, in the beginning and the end of the film are interviews with a couple of veterans who were in the European theater / in the Rohr Pocket area.

We are intending on submitting it (ambitiously!) to Sundance 2011. We are very proud of what we have regardless of if it makes it in, but we are very confident and optimistic about our chances.
 
Overall I love the look of the film, and it looks great. A few comments:

In the first scene, with all the sounds there's very little going on in the picture. Only at the end is there any 'action' in the frame (with the smoke and spark). The effects themselves (particularly the spark) don't seem to track very well, probably because it had to be done by hand - but a motion blur would sell it. Right now, the camera flies down and blurs but the spark is perfectly in focus.

There's another short clip of a soldier firing a Browning MG. That really needs a proper sound effect, because those guns shouldn't sound that puny close up. The distant fire shots work (though it's somewhat obvious where the stock sound clip ends, adding some extra echo/reverb to it would help somewhat), but close up the guns should have a much bigger 'boom' to them.

But as others have said, it looks great. The shots where they're walking against the sky look amazing.
 
Dave W said:
Overall I love the look of the film, and it looks great. A few comments:

In the first scene, with all the sounds there's very little going on in the picture. Only at the end is there any 'action' in the frame (with the smoke and spark). The effects themselves (particularly the spark) don't seem to track very well, probably because it had to be done by hand - but a motion blur would sell it. Right now, the camera flies down and blurs but the spark is perfectly in focus.

There's another short clip of a soldier firing a Browning MG. That really needs a proper sound effect, because those guns shouldn't sound that puny close up. The distant fire shots work (though it's somewhat obvious where the stock sound clip ends, adding some extra echo/reverb to it would help somewhat), but close up the guns should have a much bigger 'boom' to them.

But as others have said, it looks great. The shots where they're walking against the sky look amazing.
Click to expand...

Thank you!

All of those things are part of what we felt is very rough about it, we had only put this up to show someone who wanted to showcase "local filmmakers" recently and its pretty much still a work in progress. The guns definitely don't sound that weak up close, hahah I know that for sure. We're going to be adding in a lot more sounds and action; and if you think the shot of them walking against the sky looks good now, you should see the reshoot of it!

Check these out, these are photos of the new version of that shot:

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff180/tsdfilms/Squad.jpg
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff180/tsdfilms/Charlie.jpg
 
KennonF said:
Thank you very much! We're using guys who aren't actors so much, so we're coaching them and trying to get them to give us what we want - and so far we've been doing well. What you saw in this teaser isn't final at all; there has been a lot of hard work going on to make everything even better and much tighter.

Briefly I will tell you the storyline:

Time: April, 1945 (Near the end of the war)
Location: Rohr Pocket / Dortmund-Ems Canal region

Story: A squad of soldiers is activated to patrol a potentially hostile area outside of Dortmund after communications with a forward listening post are lost. Part of the squad is the main characters, Johnny Dinoso (medic) and Tommy Holmes (pfc) who are eager to return home to their normal lives and have seen a ton of combat during their stint in the war. A storyline running along side theirs is the survivor of the listening post attack, James Metcalf who is surviving in a very hostile area hoping for someone to come help him or escape before he is found.

Eventually the stories intersect, etc. There are other small little subplots and some home life footage, etc.

This film is literally $0 budget. The re-enactors passion for their hobby and the passion of my crews filmmaking is what keeps this projects heart beating so hard. All the props are supplied by the guys who are in the film. I'm convinced that it would be impossible to find better WWII re-enactors anywhere!

Also, in the beginning and the end of the film are interviews with a couple of veterans who were in the European theater / in the Rohr Pocket area.

We are intending on submitting it (ambitiously!) to Sundance 2011. We are very proud of what we have regardless of if it makes it in, but we are very confident and optimistic about our chances.
Click to expand...


I love the idea of the interviews at the beginning and end. I could be making assumptions here, but it seems you were heavily inspired by Band of Brothers, which frankly is a very good thing because in my opinion BoB is the greatest thing ever made for TV.

What's the length you are shooting for?
 
jghenderson said:
I love the idea of the interviews at the beginning and end. I could be making assumptions here, but it seems you were heavily inspired by Band of Brothers, which frankly is a very good thing because in my opinion BoB is the greatest thing ever made for TV.

What's the length you are shooting for?
Click to expand...

Yes, very heavily inspired by the format of it - however, we are trying to steer clear of the typical Spielberg / Hanks style - which their style is FANTASTIC, but we just don't want to be seen as unoriginal.

We debated using veteran interviews or not because it's a lot like Band of Brothers, but then we realized they did it because of the authenticity it creates and the nostalgia factor... and for the plain simple fact that these guys know what they are talking about and are only going to be around for so much longer before they are simply legends.

So as I said before to someone else, regardless of how far this film makes it in the film festival circuit, I will feel accomplished as a filmmaker that we did this.

We are shooting for 45 - 50 minutes, so a typical "hour" episode sort of.

Thank you for the compliments!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top