Christmas Hellfire

sfoster

Staff Member
Moderator

This film starts off with a bang! What a great opening.
I see a lot of missed opportunities in the second half of the film and I feel like I really came up short, even though its a fun movie to watch.

I could have done better... ugh, thats what you're buying with all that time and effort making a short film.
The perspective on your own mediocrity. My #1 change if i could alter the script would be to give the girl dialogue at the beginning and middle of her gun fight.

Anyway it was great working with the kids, my goal was making something fun to watch, and I think/hope i succeeded.

It was a tough film to make though especially designing the costume, teaching myself to sew on youtube
I hated building that stupid fake wall too!!

Couldn't find an actress to play the mom, like at all, barely could even make the movie.
I was fortunate enough to cast friends of mine to play the mom and dad... they did me the favor otherwise this movie wouldn't even exist.

The trials and tribulations of short indie films.
Hope you enjoyed :)
 
Upvote 4
YT, IG, TT all of them.

IG is basically driven by hashtags. If you post up your tacos and hashtag #foodporn #tacos you are going to get likes and follows, almost guaranteed. You can even follow hashtags and not just pages so they show in your feed. For example if Mara is on instagram she probably follows tags like #indie etc.

Your favorite TT uses them too.

They are useless on FB.
Who is out there following a picture of a taco. That's surreal.

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Well, I've found filmmaking to have a high ratio of "learning experiences" to "clear victories", lol. Even if it's not obvious, I feel sure you've learned a lot from this project, following it through, rebuilding the edits, learning about colorist techniques and getting to practice them across a film shot in a lot of different lighting scenarios.

Yeah I learned how to thread a sewing machine too


Who is out there following a picture of a taco. That's surreal.

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I get a handful of new followers with each new post on IG but it's food related. @mlesemann would be a good person to ask how she does with film related and hashtags.
 
That's true! Post interaction is easy, video interaction is the hard part.
 
Being in a band I know the easy part of getting likes laughs and followers but getting one of those people to listen to a song... LOL.
 
That movie freaked me out. My wife too, and I'll tell you why, but first let's talk about the movie.

I thought it was interesting how you started the movie with a disclaimer for violence but no title.

I really like you style. Almost everything felt deliberate, they were choices that you made and I think they were mostly very good choices. So many micro-films are missing this. They don't have a pulse, but your movie does.

Except for a couple of lines that could have used a second take, I thought the dialog was delivered well. Some of that was due to good editing! I don't have the best hearing in the world, but I had to watch the movie a second time with the CC on to understand some of what was being said. Not all, but some...

I didn't quite get why the cult woman felt betrayed and wanted to kill the dude wrapped in Christmas lights, then put a hit on his brother and his family, but I accepted it and chalked it up to you being influenced by House of 1000 Maniacs and Kick ASS.

I can tell from what I saw that if you were given a budget and half a chance, you could make an awesome movie. We both know that nobody will give you that chance without some serious networking and a few free blow jobs.... There are some lines I just won't cross.. How about you? ;)

Well done!!:clap:


Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what freaked out my wife and me.

YOU did. When your picture popped up at the end. We just looked at each other..

You
Sean Foster.JPG


Me in my 30s
james3.jpg
James1.JPG
 
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That movie freaked me out. My wife too, and I'll tell you why, but first let's talk about the movie.

I thought it was interesting how you started the movie with a disclaimer for violence but no title.

I really like you style. Almost everything felt deliberate, they were choices that you made and I think they were mostly very good choices. So many micro-films are missing this. They don't have a pulse, but your movie does.

Except for a couple of lines that could have used a second take, I thought the dialog was delivered well. Some of that was due to good editing! I don't have the best hearing in the world, but I had to watch the movie a second time with the CC on to understand some of what was being said. Not all, but some...

I didn't quite get why the cult woman felt betrayed and wanted to kill the dude wrapped in Christmas lights, then put a hit on his brother and his family, but I accepted it and chalked it up to you being influenced by House of 1000 Maniacs and Kick ASS.

I can tell from what I saw that if you were given a budget and half a chance, you could make an awesome movie. We both know that nobody will give you that chance without some serious networking and a few free blow jobs.... There are some like I just won't cross.. How about you? ;)

Well done!!:clap:


Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what freaked out my wife and me.

YOU did. When your picture popped up at the end. We just looked at each other..

You
Sean Foster.JPG


Me in my 30s
james3.jpg
James1.JPG
Thanks James! Yeah I can see the resembelance.

I never explained why the antagonist woman killed the first guy, but she wanted the twin brother dead bc "I never want to see his face again"
Not very deep lol just bc the second guy looked alike

oh shit... speaking of which, hey you haven't pissed off any mob bosses lately have you?
 
That thing that the brother had - the thing that was like the inside of a car, was that a video game peripheral for playing race car games?.. I like the way you handled that scene. The way the little girl was remembering her dad at Christmas by the tree then the way you did a wipe using her silhouette as the edge of the transition. Nice..
 
That thing that the brother had - the thing that was like the inside of a car, was that a video game peripheral for playing race car games?.. I like the way you handled that scene. The way the little girl was remembering her dad at Christmas by the tree then the way you did a wipe using her silhouette as the edge of the transition. Nice..

you can find it here

I didn't copy GoT with that transition but i noticed they used the EXACT same transition setup here at 2:38
 
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The first film I ever made was doomed from conception.
Friend Zoned, a "comedy" about a guy that likes Jenna, and she doesn't like him back.

The hot asian girl who played Jenna, if anyone remembers her from 2013, was a friend of mine.
That's her parents that play the hitman and hitwoman.
 
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