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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
Congrats, again (lol). I'm going to wait a few days for the re-edit, new edit, director's cut, oops wait version. 😋
 
Congrats, again (lol). I'm going to wait a few days for the re-edit, new edit, director's cut, oops wait version. 😋

Thanks!

Lol yeah take your time.
The biggest change from last year is i took 90 seconds out of the final gunfight.. holy crap it was so bloated with slow motion shots.
 
I hate releasing movies.

Released my first short in 2014, here I am 8 years later.

Couldn't even cast actors for some of these roles, couldn't get actors to work with me after all this time..
Can't afford to hire any crew, don't have any volunteers...

Without actors, without crew, push forward anyway and work dilligently to make the best thing I can.
And the release it and get 15 views. in the first 24 hours.

Combined with the giant hole that is left in your life when a film is finished and its just a totally shit experience.

Yes, i think so... I think releasing a movie is my LEAST favorite part of making a movie.
If it wasn't for the actors I'd have half a mind to just not release it at all.

Love the opening!

the secret is to use child labor and real bullets.
 
You might consider buying up some low volume hyper targeted AdWords for a couple of weeks pre Christmas.

As you get more selective, projections for ad compatibility hits dwindle, so you can really target very effectively and cheaply if you're smart.

In example, purchasing ads for anyone searching for "Christmas Movie" will quickly drain your wallet with very few new fans to show for it.

Drill down to "Violent Christmas movies" and you're still competing against people selling copies of Die Hard, etc.

Buy the search results for "Indie chrismas action movie" or "John Woo style Christmas" and not many people are searching. It will be like 5 people a day typing those in, and you'll be paying 1c a piece for them to get your video reccomended. Point is, probably every single one of them will watch that video, since you've zoomed way in on that specific area of interest. You can tag up 20-30 small niche searches like this, and get a few hundred people a day watching your video for 5 bucks a day.

It's something you can set up in a day, and for 50 bucks you could probably get >3000 people to watch it, and some would share, like subscribe, etc.
 
Adwords to watch a short film? 😲 Money down the toilet.
 
You might consider buying up some low volume hyper targeted AdWords for a couple of weeks pre Christmas.

As you get more selective, projections for ad compatibility hits dwindle, so you can really target very effectively and cheaply if you're smart.

In example, purchasing ads for anyone searching for "Christmas Movie" will quickly drain your wallet with very few new fans to show for it.

Drill down to "Violent Christmas movies" and you're still competing against people selling copies of Die Hard, etc.

Buy the search results for "Indie chrismas action movie" or "John Woo style Christmas" and not many people are searching. It will be like 5 people a day typing those in, and you'll be paying 1c a piece for them to get your video reccomended. Point is, probably every single one of them will watch that video, since you've zoomed way in on that specific area of interest. You can tag up 20-30 small niche searches like this, and get a few hundred people a day watching your video for 5 bucks a day.

It's something you can set up in a day, and for 50 bucks you could probably get >3000 people to watch it, and some would share, like subscribe, etc.
I was considering putting a little money into promotion.
Considering TikTok for a while with their promote feature.

I considered facebook ads to target people that liked violent night.
But IT is right... it's just money down the toilet.

I'm not trying to crowd fund for a feature off the back of this short film - what is this short film anyway?
It's basically "the punisher" but instead of a skull t-shirt it's a pink elf costume.

It's completely unoriginal, revenge story we've seen a thousand times.
it's made by an amateur - without any crew. without any film lights. with friends instead of actors.

I made this fucking thing in a cave with a box of scraps, who wants to watch that?
I suppose it's important to remember that it all just started bc I wanted to get more experience with gun fights.
 
Well, I wasn't really thinking about ROI in this instance. 3000 people isn't enough to generate money on youtube, but it is enough to get some feedback, build up the subscriber base for the next one, etc.

Keep in mind I'm talking about 50 bucks, it's not a serious marketing campaign. It is however, the difference between the following bar conversations which occur at random intervals after making any film.-

1 - "So you made a movie, how many people saw it?" A: "15"

2 - "So you made a movie, How many people saw it?" A: "Thousands"
 
Well, I wasn't really thinking about ROI in this instance. 3000 people isn't enough to generate money on youtube, but it is enough to get some feedback, build up the subscriber base for the next one, etc.

Keep in mind I'm talking about 50 bucks, it's not a serious marketing campaign. It is however, the difference between the following bar conversations which occur at random intervals after making any film.-

1 - "So you made a movie, how many people saw it?" A: "15"

2 - "So you made a movie, How many people saw it?" A: "Thousands"

There's 14 people in the movie plus me thats 15 LOL
 
Ride the Violent Night train with hashtags. #violentnight #indie #shortfilm #christmashellfire
I was on twitter for 12 years with zero social interactions.
Quite an accomplishment right?

After talking to myself for over a decade I deleted my account.
 
I didn't mean twitter lol. Why do you only associate twitter with hashtags?
 
I was considering putting a little money into promotion.
Considering TikTok for a while with their promote feature.

I considered facebook ads to target people that liked violent night.
But IT is right... it's just money down the toilet.

I'm not trying to crowd fund for a feature off the back of this short film - what is this short film anyway?
It's basically "the punisher" but instead of a skull t-shirt it's a pink elf costume.

It's completely unoriginal, revenge story we've seen a thousand times.
it's made by an amateur - without any crew. without any film lights. with friends instead of actors.

I made this fucking thing in a cave with a box of scraps, who wants to watch that?
I suppose it's important to remember that it all just started bc I wanted to get more experience with gun fights.
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.
 
I didn't mean twitter lol. Why do you only associate twitter with hashtags?
Probably bc i dont use instagram.
Is there anywhere else hashtags are popular?

btw I laughed pretty hard at the last couple of posts, it was a good time.
 
if you hashtag a bunch of stuff in the video description on youtube, you can pick up some extra views. I think that's what he means.

it does sort of work sometimes, not sure about adding them after publication.
 
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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 TikTok uses them too.

They are useless on FB.
 
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