High School Students Making Feature Length Film!

M

markdfilms

Hi everyone! My name is Mark DePasquale, I am currently in high school and I love to make movies. My team (all high schoolers as well) and I have made several short films over the past three years, and we are now moving on to tackling a much greater challenge: making our very first feature length film. We are all entirely self taught.

The feature film we're making is called Retrieval, and we've decided to document the creation of this film via video diaries that we're releasing on a weekly basis. The series, called The Retrieval Diaries, highlights what exactly it looks like when a bunch of self taught high schoolers with a passion for filmmaking come together to make a full length feature film. We go over challenges that we encounter as well as the little tricks that we've come up with on our own having virtually no budget.

Four entries to the series have already been released, and even more content will release every week! You can watch the introductory video here (be sure to enjoy it in full 1080p HD):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC5wfNsjdGk


And entry #1 here (be sure to also enjoy this in full 1080p HD):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmqS0UODKNY


You can find links to our other films using the annotations in the introduction video above.

If you like what you see, please subscribe to our channel and like us on our facebook page here, it really means a lot us.

Hope you all enjoy!! If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask, we'd love to answer!!
 
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To embed a video just grab what is after the watch?v= bit and chuck it in the YT tags

Like this

EDIT: took them away now because OP figured out how to do it :)
 
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Now to actually give you my thoughts on it.

Looks interesting but I have no idea what the story is about at all after watching the Teaser and the Introductory video. Which could be a problem.

However a lot of those shots looked pretty cool, the only other 'problem' that jumps out that me is that I only saw one actor over the age of 'about' 20 in this film, which is always the problem when the main people involved in the project are that demographic. Also I don't think I noticed any girls? I've had this problem in the past and am only just starting to merge into having a better range of age appropriate actors.

Making a feature is something I wish to do myself but I don't currently feel I have the right story ready to make into a feature, nor the time, so I'm honing my short films skills. So I applaud your courage and wish you the very best of luck with this feature. Are you going to try for distribution? Festivals? Release in parts online?
 
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Thanks for posting your work guys. It's really inspiring. I'm part of a motley crew of middle aged people getting into filmmaking and tv production with almost no budget and no training as well. If you young whipersnappers can do it... I guess there's hope for us older folks.
 
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Brendan, thanks for checking out our content and for your feedback, we appreciate it. We're intentionally keeping the plot under wraps (for now) until we release the official trailer further down the line. We've practiced this same strategy plot wise with all of our other projects and we've kind of gotten use to the whole keeping the story a secret until close to release format.

I definitely understand your comment about the age of the actors. The first few entries in the Retrieval Diaries are kind of misrepresentative of the range of actor ages though, we do actually have several middle-to-older aged actors participating in the film, as well as multiple females that are acting as well. As we release more and more entries we'll better show the variety of actors we have.

As for what we're planning to do with Retrieval once it's finished, we're definitely going to run the festival circuit all around the country in as many venues as possible to promote the work that we've done. Distribution would be fantastic, we'll see how we fair with that as we move along. For right now however, we're focussing on the most important thing: making the movie and making it right. We've had a ton of fun making short films over the last 3 years, and we're embracing the challenges associated with tackling a feature.

Thanks again for your comments (and help with the embedding haha), please keep yourself up to date with the entries to see some more of our content and work!


DreamLarge, thank YOU for checking out our videos, we really appreciate it! We're greatly humbled to be considered inspirations by anyone of any age! Best of luck to you and your crew in your budding film careers! I hope you continue checking out our entries as we release them!
 
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MileCreations said:
However a lot of those shots looked pretty cool, the only other 'problem' that jumps out that me is that I only saw one actor over the age of 'about' 20 in this film, which is always the problem when the main people involved in the project are that demographic. Also I don't think I noticed any girls? I've had this problem in the past and am only just starting to merge into having a better range of age appropriate actors.
Click to expand...

Any insight on how you attracted older actors (and girls, LOL).
 
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icba pictures said:
Any insight on how you attracted older actors (and girls, LOL).
Click to expand...

mhope.jpg
:lol:
 
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icba pictures said:
Any insight on how you attracted older actors (and girls, LOL).
Click to expand...

Hi icba, we were lucky enough to be able to get older actors through our friends parents/relatives. Even more lucky of us is that all of these adult actors are actually professional actors (be it on stage or screen) so working with them is great. And the girls are a combination of our immediate friends base as well as friends/relatives who are also professional actors.

My advice to you is to establish enough of a reputation for yourself with film so that older adult actors can trust you and (more importantly) WANT to work with you.

I made three short films that all won monetary awards and gained entrance into international film festivals before I spoke to adults to act. Once they saw the level of our previous work and read the script for Retrieval they quickly jumped on board without me having to ask twice.

If you can prove that you're good at what you do, everyone will want to work with you, and you'll be able to have a much easier time finding people that not only are willing to work with you, but WANT to work with you. Hope this helps a little
 
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icba pictures said:
Any insight on how you attracted older actors (and girls, LOL).
Click to expand...

There are a few ways. Be more professional, be more aggressive, be more passionate, be more talented and so on and so on.

Some older people won't work with the younger crowd, some won't work with you without a referral from a colleague, some won't work with you unless you personally ask them. Some won't work with anyone who doesn't appear professional.

You just have to find the right people to work with you.
 
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