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watch Horrors of War

You've got some nicely done special effects there. The beginning has a little bit of a console-game feel to it, but its excusable considering the great images that follow. Just a couple of things... the first time I heard the name, I immediatly figured it was a Documentary... the name doesn't suggest an Action movie to me.

One final thing, a brief overview of the story might be nice at the very beginning... just pinpointing where we are in the war, that sort of thing. But that's up to you, and at this point the film is looking great.

Cheers, and good luck with the rest of the project.
 
There is a voice over at the beginning that sets up the overview of the story...

Don Drennan did all the FX work and he's very good.
 
sonnyboo said:
There is a voice over at the beginning that sets up the overview of the story...
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Peter, I really liked the scene with the exception of that VO at the beginning. Demosthenes X was right in suggesting the video game feel of it. I felt the scene would have been much better without the exposition at all. Don't let us in on the fact that they are looking for something until they find it.

Other than that and a couple of "off sounding" lines of dialogue (which could be the way they fell from the actors' mouths), the scene was fantastic. Scott's work, as always, is superb, the gun fight was as frenetic as it should be, and the opening CGI looked really well done.

I'm looking forward to the completed project. Is it a trilogy of shorts, or will you be interweaving between the three stories?

Poke
 
I have to make ONE criticizm: when the plane crashes in the beginning, it looks very fake. Don't get me wrong; it looks cool...just not real...atcually, the plane looks real...until it explodes. The explosion is what looks fake.

The effects are impressive, but since Americans grow up watching multimillion dollar effects, they may be disappointed when they see them...especially since the movie is shot on 35mm/16mm. I know that y'all worked hard on that stuff already, but some more tweaking wouldn't hurt.

..actually two criticizms: Poke's right about the "off-sounding lines"...when Osbeck (that's his name right?) gives orders, they don't sound right. It sounds like hes joking or something; he doesn't sound serious.

I can't wait to see the film one day!!
 
Production-wise, editing-wise, it's pretty impressive. There's a few spots where the machine-gunning goes silent as the lone gunmen fire back that seems out of step, as well as a general "we're not actually in combat" feel from the actors, but the overall effect is pretty cohesive.

Will there be more close-ups to help establish the characters prior to this scene (or even during it)?

In the meantime, keep up the solid work!
 
as well as a general "we're not actually in combat" feel from the actors
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Yes, precisely the feeling I was having!

Camerawork is excellent. I have a few things I would like to suggest if possible. I like the idea but several things stuck out at me:

1) As others have mentioned the VO at the beginning doesn't really work. It seems somewhat cliched and doesn't really fit the atmosphere. Perhaps you could film a sequence that gives us a hint about what is going on but doesn't fully tell us?

2) This ones just a personal thing but I hate it when it pops up in films. When a person looks through binoculars there is only one round image unless something is way out of alignment.

3) The running sequences were a bit jerky. It is my preference to shoot everything as clean as possible and then add some movement effects in post if necessary. It just seems to call too much attention to fact that we are looking through a camera.

4) What software is your SFX artist using? It looks very Alam DVish - not that it's necessarily a bad thing. I only ask because the eye effect is a common use (that and lightsabers) of the software. Perhaps it would be more effective to get a closeup of the actors face with contacts? Full black contacts would even give the same effect from a distance.

5) Why no closeups/extreme closeups? Without "feeling" the actors eyes it's hard to feel any emotion. It just seems a little flat if you know what I mean.

Good work though. I definitely think the project has great potential. Hope my comments are somewhat helpful :)
 
I think one of the Goons over at SomethingAwful.com (not as bad as it sounds 8) ) is either on the crew or lives where it's being filmed.

Edit: He's in re-enactments' 352nd infantry division, 916 regiment.

Said he was going back this weekend with a still-camera, to take some shots of the production to share with the Goons. He seemed pretty excited about it. :) The link to the teaser was posted as well, with the thread getting close to 6k views before falling off the front page. How's that bandwidth holding up?

Teaser looks great, Mr Boo. =D>

Only thing I want to know is... why did you do the split-screen thing to double the 3 soldiers into 6? Were they re-enactors, or regular cast?
 
Zensteve said:
I think one of the Goons over at SomethingAwful.com (not as bad as it sounds 8)

Only thing I want to know is... why did you do the split-screen thing to double the 3 soldiers into 6? Were they re-enactors, or regular cast?
Click to expand...


Do you have to pay to register on the forums at SOMETHINGAWEFUL.COM?

We only had 1 Allied re-enactor show up and we had to share 3 uniforms between 6 characters. We spit screen with After Effects and also did 100 year old editing techniques of swapping uniforms & edit around the missing characters. Welcome to low budget Hell.
 
Yes, $10 to register. (Keeps a lot of trolls at bay, too) I'm not a registered Goon, myself. I'll sometime pop into the forums late night for a quick browse... and clicked on "Zombie Nazis" for the title alone.

Uniform juggling sounds rough! Hope those re-enactors bring more of their pals this weekend. :P

When I was living in Athens, I met a very dedicated re-enactor. (Was all he talked about). Name was Dennis, about 6' 6", massive feet, kinda goofy, incessant talker. If you see him showing up, tell him I said "Hi!" 8)
 
What ever works (With the left and right shots and switching uniforms) whats the technique called anyways when you use the same actors to fill in open space to make it look like more people then it is? Just compisition?

BTW.. cool video. I have to agree with the explosion part. reason why was when a plane explodes it doesnt go up in a fireball and disapear. I know because i had one crash near my house as a kid. its like a miniture nuclear bomb going off and the fire ball goes up and the smoke stays around for about 8 hours afterwards.

What software did you use to CGI and the fire effect? I also see the fire in the tower as well.. that looks pretty good. I can never get partical combustion in 3ds to move slow enough to look real.
 
Lightwave is some very expensive software. I thought the airplane scene was pretty cool but the chaser plane seemed more like a modern 747 rather then a WWII vintage craft. it looked more like a Jet then a plane. though I know the Germans were the first to invent Jet aircraft it seemed out of place.

just a thought.
 
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