archived-videos The Duel- Short Film I made

M

mcbrainlegend

Hello all, I'm a long time lurker but intend to post here more and learn from you guys.

I've made an action thriller called 'The Duel'.

It's a short thriller about choice and consequences, and I would love for you guys to see it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry_RIddHmbU&feature=youtu.be

One choice can change everything.

The Architect is having a bad day. On his way home from a failed job interview he is responsible for a freak accident and is forced to make a choice: face the consequences or run.
 
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Sometimes the footage is over and under exposed. You should have put a filter onto the radio man like "Car Radio", "Distortion", or "Low Tech" to make it seem it is actually on the radio. The sound effects are cheesy, and the dialogue is borderline overly-dramatic. The blood is pink. And it seemed like a grindhouse-comedy-horror at the end. The gore became comical. Throwing machetes at people running away, and stomping in heads with boots. On the more positive side, the acting was usually good, the concept is original, and the fight scenes are some of the best I've seen on this forum. You used sound effects, and fast editing. The cinematography is good, and it is well paced. Hope to see more soon :)
 
Hey ChimpPhobiaFilms, inspired by what you said about it seeming like a silly grinddhousey film by the end I actually gave the film a grainy, desaturated, constrasty, grindhousey look to it.

In many ways I prefer it. I made the original version very bright to reflect the heat, which would contribute towards the feelings of 'rage' in the film. Anyway, here is a version with a different colour scheme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCq7Z8FY8Rw
 
Congrats on making your film.

My only input would be to be careful with all of the coverage you get for each scene, everything is so cutty and the cuts are not motivated by anything important. There is nothing wrong with letting the action play out. Your camera work has to matter, most importantly it has to serve the story. Angels cannot be picked at random.

This idea of cutting to a new angle every second was developed because of music videos, and the technique of story boarding. The problem with this is if we cut to much it gets very distracting very fast. Learn to use your camera as a story telling tool. Some scenes are great with just one or a few angels. Timing yor script in pre-production will help to solve this issue.

Best regards
Devin Gibson
 
Cheers pal. Got some good ideas at the moment. I don't have much experienc in lighting so this will be a challenge. I will try to make the new film 'look' better than 'The Duel' as with 'The Duel' I focused more on the actors performances rather than trying to get perfect shots.

In the end I think it was a decent compromise. For example the woodcutter character (the baddie) in 'The Duel' is a non actor, but I think he fit the role well and we really had to work with him to get the role right, but in the end he did good. We cast a non actor because he really looked the part and I think he was the right choice.

But with the next film I will try to make it look visually better, but all the while focusing on the performances primarily. I might take comedian John Cleese's approach to shooting comedy in which he said 'comedy is much funnier in two shots (showing both the actors) rather than cutting to closeups.' So we will see

Working title 'The Fumble'.
 
At the moment we just have the characters. A dastardly pair of characters I came up with in 2011. We know they are going to 'botch' a crime of some sort. We start writing soon.
 
I like this, even the movie has some flaws, like way too much out of focus shots, audio effects and radio sound etc,

it has still nice style in it and some really good, old school action,

well done.
 
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