archived-videos THE RAVEN

Great find Sonny. Effects were cool, cinematography tight, nice action stunts.

My only complaint is that it’s a shame that with all that hard work the script seems to have said the technology is in place for miniature jet craft to fly around and talk, yet cliche as F can’t shoot someone even once with multiple rapid fire bursts at close range, but the craft 500 feet in the air can track him like they're conjoined twins. So.. with a few police craft taken out, use of deadly force long since approved, he is cornered by something with the ability to open a 50 cal. can of armor piercing ass whoop, but doesn’t, instead it shoots a homeless guy, then tells the suspect to put his hands on his head 4 times and just sits there as he amps up some force field or energy burst without even trying to take a single shot that could kill the guy in a fraction of a second.

Is at least grazing someone once asking too much in order to keep some semblance of plausibility intact?

-Thanks-
 
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They need to take him in unharmed to examine him medically so they can genetically engineer all of their cops with that power.
 
No explanation need really, the picture speaks for itself. We can see he has some special ability to make objects move in his defense against his attackers - I think
 
Buddy Greenfield said:
My only complaint is that it’s a shame that with all that hard work the script seems to have said the technology is in place for miniature jet craft to fly around and talk, yet cliche as F can’t shoot someone even once with multiple rapid fire bursts at close range, but the craft 500 feet in the air can track him like they're conjoined twins. So.. with a few police craft taken out, use of deadly force long since approved, he is cornered by something with the ability to open a 50 cal. can of armor piercing ass whoop, but doesn’t, instead it shoots a homeless guy, then tells the suspect to put his hands on his head 4 times and just sits there as he amps up some force field or energy burst without even trying to take a single shot that could kill the guy in a fraction of a second.

Is at least grazing someone once asking too much in order to keep some semblance of plausibility intact?
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I didn't make this movie, but I can say I bought into it hook, line and sinker. I think the drones and man-controlled things are made to deal with normal, everyday people. When faced with someone faster, more agile, and also with super-human abilities, it superseded the technology. As for killing the homeless guy, he didn't attempt to dodge or move. When The Raven created the energy ball, I imagine the human operators of the mecha had never seen anything like that, and as such are a bit stunned by the sight and do not know how to react.

As with any movie, especially anything fantasy or science fiction, it's all in the eye of the beholder. I found this piece to be nearly flawless. I don't know anything about the character or why I should care too much about him, but I accept this is all I'll get in 6 minutes. Since this is supposed to be a trilogy, I thought we'd find out more later. As a setup, I thought it was as close to perfection as a 6 minute movie can be.

To each his own!
 
Thanks for sharing this SonnyBoo...
I like the VFX , really well done. Can anybody comment on the typical lens flares seen in this film. The ones that look like an elongated rectangle with rounded corners. Are these cuz of a specific lens or is it a post job. (I will attach a pic soon)
without the blurb that explains it you'd have no idea why anything was happening.
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I completely agree with this, a little bit of explanation in the beginning could have helped a lot regarding some of the WHY and WHAT questions. Amazed by the polish tho...:yes:

BTW , not just Minority Report but some District 9 in there as well...;)

EDIT : Some screen grabs of the lens flare...

34htmb8.png


97s5rk.png
 
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sonnyboo said:
I didn't make this movie, but I can say I bought into it hook, line and sinker. I think the drones and man-controlled things are made to deal with normal, everyday people. When faced with someone faster, more agile, and also with super-human abilities, it superseded the technology. As for killing the homeless guy, he didn't attempt to dodge or move. When The Raven created the energy ball, I imagine the human operators of the mecha had never seen anything like that, and as such are a bit stunned by the sight and do not know how to react.

As with any movie, especially anything fantasy or science fiction, it's all in the eye of the beholder. I found this piece to be nearly flawless. I don't know anything about the character or why I should care too much about him, but I accept this is all I'll get in 6 minutes. Since this is supposed to be a trilogy, I thought we'd find out more later. As a setup, I thought it was as close to perfection as a 6 minute movie can be.

To each his own!
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Full agreement. If this were supposed to be stand-alone story, it's lacking a story. But as a setup, it's terrific. Great intrigue.
 
VIDEOCOPILOT's blog is how I heard of this short. He mentioned they used the OPTICAL FLARES plug in, and I noticed that the sun was shining into the lens no matter what direction that kid runs....
 
Sonny,

If you (the story) present technology that can fly around and talk and track and engage with serious fire power, but it can’t hit someone or won’t take a shot when it can -all because a character’s abilities can ultimately supersede the technology, then you’ve created a straw adversary for a nothing at stake/ no reason to run situation.

It’s display of power exposition.

On the other hand, if he is at least grazed, then he HAS TO fight back, “..Use of lethal force approved.” takes it up a notch, there is a trail of blood, it slows him down, it holes him up, something is at stake. Then he is hurt and trapped and MUST ultimately use that energy burst to get away.

I can roll with the suspect being out of the ordinary, so the weapons ultimately won’t cut it, but at the same time, with all that technology to deal with those normal everyday people, don’t they have anything a bit more subtle than a 50 cal machine gun for the homeless?

Shooting the homeless guy for no good reason while not shooting the suspect for a good reason to me is an unfortunate oversight, but it’s not the end of the world.

Hopefully whatever is in his backpack will provide what is at stake.

All in all its still badass anyway you slice it.

-Thanks-
 
There are loopholes, but overall it's a strong execution. As a futurist geek, this was the cats pajamas.

I would, however, say that if he can use telekinesis on things, why not on the robot itself? That makes no sense...unless of course the technology 'knows' about these abilities, and has created a 'field' around itself for protection...but if that was the case, it could have been shown or displayed in some fashion.
 
Scoopicman said:
Look at the credits. There are quite a few FX people involved. They probably got paid to design the robots and other 3-D animation.
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as apposed to spending 20 grand to shoot in a convenience store and get relatives to play characters?
:huh:


also that guy should have DROPPED when he got shot...took me out of the experience


as for the using the powers on the robot itself

Its probably made out of a harder material than the car. I guess it takes less energy to lift the car than to break the robot.
 
tacosale said:
as apposed to spending 20 grand to shoot in a convenience store and get relatives to play characters?
:huh:
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CLERKS budget probably went into 16mm film stock and processing. I don't think anyone got paid. RAVENs credits suggest a full crew. It's not hard to spend money, when people are getting paid.

I can give you my own examples:

THE AWAKENING, a 100 minute feature, cost $5,900. We made a 100 minute feature, for what these guys spent on this 5 minute short. Most of the actors worked for free and we didn't use much of a crew.

EXILE cost 33K for an 80 minute feature, but the difference was that I paid everybody $100 per day. For a 3 week shoot that meant 5K just for the two leads. Of course, there were other people, including a monster maker and 3-D FX guy, who each go another 2K. That's 9K, just for those four people. Even with me shooting the footage and placing the mic on a boomstand, I still had to pay the carpenters and quite a few actors, food, hotel, etc.

RAVEN has a crew. They obviously paid some people to get the pro look that they got. By the attention its getting, I would say they spent their money well.
 
The money went mostly into the camera and grip package. Some of the FX, but the director and editor mostly did a lot of those themselves. There is a lot of ACTION ESSENTIALS 2 and the aforementioned OPTICAL FLARES kit from Videocopilot.net
 
When I saw those glass bullet hits, at Video Copilot, I bought Action Essentials 2 right away. Too cool - and you don't have to bust any glass!
 
FYI - this movie, THE RAVEN has just been picked up to be made as a feature starring Mark Wahlberg by the original director!
 
sonnyboo said:
FYI - this movie, THE RAVEN has just been picked up to be made as a feature starring Mark Wahlberg by the original director!
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That's a sweet success-story for the director. I had to do some googling.

Uh-oh, looks like it's being penned by the same screenwriter of "Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li". Ouch. Let's hope he steps up his game.
 
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