archived-videos Two more shorts of mine

[SCFilms]

These are my very first two short films. The first one, called Shadow, is about a hitman who has to save his girlfriend by taking out his last two assignments. It's not perfect by any stretch and has a few problems, but the reason I want to showcase it is because it features a strong performance from one of my actors. His name is Neil in the short.

Shadow:
http://revver.com/video/1091041/shadow/

The next is titled Vendetta and entails a vigilante who murders a crime lord. Said crime lord's daughter then sends her boyfriend to seek revenge. It was done for the John Woo Stranglehold contest on MySpace in 2007. We worked on a shoestring budget so the visual effects are very meh. I am proud of some of the shots were were able to grab. It's funny because someone told me I should give up directing over this one when they were being critical of it.

Vendetta:
http://revver.com/video/1089816/vendetta/

Again, please watch and give me feedback. Thanks in advance.

 

[Henry Spencer]

Okay, first of all, I have to admit that I didnt watch them all the way through ... sorry.

But I shall comment on what I did see.

In each of the films the sound recording left a lot to be desired. It sounded like the sound had been recorded with the onboard mic and hadnt been worked on afterwards. You could still hear the echo of the rooms they were in and not in a good way.

Also, these are genre pieces and a whole lot of effort needs to be invested in them to make them work. Basically, after the nineties there seems to be a massive amount of these 'cool crime' pictures containing characters with dubious morals and motivations. Personally, I dont find this kind of subject matter very interesting, but there are millions of people out there that do. Back to the point, because the films' styles are so dependent on the genre you're trying to acheive, they're difficult to achieve without a great deal of work. More has to be considered beyond guns, black suit and tie, sunglasses and toothpick. I adivse you to sit and watch a film that achieves this kind of 'cool' with a sense of effortlessness, i.e. Pulp Fiction. Look at everything in play in a ten minute sequence similar in pace and style to the shorts you would like the make. How many shots are involved? from how many angles? what is the style of the decor? how quick/ varied is the editing? how does it sound? what colours are prominent? etc etc etc

then look how you can learn from this demonstration and appropriate what you have learned for your own piece.

I'm sorry if this is a bit or a negative rant, but thats what i took from the pieces.

keep at it

and as beckett said "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. "