Live action short film for calgary international film fest made with blender!

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
#1

hey peoples ive been working on a short film for the calgary international film festival for the past few months and I’ve made a trailer of the film. of course I use blender for all the visual effects including a beta build of 2.5 for the flame!
BLENDER FTW!

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs353.snc4/41792_115182478525563_7064_n.jpg

YOUTUBE TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PYzm2AXzO8

FACEBOOK TRAILER: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1514168295456&oid=115182478525563

FACEBOOK GROUP PLZ JOIN :stuck_out_tongue: :yes: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=115182478525563

#2

yo peeps have you checked it out yet?
what do you think?

YOUTUBE TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PYzm2AXzO8

FACEBOOK TRAILER: http://www.facebook.com/video/video…15182478525563

FACEBOOK GROUP PLZ JOIN :stuck_out_tongue: :yes: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=115182478525563

#3

hm

silly-doh that is a nice idea and concept.
the trailer features some good animation and camera shots.

however the length of the text pages is to long.
it drags on first and than the actual part with the doh is very short.

I would shorten the intro and come quicker to the point
this would also help rethinking the drama development in the game.

when the kid kicks the other kid it looks good
the flame scene is way to short - it feels like it was an accident cut

when the kid punches the other kid it looks to generic
speed of acting and camera position are not good

I would go over those parts again to refine what you have sofar.

#4

I would have shown more of the monster but much of the other shots are still in development but I had to show something in order to enter it into the film festival.

and the cut with the kid being kicked was intentional… you see much more in the actual film i just didnt want to show all of the best parts of the film in the trailer so i cut it short

#5

It looks good, I want to see the film, when finished.

#6

And that is the mistake you made.

With a teaser you want to generate appetite for the product.

I hope I don’t come across to critical - this is not personal at all
and I prefer to be direct and objective than being sensitive to
feelings and sacrificing quality of feedback.

the kick of the kid is good but because you cut the flame scene so
short the focus is put onto the kick and the special effect looks secondary.
because it also is cut so short it can feel that you overlooked to cleanly
cut out the flame scene at all.

in design I see this problem being often done.
either you do it right, or you leave it out - it has to look intentional.
if it does not look or feel so, you NEED to either extend it or remove it.

but this is always the issue for a designer to see that clearly because you
are involved in it and thus subjective to it.

I feel the beginning of the trailer draged on for too long till I got what this
film was about. The scenes with the monster are way too short so you
cannot even understand what the scene is about.

this in an end-result is bad for your story understanding.

anyway for yourself you could recut the scene, shorten the intro scenes
and focus more on the story development and action inside the film.

claas

#7

ops double post …

#8

That is interesting. Usually in order to be accepted into a festival you have to show the full film not just a trailer.

So have you actually been accepted into the festival at this point?

#9

oh no i sent the entire film so far even though the special effects are not complete.
as well as the trailer so you they can get a better feel for the film. and I had been corresponding with them a few weeks back but since i have recently sent the film i have not received a response yet

#10

@ cekuhnen

no thanks for the criticism I much rather have true criticism then just saying its good…
but your probably not going to like my film very much lol because we rushed the filming and the script so much that we got so many problems with it… I’m sure to the average person surfing youtube it will be fine and pretty cool and all. but as for people like you or me its much less then it could have been and not quite to the standard I wanted it to be at. :no:

#11

ah, or your first sentence is hard to follow.
I did not say that I do not like the movie.
I am very objective and often value objects I personally do not like.
Also if you had not much time you can only work with what you had access to.
At the end what counts a lot is the experience you gain and also the understanding
what to do better next time.

Not everything I did turned out superb as well.

But this should not stop you from fixing the problems in the movie for yourself or your portfolio.
Who knows what you can use it for.

#12

I wish you the best of luck with it.

To borrow from your first post, you should not be “making a film for” any film festival. While that may sound like it is coming from left field. It is really at the core of the issue here. Quality control, time, and all of the issues involved, sending an incomplete film to a festival, etc. are all a symptom of bad planning and hopeful thinking. The festival market is very very competitive and flooded with entries. Only the best of the best make it. If your film makes it into a large festival like that, great. Consider yourself either very lucky or very talented.

However, it is a much wiser approach to simply plan the time to get something done right. If you don’t have the time to get what you want done right, do something simpler.

A festival deadline should not dictate your film completion.

Your film should never suffer from such bad planning. I know. I have been there, done that. Then I learned. After that I read in a book that I was not alone in the mistake. And that so many hopeful filmmakers had made the mistake that in the opinion of the author it was a basic rule that should never be broken. I had to agree.

If the deadline of the festival was not the determining factor, something else was. The idea is to be realistic about what you can get done.

The motivating factor should be to make a great film for an audience - any audience.

Good luck, happy filmmaking! :yes:

Keep it up!

#13

haha no of course my goal is to make an awesome film having the film festival is more for a deadline not the soul purpose. further more as far as filming goes we were at bay of the weather since it was fall when we shot it had to be rushed before the snow. in fact it even snowed a couple of times between filming dates but luckily it melted before we had to film…
but we finished filming literally the day before the big snow fall! so lucky!
in any case the way I had planned it gave enough time to complete the film however many unexpected technical difficulties that postponed the post production for nearly 2 months!

long story short… many lessons learned…
but that was one of the big reasons why i wanted to do this film…
to help me transition from crappy stuff i did on my DV camcorder to more professional works
so in a way even if my film is total crap its still a success for me!

#14

Well that is probably the most productive way to look at it. And believe me, I know exactly what you are talking about. Hopefully you can find the middle ground where you can get things done and keep the quality high as possible without the various elements getting in the way. I know for me that is the constant struggle.