The Silent City, short film now online (in HD)
 

Hello, my name is Ruairí Robinson - I made a short animated film a few years back called "Fifty Percent Grey", which was nominated for an Oscar. My new short film is my first live action piece, called "The Silent City" and stars Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins/28 Days Later/Wind that Shakes the Barley) as well as Don Wycherley and Garvan McGrath. It's a Science fiction film, and contains a large amount of rather complex visual effects, which I mostly created myself (and hopefully looks like it costs a hell of a lot more to make than it really did!)

If you want to take a look at it, it's been posted up on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MfNyfwwfV4 and also, there's a high def quicktime version available on my website, as well as a making of for the visual effects - www.ruairirobinson.com/main.htm

If you like the film, I'd appreciate all the publicity I can get! Thanks for your time,

Ruairí Robinson

Ruairi, great job, they show your 50% Grey film in my animation class as examples of great work. Anyway, how do that awesome floating snow effect? I'd like to do something similar in my short film.

Fantastic! I'm downloading the higher res version now. I'll post my impressions after a better look.

I have family in Ireland, btw.

Cheers,

Mike

INTENSE! I loved it. The CG effects were fantastic! The opening CG was a little much, but the rest was very well done. The pacing was perfect, and I love a movie that doesn't spell everything out for you.

Leaving questions to be pondered after the viewing... loved it!

Really great atmosphere that you have created here. You are extremely talented.

Best of luck!

Mike

Wow great work! Looked really really expensive :) I also enjoyed the VFX breakdown...thanks for posting that.

What kind of budget did you have? Certainly isn't a $10,000 movie and I would be impressed if this was done in and around that figure. Looks like a $500K and up, but I would guess you spent around $50. Looks amazing. Did you use green screen? Matt paintings? Etc?

What camera did you use? It looks like you used Panavision lenses, but did you use panavision camera too?

Can you share more tech and production notes? Thanks mate

The movie cost 8000 euros i think, which is $10,000.

If it was done for $10K it would be very impressive. It looks and feels great. Not crazy about the story (just my taste) but I can easily overlook that for a short when it looks as good and the action sequences are very impressive.

Enemy at the gate meets Full Metal Jacket. Well almost. Yes good FX and production value, but..? Plot, story, message, substance? If feels like a clip from a bad sci-fi movie with no reference as to what the hell is going on. Sorry to buck the popular vote guys, but really what the hell was that. An opening cinematic for a video game? If it is, it rocks. If it is ment to be a short film with any substance beyond an exercise for FX then, GONG! Next.

I'm not sure I would be that harsh, because the work was indeed impressive, but I will agree that form without substance usually doesn’t keep anyone at their seat for long. Matrix 2 & 3 prove that point, as they were both pretty awful. Matrix 1 had substance and is THE classic. This is why I think Jim Cameron is one of the best action directors ever, as he can mix both genres beautifully.

If Ruairi is seeking a career in special EFX/ video games etc, then he should not look any further, because he is beyond talented, but I will second that you absolutely need more substance when you make a narrative film, documentary, short or feature. Special EFX will not carry it. Regardless, this still was an extremely impressive short film blowing most other competition out of the water. I do think it works almost as an animated short.

Cost around 10-11k euro to SHOOT, then eventually got completion funding... probably around 35k altogether. I think it;s fair to say it's all onscreen though :)

no greenscreen, lots of roto work (little money meant anything that would require setup time like greenscreen on the shoot was out the window - also a lot of the shots that could have used it were backlit by the sun, so it wouldn't have worked anyway...) There's a vfx breakdown on my website that shows how some of the shots were put together...

And yes - it was shot on panavision cameras and anamorphic lenses. C and E series I think... DOP was Robbie Ryan, who shot Red Road (that won awards last Cannes)

The film was intended as one of 3 connected shorts, but never got funding for part 2, so... well it's a little more open ended as a standalone piece than I might have preferred - it's a deliberate choice to have it ask a bunch of questions, and answer none of them, which I guess is gonna piss off some people. I'm at peace with it though...

Cheers,
R.

I'm fine with that... incredible work. Really amazing...
Best short I've seen on just about any forum thus far. This short was just a "moment" in time, I get it.
Not everything needs to always be explained beyond any doubt.

Mike

Ruairi;
Awesome work. What 3D matchmoving software were you using, 3D rendering software, comp software?

Did most of my post work in Screenscene in Dublin, who were kind enough to let me use their equipment in downtime. They use 3dsmax + vray to render, Syntheyes for 3D tracking, afterFX for comping, and Premiere pro for editing (Initially I edited it in Discreet Edit)

Cheers,
R.

Hi Ruairi, Looking really good, but the movie's freezing at 3 minutes here. Downloaded again but still the same. Its the small version by the way.