Sony FS7 feature film releases on Amazon Prime today! at DVinfo.net

Fred Wilharm · September 17th, 2018, 12:20 PM

OK, I'll admit it. I'm shamelessly posting here to hopefully get views on our film releasing tomorrow. I don't feel too bad about it because I've been here since the beginning of the HVX200 era!

Now that that's out of the way, on to the film: Summer of '67 is a Vietnam War era drama that follows the lives of 3 sailors and their significant others as they are about to be shipped off to war. Their ship is the USS Forrestal, which caught fire in on July 29th and burned for 3 days straight. My father in law was on the ship and the movie is loosely based on his story. Of course, not being able to re create the deck of an aircraft carrier, our story is primarily based on life on the homefront. The fire was on the TV news, but it was over 3 days before relatives knew what had happened to their loved ones. 134 men died in the fire.

We shot it with the FS7 in 4K, no external recorder, using a Movi gimbal for many moving shots. Instead of renting the gimbal, I bought it used and resold it afterwards. I think my investment in the Movi was about $300. We shot in Slog 3 and color corrected in Resolve. Our films are ULB, so we usually go straight into the camera with boom or lav mics and have a film student hold the mic. This time we hired a sound crew and recorded externally, upping the sound quality substantially.

We put a lot of time and attention into making the film look authentic to the 60's. We spent over a year accumulating household props and furniture. I already owned a '66 Thunderbird which became one of the sailor's cars, and bought a VW minibus for the hippie boyfriend character. I spent 3 months getting the bus running and useable for the film, along with "grunging it up" for the right look.

We released theatrically in Nashville and a couple of other cities, and for an indie release, had a successful two week run. Here we are on Box Office Mojo:

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=summerof67.htm

Viewing it on a 40 foot screen was a satisfying experience in some ways and terrifying in others. The shots that turned out well looked incredible, while the less than perfect shots were magnified 40 times. All in all though, I was happy with how it turned out.

A few weeks ago we signed with a distributor and they wasted no time releasing it (it will be released on various platforms like Vudu,Itunes, etc. one at a time). If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free starting today. Watch as much as you can (or just leave the room and let it run!) as Amazon counts that, and consider giving it a review or rating when you're done. As you can imagine, it's nearly impossible for an indie film to get noticed in a world of huge marketing budgets, but if enough people watch, it could start trending and go on from there. Thanks for your help, and here's the Amazon Prime link: https://www.amazon.com/Summer-67-Rac...1CV3/din02c-20

David Peterson · September 18th, 2018, 01:45 AM

Keep on shamelessly posting about it! I appreciate that filmming a feature is only half the battle, and marketing is a tough task too!

I think I've seen you post about it a few times over in the FS7 dvxuser subforums too?

What are you up to next after this?

Fred Wilharm · September 21st, 2018, 10:05 PM

David, I have posted about it over there also. This is the end of the feature film road for me, too old to put in 14 hour days. Might do a doc though.

Hope anyone with Amazon Prime and some time to spare will go to the link and watch and review. Reviews and comments are incredibly important - movies there live and die by them. Honest reviews are fine, don't expect everyone to like it. We are making real progress though and appearing on some popular film lists. And of course getting bootlegged comes with the territory- just had it taken down today from an illegal site.

September 17th, 2018, 12:20 PM	#1
Fred Wilharm New Boot Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: springfield tn Posts: 14	Sony FS7 feature film releases on Amazon Prime today! OK, I'll admit it. I'm shamelessly posting here to hopefully get views on our film releasing tomorrow. I don't feel too bad about it because I've been here since the beginning of the HVX200 era! Now that that's out of the way, on to the film: Summer of '67 is a Vietnam War era drama that follows the lives of 3 sailors and their significant others as they are about to be shipped off to war. Their ship is the USS Forrestal, which caught fire in on July 29th and burned for 3 days straight. My father in law was on the ship and the movie is loosely based on his story. Of course, not being able to re create the deck of an aircraft carrier, our story is primarily based on life on the homefront. The fire was on the TV news, but it was over 3 days before relatives knew what had happened to their loved ones. 134 men died in the fire. We shot it with the FS7 in 4K, no external recorder, using a Movi gimbal for many moving shots. Instead of renting the gimbal, I bought it used and resold it afterwards. I think my investment in the Movi was about $300. We shot in Slog 3 and color corrected in Resolve. Our films are ULB, so we usually go straight into the camera with boom or lav mics and have a film student hold the mic. This time we hired a sound crew and recorded externally, upping the sound quality substantially. We put a lot of time and attention into making the film look authentic to the 60's. We spent over a year accumulating household props and furniture. I already owned a '66 Thunderbird which became one of the sailor's cars, and bought a VW minibus for the hippie boyfriend character. I spent 3 months getting the bus running and useable for the film, along with "grunging it up" for the right look. We released theatrically in Nashville and a couple of other cities, and for an indie release, had a successful two week run. Here we are on Box Office Mojo: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=summerof67.htm Viewing it on a 40 foot screen was a satisfying experience in some ways and terrifying in others. The shots that turned out well looked incredible, while the less than perfect shots were magnified 40 times. All in all though, I was happy with how it turned out. A few weeks ago we signed with a distributor and they wasted no time releasing it (it will be released on various platforms like Vudu,Itunes, etc. one at a time). If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free starting today. Watch as much as you can (or just leave the room and let it run!) as Amazon counts that, and consider giving it a review or rating when you're done. As you can imagine, it's nearly impossible for an indie film to get noticed in a world of huge marketing budgets, but if enough people watch, it could start trending and go on from there. Thanks for your help, and here's the Amazon Prime link: https://www.amazon.com/Summer-67-Rac...1CV3/din02c-20

September 18th, 2018, 01:45 AM	#2
David Peterson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 359	Re: Sony FS7 feature film releases on Amazon Prime today! Keep on shamelessly posting about it! I appreciate that filmming a feature is only half the battle, and marketing is a tough task too! I think I've seen you post about it a few times over in the FS7 dvxuser subforums too? What are you up to next after this? __________________ http://IronFilm.co.nz/Sound/ (Location Sound Recordist based in New Zealand) http://www.YouTube.com/c/SoundSpeeding

September 21st, 2018, 10:05 PM	#3
Fred Wilharm New Boot Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: springfield tn Posts: 14	Re: Sony FS7 feature film releases on Amazon Prime today! David, I have posted about it over there also. This is the end of the feature film road for me, too old to put in 14 hour days. Might do a doc though. Hope anyone with Amazon Prime and some time to spare will go to the link and watch and review. Reviews and comments are incredibly important - movies there live and die by them. Honest reviews are fine, don't expect everyone to like it. We are making real progress though and appearing on some popular film lists. And of course getting bootlegged comes with the territory- just had it taken down today from an illegal site.