Shadow Land feature promo
 

Hey Folks, this is our promo scene that we shot over a weekend, we hope it will help to secure a real budget for this movie. Have a look and tell me what you think.

http://livedigital.com/content/1831097/

for a higher rez version right click and save target as

http://www.box.net/shared/static/rp7see9x4s.mov


Cheers
Andy

I'll keep it short and sweet:
I loved it

Thanks for watching Brennan, im glad you liked it.

Cheers
Andy

Wow, that was just awesome.

I know it was intentionally dark, but I found myself leaning into my screen to make out details.

Lou

Fantastic Andy - really impressed. Shows the HD100 in a very good light once again.
Any steadicam used? The tracking shots are really good...I'm thinking about constructing a DIY version (currently using a skateboard!) very soon as they add a large dash of professionalism to these films.

I did notice a missing pixel however - is there a chance this can be taken out in post?

Thanks for watching guys, yeah the livedigital link makes it a fair bit darker than it is, it looks better in the large file download. theres a story behind the steadicam shots, when there chasing the guy through the corridor, the first shot of the guy was steadicam and at the end of that very shot it snapped and thats why the next shot directly after of the soldiers chasing was handheld.

As for the pixel, its a dead pixel on my camera iv just not gotten round to fixing it yet and i didn't know about it at the time, its anoying but i think taking it out in post would take for ever. Well spotted though.

you should make your dolly its not that hard, i built the one i used in the promo (i also built the crane), heres a couple of pictures.
http://www.box.net/shared/static/e1s90euqjt.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/b93mr752ak.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/jgc8lmdzfn.JPG


this picture was taken seconds before the steadicam snapped on me, good thing i had a good hold of the post.
http://www.box.net/shared/static/kureen79rn.JPG

your feedback is much appreciated, im glad you liked it

cheers
Andy.

Thanks for posting those pics Andy - helpful to see how you put dolly together.
You built the crane also eh? Crikey, I would've never thought of doing that.
Is that a libec tripod in background of the first pic? I might start with getting wheels for my libec (should at least suffice for indoor filming?).

Sorry to hear about the steadicam - hope you managed to get it fixed?
And the pixel mask is a quick fix (you have the HD100 right) but they're very easily missed unfortunately - I've filmed a show with this in place during the summer :(
Good luck with the project and be sure to post up more.
Cheers.

I'll second that. Great work.

its a manfrotto, the 501 head is on the crane, heres a few more pics, we just camped out from the friday night to the sunday night, it was a good laugh we plugged a tv and dvd player into the genarotor at night and just watched movies out on the grass with a few beers mind you getting up at 5 in the morning sucked!.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/te96bt7kjm.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/34tk4vhnsg.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/cgtllsh52x.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/vevf20kxnq.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/31p61xl7by.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/rfdyj5igzt.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/1jqszqdhnv.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/pc59fey9ao.JPG
http://www.box.net/shared/static/53z4c6a03p.JPG

cheers
Andy.

I must say.. That was VERY beautiful! How did you get such a smooth overhead shot of the gentleman running through the woods at the end? I loved the way the overhead shot is moving slightly faster than the guy running! GREAT JOB! I think this trailer is more than good enough to secure financial backing!

I saw a few riot gear elements at the end! videocopilot.net is awesome. The only problem I see with using the videocopilot pieces is that they are EASY to spot. I myself own everything Andrew Kramer has ever sold.... but have yet to use anything because I can't come up with a unique way to utilize the tools. I've seen Andrews stuff on youtube, several short films, even a commercial on the local TV station in my small town! Call of Duty 4 used parts of his pre matted blood splatter from the "Action Movie Essentials" DVD in the actual game! WOW!!

Anyway, great job! looking forward to seeing more

Thanks Justin i hope your right about the financing, yeah iv got riot gear and action movie essentials, there pretty usefull, for the writen stuff at the end i used one of the reveals and changed its opacity to stencil luma i think from memory which gave the effect of eating through the static.The ink bleeds are very noticable if you know about them.

The shot at the end of the guy running in the woods was shot from this http://camerashyltd.livedigital.com/...e:o=0:c=996862 which i made last year.

Thanks for watching, much appreciated

Andy.

DUDE!! What a genius design! Is this something that you designed yourself, or is there a book with the specs in it?? I've got to build one of those! you must tell :)

yeah i just put it together myself, its the simplest and most efficient design , its made up of 3 bits of 4x2 wood and i bought some bearing pullys from ebay.i also bought the cable from ebay.

have a go yourself, its satisfying to to see something you made working in the field

Cheers
Andy.

Wow.

If you guys ever go the full distance with this, put me down for a copy :-)

With the wire rig, what's it actually fastened to at either end? An awesome design, btw.

Cheers
Pat
www.caliburnproductions.com

Thanks PJ, i hope we get the funding cause the shoot is gonna be 5 or 6 weeks which means paying everyone equity rates.

The wire rig is attached to a tree at either end and pulled tight by two ratchets you can buy in any hardware store. Im actually worried to use it on buildings incase it pulls the beds out from the bricks under the pressure, my dads an acrchitect so he knows a structural engineer that i can ask.

Thanks for watchin, ill send you a copy if it ever gets made.

cheers
Andy.

freaking sweet. hope you get some real investors who know talent when they see it.

Did you build the car frame also? If so...was this patched together from fairly random materials or are elements dedicated to that type of equipment (the suction pads frame for example).
Impressed with the trailer and the DIY kits - very inspiring Andy.
Good luck.

Thanks Alan kind of you to say, David the car mount was actually bought by one of the other guys in my company, it appears to be someone elses diy. It does the job, we used it heavily in our first feature called lottery.

Im glad the promo is going down well, you know what its like when you spend a lot of time editing something, you loose all objectivity. I hope it's as well recieved by distributors and possible investors. By the way does anyone know if there is a place for a promo like this at festivals?

cheers
Andy.

That was really well done. All the camera movement looked really solid and professional. One thing about pitching it to get a finished movie, is that there is a lot of stuff out there on the web that's very similar (sort of military/horror theme). I can't get enough of an idea of the story to say "wow, I'll bet people will be knocking down the doors to make your movie" or "hmmm, maybe it'll fly" so all I can do is wish you best luck, but also make this suggestion: I really couldn't tell your camera movement from "professional" rigs, and you've already suggested that people should just build their own dolly or crane. This says to me that you're obviously very talented not just in filmmakiing but in building support gear. So what you could do is make a "how to" video on how to build the stuff, and even talk about camera movement and composition (you had lots of good shots, great dollies, LOVED the one from inside the building looking out through the broken windows), sell it as a DVD and recoup some expenses that you can use to drive your creativity forward. I'd buy a video on how to make your own crane if I thought it was worth it.
Have you heard of or seen that movie "Broken"? That's kind of what they did. Put togther a horror movie, but then made a DVD that goes into how they made the film (they go into a lot of detail). I could see that concept working for you. Nice job!

Hey Andy,

That looked gorgeous, excellent composition and camera movements! Really impressive.

I do have to agree with Bert, there is a lot of competition in the military horror genre. It seemed 50% original 30% Dog Soliders and 20% 28 Days Later to me. But that was just from the trailer so I could be well out.

Also, I know this sounds like nit picking, and I know it is, but to make British Soliders look more realistic try and get hole of L85 Rifles, the SA80, or maybe just some H&K MP5's. I know it sounds stupid but there's just something I can't get to grips with, seeing a British solider running around with an M15A4/M4 carbine. The AK looked the part as they almost seem universal weapons in movies. Were they airsoft weapons you were using? If so, I understand how hard it can be to get your hands on a replica SA80 but it really would make the difference. I'm rambling now aren't I?

Either way, to summarize.

Incredibly professional look to everything.
Swap guns.
Be careful of competition in the genre.
Also, just noticed, the big guy shouldn't have been wearing an ear ring. Made it look like he wasn't quite as serious a solder as the others.
Loved the long tracking shot at the end!

Damn good job!

Well done Andy.

I was also thinking along the same lines as Bert Andy...I'd be up for looking into such a video.
I'd no idea over the gun types though...that's some knowledge!

Misspent youth I think.

Thanks for taking the time to watch it guys much appreciated. You are both right about the competition, i figured that if we can make a movie thats simple, well shot yet has a good story thats easy to follow we may have a chance of someone picking it up. People always like a bit of horror and mindless entertainment what i call "brain fodder", instead of makeing some incredibly complicaded story i decided to go old school 80's with the idea and make this movie in the same vein as predator and Alien, no fancy tricks or twists just a bunch of guys trying to survive the night. The concept is very dog soldiers however if you remove the soldier factor it changes things, we may still make it about civilians...and the actual script is a totally diffirent story, for example we're gong to have period flashbacks...victorian, ww2 etc

Dave i agree, im as picky as you when it comes to guns, i hate how the guy at the start isn't holding the gun correctly. The reason its not sa80's is because this site didn't have any http://www.modelguns.co.uk/ .Their guns are simply amazing for film, they are shell ejecting replicas that have all the real markings, since they are so expensive i bought one which is the one you see fired in the promo, and i had a few air soft AR15's lying around.The AK47 is real, its a deactivated model and it looks the business. BTW when filmming begins we are going to find american actors living in britan so ill just change the uniforms instead of the guns.

Here's a bit more of the story to put it in context, its a bunch of guys that break out a political prisoner (irish i guess, may make them eastern european) and try to trade him back to them, during the trade something kicks off and they find themnselves running through the woods which is where the promo starts. They get ready to dig in and fight but then they hear the irish fighting with "something else" ,what that something is a can't say but its not nice. The film from then on is about them trying to live out the night.The thing they are fighting does have a very interesting back story though (don't worry it won't be any kind of cheasy rubber monster!).

Bert , about the how too thing, the things i make are very DIY and user orientated for example there is a certain way the series of bearings and washers go together on the crane or it won't work, also the fitment of the crane to the tripod is very specific to that make and model of tripod so im not sure if it would help many people, i watched all the "broken" stuff and thought it was really well done. Also when i make stuff it takes time and i don't have anyone to film it and do it justice with all the proper close ups. And people may have problems with my scottish accent lol.

Anyway thanks again for the feedback, its very usefull to me.
Andy.

Andy you may find it cheaper to get hold of airsoft weapons that simply use electric motors to fire BBs and then add smoke, muzzle flare etc in after effects. Obviously you'd need your actors to "act" as though the guns are firing, but you'd be able to get more guns for your money. Also modifying the guns is much easier, adding silencers, scopes, and lots of other gucci goodies.

Check out things like www.airsoftarmoury.co.uk etc.

Also they're safer.

The only thing with those is they don't eject a shell, the one used in the promo is very safe and the muzzle flash is actually fake, infact stay tuned and ill upload the origional file of the guy firing the gun in the promo with all the origional audio. its interesting to see the before and after.

Andy.

Here's the origional gun shot clip, for those who are interested, i love these guns! if i get a budget im buying one for every cast member.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/462p4g8e4u.avi

cheers
Andy.

Really well done. I liked the camera movement alot and the shots were very well set up. Can tell you have a good team put together. Now onto the things I think could be improved (I`m a stickler heh)

- I wasn`t sure why they all were running in the beginning with weapons ready to fight, then stopped and reloaded/took out their cartridges and prepared their guns.
- The muzzle flashes used in the distance didn`t match the blue hued video of the rest of the trailer, they were bright yellowish and looked out of place. Add a blueish hue to them too and they will look more authentic and less like a muzzle flash add in :)
- The text at the end didn't relate at all to what the trailer was showing. The lights never went out. It was never dark of night or anything of the sort. It was all dayish jungle scenes but then its states "when the lights go out". It felt very disconnected from the story the video was telling. Also along the same lines, the video feed style transition also didn`t feel it belonged since it was never present in the trailer until the text parts. Perhaps starting it off that way would help connect that into the feeling of the trailer as a whole, and not like you wanted to toss in a snazzy transition at the end.

Just my thoughts. I`d love to see this get made to see whats up your sleeves, and if I were in scotland i`d love to help. I do dream to visit there one day and get my clan kilt (i`m 1/8 scottish)..and also pick up and try learning the bagpipes ;)

very good observations Nathan, its always good to know what people feel when they watch things it helps improve them. Ill address each point in sequence.

Bare in mind this is ment to be a promotional single scene from the film to show industry people we can do what we say we will do, without the rest of the film its out of context. it is not ment to be seen as a trailer for the movie.Its more so investrors can see we're not complete muppets with a camera lol

As for the muzzle flashes I didn't really think about it, i'll sort that out next time i edit it

The text at the end was an after thought, i thought maybe i needed some kind of hook but i didn't have the resources to do anything that fits with the style of the film. The lights don't go out in the promo but they do in the actual film, it is refering to another aspect of the story. The promo its self is ment to be late evening kind of twilight just before it gets dark. I may get rid of the text alltogether, I was worried it looked out of place and you have confirmed it for me.

All very good points Nathan, it has to be at its best when being sent to distributors and investors so thank you for watching.

Its a long way off from being shot so i can't tell you when to be in scotland, if you happen to be in the neibourhood at the time im sure i could find a job for you! by the way kilts are extremely overpriced they cost about $2000.

Cheers
Andy.

Andy I've had a thought.

In order to get yourselves some more guns (airsoft not blank firers) get in touch with a local Airsoft skirmish site and explain that you want to make a film. Most people who are into airsofting naturally love movies about guns and I'm sure you'd get a huge selection of replica guns to choose from for a free lend. Some might be a bit cagey and insist on being on site with their weapons but I'm sure that most airsofters would love the idea of their weapons being used in a movie.

The benefit of this is that most airsofters modify their weapons to make them look as real as possible. So you'd have almost personalized weapons for each of the characters (scopes, slings even grenade launchers on some models, mainly the M16 A2.) You might even get lucky and find someone with few pistols and sniper rifles. If you were closer I'd offer to lend you my collection:

M15A4 - modified to the hilt (red dot sight, lazer sight, grenade launcher, silencer) - My baby
Maruzen APS2 sniper rifle - scope, sling, modified stock, bipod.
AK47 - standard x 2
MPA5 - standard x 3
M15A4 carbine - standard
SV Infinity pistol - all metal conversion
MP5 SD - standard x 2
MP5 K - standard
Famas F1 - standard x 1
Famas F1 - Red dot and surefie grip x 1
Random pistols inc, Glock 17, Sig Sauer p226 and a few .45s

Obviously this is including my mates guns too, I'm not a complete psycho.

That sounds like a good idea Dave, it may also kill two birds with one stone cause there is a scene at the beggining of the movie where the group you see in the promo have a meeting where they get outnumbered by a buch of guys jumping out the back of a van, some of those airsofters could be extras in that scene.

thats quite an arsenal you have there between you its a shame your not local! i actually know a lot about guns myself, been hunting since i was a kid and the history interests me so it did pain me a bit to see british squaddies with american weapons although the script is at a very early stage so we can make them whatever nationality we want.

The collection i have consists of:desert eagle, sig sauer, glock 17 (blank) beretta (blank) AK47 (deactivated), 3x ar15 and that shell ejecting replica he fires in the promo. I also have (between me and my dad) three 12 gauge shotguns a 4 10 shotgun and a 22 bolt action rifle all real and all locked up (man you'd think i was american!), when it comes to guns responsibility is something i insist people have even when dealing with prop guns. BTW i live in the country surrounded by farm land, i used to be the gamekeeper for the local farms when i was younger.... im not a complete psycho either!

with the gun laws in this country i have to renew my license every 5 years, A police officer from the firearms devision comes to your house and checks the gun cabinet is secure and gives you an interview to make sure you aint a nut! Anyway it always helps to have a license if you ever use guns in a film.

Andy.

I think the text works, its just it needs to relate to what we are seeing. Change it up a bit to mention more about a looming feeling of death in the air or something more along those lines. Its funny I can tell I liked the 'trailer' because i can really dig into it. Even with my own work I can`t look at it like that since I see it every day. But again I`d say to add that transition maybe on the beginning with a company logo, then zap transmission transition again into the beginning of it. That way the other will feel it belongs there. Don`t toss the idea out until you test all its options ;) And if you don`t like it then....toss it in the trash. I don`t think I`ll be in the neighborhood for a few years yet heh, unless my production company blasts off next year ;)

I was thinking in order to get away with the whole "these aint British issue weapons" problem why not write something into the script. In a similar way that was used in Dog Soldiers (but for different reasons). Remember when they ditch the SA80s and grab the MP5s instead. Just an idea.

Hey Nathan i just rememberd i actually shot a prototype of the end sequence in the promo on my own a while back, I set it up shot it and acted in it myself back when the film was called "the barracks". It has some text running through it about looming death, check it out and see what you think.

the savefile link doesn't work anymore but the livedigital one does.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=82524

That could be an idea Dave but i think i have a cunning plan! we see them at the start checking their gear and re loading and we see they don't have much ammo, what i think might be a good way to go is to have them find some ww2 british issue lee enfields in a store in one of the old buildings. That could introduce some nice scenes where they try to fire 60 year old weapons not knowing if they'll work or not......good tension.

Cheers
Andy.

Hey good idea! I like it. How's about some ole, dodgy "when's it gonna go off" grenades too?

nice! i like your thinking. This is why i love this site, id never of thought of the lee enfield thing if someone hadn't questioned the guns.

cheers
Andy.

Just viewed your 'pre-promo' barracks vid Andy - that's really well done also (love the 'shining-esque' plane shots).
That was shot 4:3 and cropped right...how have you filmed shadowland - stock fujinon lens (although this time HDV 720p25)?
I noticed your mattebox and follow focus - I have just 'built' a fake mattebox for the time being but looking eventually to get the real thing and certainly a follow focus unit (whichever reasonably affordable model fits the HD100).

Really helpful posts.

yea I like the alluding to horror without knowing whats going on...its a nice teaser, but not enough to pull an audience into it I don`t think. I do however think something like that could get melded nicely with what you have for Shadow Land to make it even more intruiging and really get people wanting to knwo what the h-ll is going on. Make us nervous ;)

David, you're right the barracks thing was shot in 4x3 and cropped, i had various tests set up that day shooting in all the hd100's settings but i quickly found out how unfit i was! i ran a few times in SD 4x3 and called it a day cause i was knackered!.

Shadow Land was shot HDV25p with stock lense which in my opinion is the best looking progressive scan iv ever seen.

My matte box is a formatt that i got from ebay for about £90 and the follow focus is from cinequipt also bought from ebay for about £300.There is only one focus pull in the promo so im not sure the £300 is quite justified! ah well it lookes good.

Andy.

That's a great (and honest) excuse re the 4:3 Andy!
£90 isn't all that bad is for a matte-box (compared to what you could pay) - did you use any filters with this box - I recall reading this box wasn't too accepting of rotating filters....?

It's funny you should mention the focus pull in the promo - it did indeed stand out and somebody I showed this too mentioned it also. Extremely difficult to achieve if you don't own such apparatus (I can attest!).

yeah its not the best of matte boxes, iv had trouble puting filters in it a few times, i don't use filters myself cause i do everything in post but iv had jobs where iv had to use some pro mist filters.

As a matte box i wouldnt recommend it but as a sunshade it looks good and keeps the light out.

BTW i for got to mention i cropped the HDV 16:9 to 2:35:1 in shadow land cause i just prefer it.

Andy