The Independent Film Thread.

A martial arts short:


Interesting personal trivia: The main character wears a Members Only jacket, completely identical to the one hanging in my closet.

 

Another digression:
In most fight scenes on TV the participants will display some great defense one minute, then stand still like a heavy bag the next minute.

 

Blame it on the need for dramatic tension. At some point somebody felt that the final battle needs to go back and forth between the combatants, albeit to a ridiculous degree sometimes.

 

What makes many of the fight scenes even more ludicrous is the two combatants usually have high levels of
Special Forces Training!!!

 

A very short sci-fi actioner done completely with AI:


I was debating on posting a different short AI film, but I disliked it for several reasons. It was a short about a secret agent stealing a hard drive and escaping. Although it was put together competently, the action scenes were ridiculously over the top and some of the action sequences were utterly nonsensical.

If you wanted someone to sneak in and pilfer something of value, I would expect you to get someone who would blend in and not attract attention. Instead, we get an impossibly gorgeous woman in a tight-fitting costume with bright colors (the farthest thing from NOT ATTRACTING ATTENTION as you can get) and during the fight scenes, her assailants are waiting to attack one at a time and in one shot her back is turned yet another opponent literally does nothing until she turns to face him.

She also destroys a building which may have contained innocent civilians. Again, not really "under the radar" and her escape is witnessed by probably a hundred people. This is Michael Bay levels of idiocy.

At least the short I posted is deliberately tongue-in-cheek.

 

Not gonna lie, this was a bit rough to watch, but the acting is powerful and it left me wanting more:


(Also gorgeously shot.)

 

A short film created with AI:


The only quibble I have is that one sequence features some acting that doesn't quite hit the mark, but considering the characters are robots, I'll give it a pass. Besides, the rest of this is actually quite good and manages to stir emotions in me, so in that regard it's worthy of sharing here.

 

That's ^ weird AF, & I really like it.

I wondering why the name Mike Vogel sounds so familiar?


Edit: The robot is so human.

 

I've never heard of him, but let's hope we hear more from him in the future. The only area that took me out of it was the sequence on the porch where the two "companions" talked. The newer model didn't quite make eye contact and the line delivery was a bit off, but then this could be deliberate*.

But then again, it's AI and we still have a long way to go. I'm not going to nitpick this, if someone said either thumbs up or down, it's a thumbs up!

*- in film school, we had discussions about analyzing scenes in movies and often people would try to read more into something that may not necessarily be so.

 

I think the porch scene discussion was meant to show the new companion was less human despite appearing more human. Or maybe not.

 

This is the full version of another short film I posted earlier:


This version has a new audio mix and a few new visual effects, but does not contain the AI-enhanced car chase sequences; it is the original version with just a little embellishment. There might be an improved version later, and if that happens I'll post it here.

 

I've always liked fedora style hats, esp the Aussie Outback style. I never knew they gave owners Hero powers!

Is that Desert Eagle pistol you're "shooting?"

You did pay the licensing fee to use Ozzie's music...right?


Seriously, cool short film.

 

This isn't one of mine, so I'm unconcerned about licensing rights.

I was only an actor in this one, but this film was made by the same guy who gave us Code of the Shoes, so he knows what he's doing.

The gun in question is simply a pellet gun with a chrome job made to look like a .45 pistol.

View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qRWfiUP8PEKraD9_IL_3eSdzGuChUSiH/view?usp=sharing


It's featured in a few of my earlier movies, including Necromancers. I still have it as a souvenir, although I stopped using it because it's clearly not a real gun to those who know firearms.

 

In the quick look I took I would swear the pistol was a Desert Eagle; the C02 pistol you show is a Colt 1911 design. Now I'll need to rewatch the scene to figure out whether or not I'm an idiot (that's debatable? ).

 

I rewatched the gunfight scene. Yes, I jumped to a conclusion based on a quick look combined with not paying close attention. Should I use my cataracts as an additional factor , or quit digging the hole even deeper ?

 

Mentioning paying to use songs in films...

This' an old story, which I could not find using my ad blocking Bing search engine (TBF quick searches).

The people who did the very popular IMAX film (a very early one IIRC) The Blue Planet used Frank Sinatra's version of Fly Me To The Moon in the movie, not realizing they would have to pay fees.* When they started receiving demands for payment they attempted to reach Sinatra to plead their case it's a small independent film that isn’t going make much, if any, money. They never got past Sinatra's attorneys, & had to pay the money.

* if you use someones version of a song in a film, what do you pay - Bing

 

I've had numerous conversations about this; it still surprises me that people think it's okay to use popular music in their films without paying for it. Goes without saying of course, that nobody's going to care if you use something for private use and have no intention of profiting off it, like my own work.

You ain't sellin' it? We don't care. You sellin' it? We want our cut.

It's also cheaper to buy the sheet music and have another artist perform the song, which is why you see covers of pop music done by different musicians on a movie's soundtrack.