British indie action movie - please check out our trailer!

[RedRaven]

We have a teaser trailer up at www.the-silencer.co.uk for our new action movie "The Silencer" and we're looking for feedback. Any comments please!

Steve
www.the-silencer.co.uk

[Spunkey1pestic]

Yeah- I'm leaning the same way-
But let me start with the positives first:
I think the guy playing the lead looks a little like a scruffy russell crowe, so He didn't bother me that bad, and I bought into his moves, and I liked the title....
The Line with the Girl is a bad choice(It sounded like she was reading) But the home video look bothered me the most- It screams low budget.
I know alot of work went into this,but the teaser trailer didn't really look that interesting....
Sorry...But it didn't spark me to want to watch..

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 14, 2004 01:57 PM: Message edited by: Spunkey1pestic ]</font>

[miker]

Overall, I like it. Didn't think it looked "home movie" at all.

It looks like it should have Sean Pertwee in it [img]smile.gif[/img]

However, as a teaser I think it fails. I think it's too long and makes you look like a one-trick pony with a bit of gaffer tape.

Guns and pony-tails are not a good look though IMO.

Nice presentation on the website.

Will I rush out to watch it on 2005? Um, no. I've seen guns, pony-tails, gaffertape and kicking in far too many other movies. What makes yours better? What's your angle? I think you should hint (more) strongly at whatever that is. At the moment it looks like a genre movie that wants to be a cross between "The Professionals" and "Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous". How about something for us 21st century post-modernists?
;-)

(Oh the person in the helmet at the end made me think of the Zovirax ad)

Now go here or here and get your own back [img]smile.gif[/img]

[emjen]

Making lowbudget action movies is a tricky business though, and unless you're really doing something special and creative avoiding that problem ( I once saw a short where guys were fighting eachother with skateboards for example) the audience is just going to get bored because they're all spoiled by million dollar action fested movies.

You posted a screenplay a while back here, didn't you?

It does look very good amateur wise, but there wasn't any hint of story that interested me.

Oh but the action that I saw did look pretty good though!

[andyblaa]

Reminds me of that hot new Patrick Swayze flick, The Silent Hunter. I hear he's having funding problems though.

Looks okay, what did you shoot on? Unfortunately it looks like a typical low-budget film that hasn't been graded. Especially with this kind of film, where I'm assuming it is essentially style over substance, I think something needs to be done to make it look even more stylish. The colours and tonal qualities aren't really a huge departure from ungraded home video footage, which to most viewers just looks like poor production values.

The martial arts looks passable and I'm assuming that's why you have chosen your main guy, (or even maybe built the film around his talents?) but you'll probably admit he's not quite leading man material.

I think the line you have picked out said by the girl isn't the best choice. In a trailer I like to see something that hints at the story but doesn't give anything away, this line to me seems slightly heavy-handed and redundant. It made me laugh a little aswell, which is not a good sign!

Congrats on doing something so big though, I'll freely admit it's bigger scale than anything I've made. And I'm not an action movie fan so feel free to ignore everything I've just said.

Good luck with it.

Andy

[RedRaven]

Thanks for the comments guys! To answer a few points...

The footage has in fact been graded (though not the FINAL grade), it's gone through Magic Bullet and various other processes so it is not unadulterated video footage as some are suggesting. Interesting to know that it's clearly not having the desired effect right now!

Our lead actor does look a little like Russell Crowe, maybe not so much in these clips but in some of our stills the resemblance is uncanny! We wanted him to lose the ponytail but he couldn't due to having other acting roles lined up which required he maintain the long hair.

Somebody mentioned competing with megabudget Hollywood action movies - we are going in a different direction, our fights are 100% real, no doubles, no wires, no shitty CGI, our stunt team were literally smashing through real glass windows (not sugar glass). We are aiming for action like you see in Jackie Chan films from the 1980's, which were not big budget films but still had better action than Hollywood movies.

Oh, and no, I didn't post a screenplay here a while back!

Thanks for all the comments so far, keep 'em coming!

Steve
www.the-silencer.co.uk

[RedRaven]

"At the moment it looks like a genre movie that wants to be a cross between "The Professionals" and "Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous". How about something for us 21st century post-modernists?"

This is fine with me! The movie deliberately harks back to 1980's action movies, which was my prime motivation in making it. Action movies these days are awful, thrown-together stories just to show off the latest (crap) CGI innovations.

Steve
www.the-silencer.co.uk

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 15, 2004 06:26 AM: Message edited by: RedRaven ]</font>

[SimonMW]

Not sure what peoples problem with the grading is. Although it isn't final it has film style gamma applied through the Magic Bullet process. There's only so much that can be done unless we went for some kind of extreme look such as those used in music videos and Stella Artois adverts. This is something we will most certainly not be doing.

Quite frankly I'm actually astounded someone thinks that the scene on the park bench for example looks like amateur video!

I might sound as though I am being rather defensive, but honestly I'm not sure what people expect for the format we are shooting on. We're not miracle makers. Although if someone can point me in the direction of a screeshot from something shot with similar equipment to ours that you feel is a much better example, then please show me the way.

[RedRaven]

We are shooting on a good old Canon XM1 (or GL1 if you are American), with the addition of an anamorphic 16:9 lens, so by no means a top end DV camera, which is why we're pretty proud of the results.

Steve
www.the-silencer.co.uk

[Chance1234]

I like it, and probably would watch it for the fight stuff, certantly looks a lot more interesting than a lot of stuff out there

technical wise im with the rest of them, even though it has been passed through the "film" malarkey, looking at thing's such as shadows/lighting etc it suffers poor cinematographically. I know you shot on a Cannon XM and those things can be a pain, but can;t help thinking if only there had a reflector there or a key light there,

anyway, its only forum peeps like us in this forum that really give a sh*t about things like that, Looks good in context and all the best with it.