R'Ha
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Posts: 533 Just Starting Out
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So did everyone see the R'Ha video on Vimeo?
I thought the animation was pretty well done.
I thought the animation was pretty well done.
Comments
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Wow, that was exceptionally well done! I think I have to be around vimeo more often.
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GREY!
Wow, very cool! Love the style and technically it's very, very solid indeed. Story-wise it's a bit of a generic BSG/Terminator blend, but it tells it well. The escape felt a bit flat, but in retrospect I guess that's kinda the point.
The design work is what excited me the most, from the aliens to the cityscapes and the spaceships. Great stuff. -
The only thing that didn't sit right with me were the space ship movements.
They just felt 'small', like they were tiny models. -
Everyone realise this is made by a 22 year old film student? Pretty good in my books
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Now that was cool! 4 thumbs up......in honor of the alien.
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I do, and it looks fantastic overall. The alien is great in particular.
Everyone realise this is made by a 22 year old film student? Pretty good in my books
To me, it is that quality that makes the ships stand out as the weak link. I like the design of them but just didn't feel they had any weight! -
Well I actually like the movements of the space ships... They really remind me of the flight behavior of quadrocopters, especially when stabilizied (I know what I'm talking about, programmed a simulation on that not so long ago... ). Yes they do seem to be very light, but it actually made me accept it as alien technology which just works this way - probably a matter of taste here, like so often in filmmaking 8-|
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Is it my imagination, or does the interrogator at the start have an Irish accent?
From another Irishman...
STBO -
Yeah, the concept has been done plenty of times - Matrix / Terminator / Battlestar. But that's because it is a good concept and has a lot of interesting ways to tell a story around the theme.
I like the idea of not even having humans involved. Even the alien isn't that humanoid. Although, I am left kind of wondering how it eats or talks without a mouth. haha
There were a couple of shots where the space ship animation seemed a little jerky, but I kind of assume that he did that on purpose to remind the audience that it's an alien world. -
Yeah, having a non-human protagonist was a great move. Loved the head, though I do wish the rest of the body had been less human (ie arms, legs). There was an opportunity there to make the protagonist even more alien/abstract.
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The bit when the alien rips off the robot's head was the weakest part, I thought. He just kind of gives it a gentle tug, like pulling a very loose tooth, or picking up a stack of paper. There didn't seem to be any kind of struggle whatsoever.
I gotta say, even though the influx of sci-fi shorts over the last couple of years has been cool, I feel like these brief scene teaser things are getting a little old. Just like Noon, which I watched yesterday, this one feels like something that someone made anticipating that people will see it and want to option it for a feature (pretty sure that's even the stated purpose of Noon). There were a couple of scenes like that last year too. District 9 apparently got people into the mindset that "make impressive short film = get funded for a feature and become the next big thing."
Not to say I don't enjoy watching them, I just wish people would go a little further, and make some proper short films, not just teasers for hypothetical features. -
It's hard to do that on no budget though. One of the things I'm working on is making some short movies based on some novels I've already written. My idea is that the movies will be cool and draw people into reading the novels, but not directly be any scene from the novels. That way I can make short, teasery movies on a low budget, but if the audience likes it, they can always go read the books to get the main story.
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Agreed, Aculag. The most blatant example I've seen recently is with The Underwater Realm, which was a very exciting Kickstarter that raced $100k to create a web series. The shorts were released in December and contain very little content, instead coming across as a style guide/proof-of-concept for a potential feature. Which is fine in itself, if that's what the creators want to do, but as as viewer I find it hugely unsatisfying - I'm quite glad I didn't donate to the Kickstarter.
That's one thing I really liked about FreddieW's VGHS - it was set up to be a self-contained, satisfying web series that embraced its platform. It wasn't an advert/pitch for another project. -
I agree with you, Simon. I watched The Underwater Realm's progress from week 17 or so. I really enjoyed all the behind the scenes stuff and got really excited about the short films. Then they released them and they weren't short films. They were teasers. A bunch of little teaser/trailer type videos for a future feature based on the same world, I suppose. I was fairly disappointed.
I personally don't aspire to make feature films, or hollywood style blockbusters. I am fairly content with working on short films and plan on doing so for the rest of my life. I think that the mentality of a lot of filmmakers is that making a short film is just a small step in their journey to a feature film. I think this idea cheapens short films as a genre. -
I enjoyed the R'Ha short and thought it was incredibly well made.... But, I'm not really interested in seeing a full length film of it. Not if the short story's plot is going to be the plot of the movie. I've seen and read that story a million times now. I thought District 9's short was far more compelling because the story and the location of the story were new and interesting. It made me want to see a feature of it. But, R'Ha, I literally can not imagine how a 120 minute version of that story could be original or compelling. I think people get caught up in the fact that one guy made the short and how much of an amazing achievement it was (it is). But ultimately the story is extremely derivative.
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interesting stuff here on the subject of the 'short to feature' process and how studios are picking up ideas & talent (including the student behind R'Ha).
http://io9.com/5976533/9-amazing-short-films-that-will-one-day-be-feature-films
It's also interesting how some already established film industry types are using shorts as a way of exploring ideas.
