Action Short Film "Redra"

[Speculator]

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2038927929
Redra:
It takes a second for a blood droplet to hit the ground..it takes a second for your life to flash before your eyes. A Coup, A Villain, A Son, A Cop, A Love..A Blood Opera.

Synopsis: After the Shanghai Syndicate Leader is murdered in a blood coup, the murderers are now set on ending his lineage. The boss's bloodline sucessor and son, Lee lives a life full of regretful shame and is now forced to run from his father's killer. He encounters the daughter of a rival clan during his father's funeral..but she is blind. As he rescues her, they're both forced to flee...and finally seek help from an unexpected ally...the cop (ken) in charge of Lee's father's case. A somber story of love, loss, and agony inspired by the tragedies of Shakespeare and Sophocles.

Filmed entirely in Shanghai, China for Stranglehold's Stay True to John Woo contest. We focused on John Woo's philosophical aspects and deep meaning instead of only mindless action our competitors provided. Our goal: to create a short film w/ an immersive tragic tale

As just-turned 19 year olds, this is our first live action film and we learned what we can without any proper education and by just enjoying our most favorite films. It was shot on an HV20 with very little equipment.


Please comment and rate it if you enjoyed the film, I would really appreciate it.

 

[henke]

I didn't understand it, but I enjoyed it anyway!
Keep up the good work.

 

[Speculator]

We used the technique of quick transitions because we wanted to simulate that sort of feeling where the character would have an intense flashback of the key points in his/her life that led up to the final moment, death. The character could almost lucidly grasp his/her situation of what was happening in each event before suddenly moving on to another scene. The feeling that you could almost never figure everything out...unless you experience it again, and again, and again.
We wanted to catch John Woo's philosophy of bonding, goodness in people's heart no matter who they are, betrayal, heroic bloodshed, righteousness, and people triumphing over impossible situations no matter what the outcome...all under the strict guideline of 2.5minutes.

 

[Speculator]

Hi everyone!

Would like to update everyone on the current situation of the contest. The top 10 films have been posted (available to vote at www.myspace.com/strangleholdgame) and the winning film revealed (leaked actually...official publication will be in August where it would premier on spike TV).

Although we didnt make it to the top 10, we did make it to the semi-finalist phase! Thats a total of 16 videos out of 400!

You can view the other videos here:

Grand prize winner:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...eoid=2039371201

And missing top 5 videos (including ours):

http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseact...01-b52daac56d6e

Again, we would like to thank you all for your support!

PS: I would like to add, if your interested, that there is some drama currently going on the contest concerning the top 10. It seems three of the videos actually void contest eligibility but the sponsors arnt doing anything about it.

 

[jblles]

that picture reminds me of the matrix with morpheus in that red chair

 

[Eximious]

That tease seemed to have some pretty good production value.

1. I really enjoyed some of the lighting, especially the shot with lots of paper lanterns in the background.

2. The score set the mood rather well. Shoddy music seems to be one of the most common problems in amateur films.

But, I have one big issue:

3. I know you said you were trying to make fast, frenzied cuts to achieve a flashback type of atmosphere, but I felt the cuts were too rapid. It seemed like most of your shots were less than one or two seconds. That's really intense. Even MTV has like 3-second shots.

Still, all in all, pretty sweet.

 

[Speculator]

Thanks for the comments! It's difficult to fit so much content and fulfill the contest restriction of 2.5 min for a film. But the goal was trying to make an entire short with a deep story (even if it was a little hard for the audience to understand) and not just an eyecandy gunfight short. Had a lot of fun doing our first movie, and im looking forward to developing new projects.

BTW: We won semi-finalist status for this film

New youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYPmPHZRmxE