I expect our objectiveness on the subject is probably a little slanted. What we can tell you is it’s uber low budget and fairly amateurish, but we think there will be a certain percent of you who will like it – if you can make it to the end that is. The story takes a while to unfold and is kind of loaded in the third act. It’s been available online for a while and we’ve received feedback on it ranging from amazing to the worst movie ever. *We still stick by our thought that this premise could be made into a theatrical movie.
>Well…. In 2003 we chose to make our first film a feature film (**this is pre Bad Guy Films). Fresh out of Film School, without a clue about what it took to actually complete a feature film (the film school was more prep for working in the industry as opposed to how to make a movie), we chose to make a feature film over the course of the summer, using our own money with a volunteer cast and crew. Now the silver lining to this tale is we actually have a finished project to show for it, but learn from our mistake…
Our mistake? We should have made a bunch of short films first.
There will always be that one in a million film that comes along that goes against what we are saying, so this is directed towards the 999,999 other filmmakers who are thinking of just going for it. We just went for it. We took out loans and lines of credit, bought all our own equipment and threw caution to the wind. Then came the longest summer of our lives full of stress and exhaustion and mass amounts of compromise all in an attempt to get to the finish line. We’ll admit that we loved making the film and reveled in the process, but damn did we stray from our original vision just to get in the can.
Then came post production… which is where most non completed films go to die, whether feature or short films. Ours easily could have, as a combination of our own ineptness, a revolving door of sound editors, and a composer who was extremely busy with his day job dragged the completion of the film to almost a stand still. Well over a year after shooting, it was completed… but it wasn’t very good.
Meanwhile, as the film sat in post production limbo, we shot several short films just for fun. And wow, what an insane difference between the two. We could shoot a short film in a week or even weekend and have it finished in a month… it didn’t cost too much and it afforded us the opportunity to take on more roles of production and actually learn the craft. In the year after we shot the feature film we learned exponentially more than we did under the stress and pressure of an unguided feature film. Had we made the feature film after a year of experimenting and learning via short films we 100% know the feature film would have been a way better production solely on the fact we would have utilized our time on set way more efficiently and our original version would have had a way better chance of actually getting shot.
Though completed the feature film merely sat on a shelf. Several years after the fact and light years better at editing we re-edited it for something to do… and we kind of liked it, liked it enough that we felt confident enough to share it with the world via online video. Moral of our story is though the temptation is there to make that feature film calling card, we suggest getting your feet wet with some short films first, to hopefully prevent a lot of work for little reward scenario.