"SPY WARS".......The Release

Well it's been 22 months since I started this project and I am calling it done!

I have two files, one MOV version and one WMV version. The compression really kills the look and sound especially the MOV version...quicktime.

Be warned that this film is not canon and has a twist that you may not like, but hey that comes with the territory. You will see Jedi verses Sith and the dreaded wooded scene! I left "of the" out of the title though

I learned much through the making of this project and obviously I have more to learn. I want to thank all of you for your help and inspiration. Enjoy!

The Crawl:

With the destruction of the Death Star by the Rebel Alliance, Emperor Palpatine expands the Empire's resources to rebuild the weapon. He enslaves colonies on the planet Cahenum and gives Darth Vader authority to enforce the operation of a fuel fractionator that will supply the fuel needs for the construction of the new Death Star. Vader utilizes the Imperial war machine to swing the iron ball. The citizens of Cahenum constantly seek for a way to escape.

Unknown to Vader and his elite forces is a slave among the workers that favors the Rebel cause, a Spy, and begins to seek defection. He is instructed by the Rebels to steal schematics of the fractionator and provide intelligence to the Rebels to purchase his escape.

Unknown to the Rebels is a new Sith apprentice Tasblades, a mysterious shadow of Darth Vader, also known as.....Lanakin.



SPY WARS QUICKTIME

SPY WARS Windows Media Player


Junfanman (aka Tasblades)

Peace

 

Downloading...

EDIT : all fixed now.

 

I'm downloading it now. Can't wait! Sounds good!

 

Ok, from what you said in your post, it's taken you almost two years to make that film, and that is obvious in the script.

The dialogue was pretty boring, I must say. I personally think it kills Vader to give him those cliched lines from the movies. Same problem with the Jedi. His lines are not particularly exciting, it's what we've heard and seen a thousand times before. but as I said, I guess you wrote the script two years ago. At the time it might have been easier to forgive all that.

I won't comment on the CG, since I have never even tried it. Looked good to me, that's all I can say.

The first bit of fighting (Master versus Padawan)... not very exciting.
The big fight had good speed, though. Movements weren't flashy and all, which is maybe what you were going for, but the speed brought is a nice aspect. Nice touch on the branches on fire, too.

I had troubles reading the opening crawl, so I had to come back here and read this part of your post (I had skipped it the first time), and sometimes the dialogue was a little hard to hear.

I feel the main problem was the dialogue. Consider that for your next movie. Again, it wasn't downright bad, not at all, but it's all stuff we hear in 95% of fanfilms.

Anyway, the flick as a whole was entertaining, and it's great that you pulled it off after 22 months of hard work, congratulations on that !

 

Well it's been 22 months since I started this project and I am calling it done!

Please, don't. Needs waaay too much work still.




My review:






Uh......




That....that.....wasn't Vader.

The suit was terrible. Sorry, but wow. The lines....I can't really comment. They were far too muffled, and coupled with the intesively loud "breathing" from Vader, it was impossible to judge. So, pretty much I had no idea what he was saying.

The opening crawl was too fast, and your choice of words got confusing at times. The sound effects on the lightsaber duels were terribly off, although I did particularly enjoy the speed of the second. The lightsaber fight didn't make sense, really, the way it was set up, but the speed pretty much made up for it. What was up with the Sith's first lightsaber? When it turned off, there was a funky black line on the screen. I didn't get that.

Um....lets see.....Why did you recycle so many of the old ships. I hate that. The infiltrator and Falcon!?!? Why? Somehow I don't see Han lending it off to some Jedi he doesn't know, when he found it hard to lend it to one of his good friends.

My worst complaint would be Vader, overall. The storyline wasn't exciting to me. It was the same-old fanfilm deal.



Over all, I'd give it about a C-


Not bad, but not good. I think it may have potential, but thats only if you are willing to re-do a lot of things. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Peace.


-DB77

 

Spy Wars looks very slick. Great costumes and set design. The camera work and attention to lighting was terrific, far better than most Star Wars fanfilms. There's a lot of depth in the live action footage. CG work was very clean and the motion was believable, although it needed motion blurring. Compositing was a little fuzzy on the edges, but still very good. The main Lightsaber duel was engaging and a bit gruesome (I liked it). There was a lot of attention to minor details too - like how the lightsaber left a burn mark on the ground.

Congrats on finishing your project. It was a good watch.

 

There was a lot of attention to minor details too - like how the lightsaber left a burn mark on the ground.


Not exactly. I sure hope that was not supposed to be a burn mark in the grass. First off, the lightsaber would turn off when it left the guy's hand. This thing falls on the groung then its blade turns black. It was very bad. To me, it looked like a huge editing mistake.

 

No, I think it was a burn mark. Like the branches on fire, it IS attention to detail, not an editing mistake.

Apprently the effect wasn't convincing enough for you, that's all.

 

If it looks like an editing mistake, it defenitly is....

 

If it looks like an editing mistake, it defenitly is....



Took the words outta my mouth.

 

If it looks like an editing mistake, it defenitly is....

No, not really.

 

Hello again all?


Here are some critiques that I hope will help you improve on your next project. Let me say I enjoyed the movie and applaud your efforts. Your croma keying is better than most fanfilms? But:

As always my greatest beef is the audio. Your speech is WAY too low compared to your speech.

The sound editing of the first Lightsaber fight leaves much to be desired? The movements compared to the sounc are off?

The CG falcon is a good attempt, but your characters are too small compared to the cockpit and if you wanted the roll to be natural the movement would not bee so stiff...

An advice?. Stay away from ?standard lence flares?

Varying your sound effects during the saber fights is a GOOD idea.

Your choreography could need some work.

Lighting is key to recording a scene: The lighting during the death of the villain is WAY lower than during the fight.

A slight blur of all your CG models might be a good idea.

Depth of Field is your friend.

The Falcon does not stop in space to enter Hyperspace.

Your Visuals look GREAT, except the movement of the TIE in the pursuit scene? The TIE keeps a straight direction of flight, while rolling? It would swing to the left and right...

I didn?t quite understand the title? what does it have to do with the fanfilm.

I hope you take this as a helping hand and continue to improve on your great work? kudos on the effort but keep trying?

All the best
OnkelD

 

Not bad but it needs some work. Basically all said above. And I know exactly what you did for your sabers because I almost did the same thing. You rotoed in alam then did a ryan w glow in ae. I mean they didnt look horrible but they didnt retain the fluidness that they should.

Nice Bruce Lee tribute there in the begining. Me being a Bruce Lee fan myself I easily picked it out from the time he hit him in the head.

Nice CG but what is mentioned above definetly applies. Good Job overall.

 

I doubled over laughing at the Bruce Lee reference. There's something about a silly southern drawl on a Jedi...

Only one real problem that hasn't been touched:

The choreeography. Oh my. A couple things here. One, your lead needs to sell more. He's too mechanical, lightsaber conflict onthe wholeis very fluid. Secondly, I question someof the choreography. Specifically, the one moment when the evil dude has wo lightsabers, the lead blacks one, and the evil guy KICKS the Jedi. With his other hand, lit lightsaber, just..held out to the side. Not moving. Why didn't the evil guy just..y'know..take the momentthat the jedi was defenseless and y'know..slice him in half? Or is this just one of those suspension of disbelief things?

Secondly, the short moment of hand-to-hand combat. Ahh..why was the Jedi punching at the air next to the evil dude's head? And not looking at him? And not..well..SELLING the punches? Eh. I'm sorry. I'm a choreography buff, and these points lower the film a few notches in my book. Aside from the stick-bashing, the rest of the choreography was fairly nice, looked decently complex.

 

Thanks for all of the comments! I will try to address some of your concerns.

We did the best we could on the costumes with what we had, I am sorry that Vaders outfit did not meet Lucas quality.

The saber falling to the ground was not an editing mistake...how could that be an editing mistake? The mistake was done durring filming, instead of using the saber prop without a dowel for that shot, we forgot and left it in. When I stated editing, I had to hide the dowel and this was the only way I could do it. It is a burn mark left by the saber. Yes the saber probably should have went out sooner but it didn't...we left the dowel in...no EDITING mistake though.

The sabers did NOT have any AE enhancements, it's all AlamDV.

The Padawan and Jedi "fight" was not a "fight", it's supposed to be a training session where the Jedi is teaching the Padawan via a simple "drill"...not fight, this is why it was so slow and deliberate.

Yes I agree with you about the sound and motion blur detail...I'm still learning the art of CG and still have much to learn. What you see, I learned very fast and did what I could with the time and resources that I had...It's no excuse for the lack of detail, it's just where I'm at.

FUNK E, I couldn't really make sense of your last post, everything seems to be running together, but hey that's me

I am sorry that this has similar "Star Wars" environments, space craft and characters because this is a BLADERUNNER fanfilm.

The title had a lot to do with the movie, just read my original post to get the synopsis or in the "Star Wars" world you could call it the opening crawl.

We just had a good time doing this project and we did it like we wanted too. If I was making a true to science movie, I would have tried a "Star Trek" fanfilm. I have met so many good people here and will be doing projects with them in the future.

Thanks for the replies folks, I appreciate the CONSTUCTIVE criticism.

Peace

 

I was referring, in the first part of my post, to the choreography at 10:25 or so of the movie. The second part, at 10:43. The choreography there is just incredibly slow and sloppy. Even if you had undercranked, I don't think it should have made the final cut. Is there anything else I said that you're unclear on?

 

No Funk E, got you clear now, at least you have spaces in between your words

Again the transisiton with the Padawan and Jedi was not a "fight"..it's a drill although it may be sloppy, it's a drill. Actually it's called a "3 count drill" in Kali..it's a beginners drill.

The second fight didn't have anything "undercrancked"...it may have been sloppy but no undercranking. Most of that exchange is actually a drill as well called "Sumbrada". We mixed the drill with a twist. We didn't rehearse anything till the day we shot so maybe it shows

Peace

 

Just curious...were the fight scenes filmed at a different speed than they were shown? It seemed like we were watching speeded up film rather than normal speed during the fight scenes...

 

I didn't mention the Padawan training at all. And whoa, now that I look at it, a good portion of the main lightsaber fight IS a drill. I knew I'd seen it before. Either way, it was a bad call to have him kick, rather than slash. Though it's very hard to choreograph a two-lightsaber versus one-lightsaber duel. In all reality, the person with only one weapon has no business winning the duel .

 

High RocketGirl, there was no undercranking in the fightscene. It was shot at 29.9 and rendered at 29.9.

Those were not lightweight Hasbro toys either. That would have been even faster. While I may not be the best film maker in the world, I have trained in Kali, Escrima and Arnis most of my adult life...I can handle a stick. The guy who played the Jedi has trained with me for about twelve years so he knew the drills as well.

Peace

 

In all reality, the person with only one weapon has no business winning the duel

Why is that? It's not the amount of weapons you have, it's the talent behind them. In REALITY the amount of weapons does not determine the outcome of a fight,...that I know...been there. But hey this is.....not reality.

Peace

 

Well, that's assuming that they were both masters. It's very difficult to defend against two weapons when you only have one, especially if the opponent is equal in skill.

 

I've seen plenty of Kendo bouts with one fighter using two shinia against a fighter with just one. And most the time I've seen the 'disadvantaged' one win

 

Well, since the bad guy bit the dust, I would assert that they were not equal in skill.

 

It's very difficult to defend against two weapons when you only have one, especially if the opponent is equal in skill.

True

But if you if you notice, the Jedi with one weapon was back peddling when the Sith pulled two sabers It was somewhat difficult?

Peace