Icarus

Hey everyone,

Monty again, got another movie here.


[link]



So umm, first off. I WILL NEVER LIVE UP TO HALOID. Goddamn! That was one crazy month. It was a fluke I tell ya. Pure luck/coincidence.

Now that that's outta the way. This movie here was thisclose to being scrapped. I closed up the ends and pushed the pieces in place. But I have been so bloody buisy this last month that making this movie happen was quite a feat. I cut out about half of what I intended. I'm nonetheless glad to have finished, but as always this could have been so much better. Chunky motion data, some pretty bad layouts, a horrible rendition of myself, no ending to speak of. But all in all I still made it happen. And it happened for this:

www.myspace.comstrangleholdgame

The jist of it is, make a 2.5 minute movie that tributes to John Woo's Style, win $25,000

It seemed like destiny when I heard about this contest. Me who's been watching John Woo movies since I was 11 yrs old have been waiting for something like this. If only the timing were better that I could have made a better movie, as well as get around some of the other techinicalities which makes me already disqualified at any chance of winning that $25,000.

Regardless of that I still wanted to finish this movie, because more important than the money (though I wouldn't complain.) Is the notion that John Woo himself might see my work. And regardless of quality, wat I hope for most people to see my vision.

And that's what John Woo means to me. Vision and the drive for symbolism so strong that you're willing to sacrifice continuity and quality for sheer powerful symbolism. I think that's what makes him somewhat controversial. I hope for somehow my efforts to reach him and perhap strike a chord.

Some of the rules of the competition (which I've already broken) include:

1. Must not contain any copyright violations.
I'm using the theme song to Zone of the Enders 2, "Beyond the Bounds."

2. The video must only be on their myspace page.
Well nuts to that. Since there's one more reason I can't state the makes me ABSOLUTELY ineligible to win th prize. I might as well add it here to my collection and home for videos Gametrailers.com.


Some of you will notice I went with crows instead of the typical "John Woo doves" mostly because I felt adding a little of my own flavour. The quote in the contests profile has John Woo stating:

"Young filmakers need encouragement to grow; it is an aspect of my proffesion which I cherish deeply. I know the Stranglehold Short Film Contest will new new talent and with it, new possiblilites."


My first thought when I set out to make this movie was where is would take place. The Killer, my all time favorite John Woo movie, took place in a church, Hard Boiled in a hospital. I wanted something similar in terms of what sort of contrary scene I could make. My girlfriend out of the blue came up with a genious idea... A library.
Further down I was testing and rendering when I accidentally rendered the scene without any textures. Seeing my library completely white it hit me. A color scheme that I had had my eye on for some time was the perfect choice. Not onlyto make this movie more artistic, but also add to it's efficiency.


In fact this movie is me partly trying to also add an element of art into my movies. The color palette of strict white red and black was a choice I'm very happy I made. Someday I'll make the movie I really wanted to make with the color palette. So in this movie you'll see:

A stark white library/church With white books
An occaisional a red book.
Two protagonists dressed in black.
All of the antagonists garbed in black with a touch of red.
And black crows with red eyes.

It was also rather difficult, not aiming for my usual over the top fantasy styled action. And still I couldn't help wanting to defy the laws of physics here and there. So overall I hope this movie's artistic style and (somewhat) reasonable action scenes will entertain.


Mr. Woo if your reading, I too cherish filmaking, and cinematography. I feel the path that has lead me is similar to yours in that though my credentials and methods are questionable, my results are unarguable. You have been an inspiration, and I hope my path finds it's way towards you someday.


My next movie will top this a hundred fold. And will be crazy sexy to boot.

-Monty Oum