In response to Don Davis...

A. We are a highschool film club, we can't hire a composer. Look at all the other films on this site and tell me how many have their own music.
B. Country kids? We live in Oakland California, a city in the middle of other big cities. No, not country kids.

I think a lot of people don't realize that this film has an extremely low budget, which is a compliment if you ask me.

As for the script, yea it's chliche, so what? It's a trailer.

All of those wide shots, CGI backgrounds. Even the mountain ones. We live in oakland remember?

And we did not build sets. We don't have any money remember?

Anyway post your thoughts on the trailer, if you want to explain anything a little more. Check out the demo too.

Hey Jesse, I wanted to say I dig your 2 trailers for Age of Ruash! really cool stuff! When are we gonna see the final product?

Thanks for all the positive reviews . I appreciate the good ones and the constructive bad ones. But, not the senseless bad reviews. Jesse already touched on one, but I'll just say: in response to "joe" who said "the close up on the bow arrow shots make me laugh i mean you let go and its like a 90 year old fart could walk fast then that arrow"...

Um, when things are seen in slow motion, usually they go slower than normal. The bow and arrows that we were using fired pretty damn quickly and could easily kill someone. Slow mo = slow arrow.

Also, in response to the "I could tell this was a bunch of rich ass country kids with alot of time on their hands" line...any money that we did scrape together to buy props and costumes was done entirely by fundraising, sponserships and outside personal donations. We didn't go running to mom and dad to fork over money for this project.

Anyway, we're premiering the movie June 11th, and 12th in Piedmont, so it should be up on the site a couple weeks after that.

-Cheerio

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Alex Hersler,

I loved the trailer. You have talent man. I loved the wide shot(just like everyone else) with the horse. If that was done CGI, that was awesome..great work man.

The final product premieres locally June 11th. My guess is I will have a cut off to studentfilms by a week after that. Then it will probably take a month or so for it to be posted. It will be broken up into 2 parts, it will be about 70 mins long.

The wideshot of the horse at night was filmed at day time and i just did loads of color correction. I actually just keyed out the sky and added in a better one to make it look more like night time.

The shot with the castles in the BG i added those in and I actually hate that shot, but other people seem to like it so whatev.

Some comments on the DEMO. We made the Demo for a high school talent show, with no intention of filming a real movie. I'm actually in it quite a bit. We got so much support that we decided to film the movie, which i hadn't written yet. That is why it is a Demo. We filmed it over one weekend, and then spent a week doing animation and post.

Anyway I'm glad to here some people are siked to see the movie. Anything else anyone wants to say about the trailer or the demo, questions, comments, anything, bust it out.

Thanks guys.

Jesse Tarnoff

Hey Jesse. The trailer looks great. Keep up the good work. When are you gonna send in some of your films from the summer? They were terrific. (Especially the one I was in )

What programs did you use to do the whole trailer/feature film?

I must say, I saw swords and said yes lemme see it! For 40 bucks I mean damn lol U all in SCA or sumthing like that?

AHahaha i love you guys.

In response to BIGMOVIE, You are absolutly right. I have no idea why I decided to pay $20 rather than $10 to combine them. I make movies man, I don't think logically. And your Avatar is sweet.

In response to filmmakerfromwv, The trailer was edited in FCP4 which i have. Other than that there weren't any other programs involved for the trailer. For the Demo we used Terragen and FCP4.

In response to Josh (JW), Uhh, maybe I'll send em in. I don't know how to rip of DVD tho.

In response to MisterOrange, Swords are sweet. I am not into SCA but i am into EBAY. Actually for the Demo, with the $40 budget we got a bunch of those $2 plastic cleavers and used those. There was only one real sword in it, and it is actually wrapped in tape to hold it together. It was my friends from a long time ago.

In Response to Thomas Varrette, thank you for such a great review. I will answer your questions here as well as write you an email.

When the main guy is pulling out the sword and the camera is spinning around him, I was in the back seat of a car with a camera and tripod set up. The beginning landscapes are computer generated.
The shots where we have a lot of people, we only had 5 people there that day. We took the idea of cropping an image and upped the scale of it. 5 people would draw there swords, then the person ont he edge would step over about the width of a person, and everyone else would move to the other side of him. We did it again and again and again. I don't know if you can tell but there is actually a whole second row of soldiers in the background.
The shot where the guy is floating in the air (that's me!) we once again manipulated the idea of cropping and layering. First, we only had 5 people there that day too, so we divided the screen up into thirds and choregraphed fight scenes for each one, making sure not to cross the invisable line. Then there was empty space in the top of the camera and we set up a ladder for me to jump off. Then we just layered over the ladder, put me and slow motion and it looks pretty sweet. (Don't think about it though...why would I want to be in slow motion? It just puts me at a disadvantage.) Also did the same kinda thing for the silouettes in the air. Cropped out the ladder (only had one ladder)

Yea about lighting we didn't have lights or anything, just sunlight. So what we had was what we got. I tried to fix some of the coloring, but wasn't as good at it then than i am now.

I wish i had a better quality, everyone always does. I have a VX1000.

All the costumes we got permission from the school to borrow their school chior robes and some other shirts and stuff from the costume dept. for acting.

In the trailer, skies were replaced. In the demo they were not.

Thanks a lot guys, any more questions i would be glad to answer.

way to go! not much to say. everyone else has said it already! very nice work.

As far as combining trailers, it counts as two separate films.

It would literally have to be one trailer in order to be just $10.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

so we can't do the "lost soldiers" thing any more? and have a trailer and a scene... or something like that? aww.... nvmind. such a good deal anyway!

That was some sort of strange deal we did if I remember...but ideally it would be two different films.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

J.P. wanted them presented as a collection of films and not separate pieces.

It was a special exception that we worked out because J.P. has a "gajillion" of films on Studentfilms.com.

Yes "gajillion" is a technical term. Just like C-47.

It is an interesting problem, but the official line of the site is that a film cannot be a string of small films just to circumvent the hosting fees (which are arguably small).

Posting individual films will result in individual stats and reviews - which are much more helpful to the filmmaker.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

Whatever i don't care about hosting fees. Anyone wanna talk more about the trailer? LOL.

BTW the Halo Soundtrack rocks.

Jesse Tarnoff

Yes Jesse, the trailer's fx were pretty cool.

I'm looking forward to hosting the full length film.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

Someone said that the age group of the actors would have been better if it were higher. Everybody in this film is in high school. It's HIGH SCHOOL we can't get professional actors. LOL. Its funny that people grade you down on the age of your talent, but i can see how it makes some sense. If i could hire Vieggo i would have.

Jesse T

yeah, don't worry about that man. Somebody always complains about the age. But most people agree that if you are learning, your all good.

So we are premiering The Age of the Ruash this Friday, June 11th at 8:30 and holding an additional screening on Saturday, June 12th at 8:30. Both screeings will be held at the Allan Harvey Auditorium in Piedmont, CA (which is basically sorrounded by Oakland). Anyway, if you're in the bay area, I highly recommend checking it out, it should be a night of high energy, good vibes and a good film. Thanks.

Jesse Tamoff and all his crew,

I just finished watching your trailer and I have to say I aplaud you and your crew for this excellent job. One of my favorite parts would be a WIDE SHOT of two actors with swords in their hands charging at each other in the air with the sunset in the back. Excellent shot.

I thought the acting was great for kids who don't do this for a living, high school kids? Great job. Lighting looks great too and thumbs up to directing.

Now I would have liked seeing less CGI and more of your actors and shots at first, but the CGI is great no doubt about it, not to mention that it really gets you hooked when you first play the trailer. Also the slo-mo part getting to the end of the trailer (in the middle of a massive battle), I would have cut that out, I guess that effect doesn't really go with that type of movie or genre, but it looked fairly good in my opinion, just an opinion. Overall, EXCELLENT job guys, im extremely impressed, keep up the great work and dedication and I hope to see the full length version soon.