We’ve been covering it for a while now, including having director/writer/producer/actor Darren Kemp on to chat with us in one of our older podcasts and now the time has finally come. Aliens Epilogue has been released!
The short movie clocks in at just under 30 minutes and includes many talented members of the community as well as Trevor Steedman, the man who played Wierzbowski in Aliens (as a different character) and Terry English, the armorer from Aliens. It’s easily up there amongst the best of the Alien fanfilms. But enough of my words, watch for yourself and let the guys know what you think on their Facebook page:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4w6rtvid6I
A minor complaint, why do the Triotech guys have their logo on their uniform when they're stealing things from a facility with security cameras?
Had digitally comp in rocks in the background to hide them.
That's...uh...a pretty big oversight.
Once again, the curse of the fan film where you have one person fulfilling half a dozen different functions. Stuff gets neglected. This Star Wars thing I'm still working on had a dedicated DP, and the shot selection is still very mundane. Frustratingly so. There were some restraints working with green screens, and they did get some different angles for one or two shots, but all in all I end up working over time trying to spice things up in post with little success. Oddly enough, one of the few scenes they took the camera off the the tripod and had it circling the two actors - crew and equipment are visible!!
And you should be, it was a very impressive effort.
Hello,
I don't want you to feel that I'm being bad with you.
It's not intended but the only constructive criticism I could find is maybe learn the art of photography and composition.
It's not an easy task to shoot for sure, but imagining yourself the film before doing it is even harder especially when you have to justify the form and shape of every composition of every shots to make it a coherent whole.
I have no problem to admit anyway that you had hard time to made this fan film and I congratulates you because I know it's not an easy task.
Yay! I was at the first screening!
I have to admit I had a huge boner during the end credits.
Actually, the end credits weren't shown at the convention, I stopped playback as they came up .
Seriously though, all feedback is welcome. Constructive criticism is always helpful.
We're happy with the end result with the money, time, resources and equipment that we had to work with but appreciate that not everyone will enjoy it, which is fine of course.
Cheers
Darren
And I'm tired of credits that scroll up for 3 minutes with the same 5 names listed. If you get that much of a boner seeing your own name spelled out just write it on the wall 50 times. Other than that good.
I'd probably rank them:
Redemption
Epilogue
SEED
i agree. i found lots of moments in which i thought "this could use a low angle or a continuous sequence", that shouldn't happen.
Props are awesome but cinematography is totally absent.
And Cinematography is the most important since even non-paid film can looks really beautiful.
No one tries hard to use friends and family. There's just the convenience of having people you already know and can get along with, without taking up extra time to audition people. Plus it's likely these people 'get' what you're trying to do over trying to explain it to strangers.
Obviously it's better to use actual actors - but if they suddenly get a paying gig or an audition for a paying gig; there's a good chance they're going to do that over your non-paying gig, despite the fact you have a bunch of crew standing around waiting for them (also not being paid) and you're spending your own money to stage the whole thing.
I will shortly find out if dodgy acting can be improved with ADR....
AVP Redmeption link Huddo - here.
Had another look. I remember now why I didn't finish watching it. It's very dark. Not AvP:Poo dark, but there's a lot of stuff with low light which gets irritating. Anyway watched the whole thing. It's main problem is the Alien acid has the pH of weak tea. And Predator can slice up Aliens with gay abandon with nary a drop of acid getting anywhere near him, and dead Aliens don't miraculously cause hull breaches - even when a PredAlien is felled in what appears to be the main hangar and therefore the lowest deck on the ship. When it turns out theres another deck below - STILL the acid does f**k all. That aside, it's extremely well done.
Well, yeah I can sort of gather that but...link?
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ft0.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcSFrQ1PL94FBHMA-ZQHHOU7Fpgsg09iA1V_9atLVQ3SgPp3HdWI&hash=46ab6af5e5667d5905fc3ecfaa207297d7051bf3
A fan film that's AvP related.
On the acting:
I'll jump in and agree with mostly everyone but I'll be more blunt. That acting was shitty. I think Trevor Steedman looked like the only person who actually cared and tried to put effort into interpreting a character. Everyone else was just meh. I came to the realization when the marines were lining up and the sergeant is saying things that a sergeant might say, that Apone might have said, but basically mumbling it. No attitude, no intensity, just....bblllllaaaahhhh.
But again, the movie looked great. Even if it didn't know the Aliens as much as SEED, SEED is absolutely horrible. It doesn't even look that great. The costumes were good but it was shot horribly. This actually had a bit of effort in that department.
I think with the actors though...people try too hard to use friends and family and whatnot. You don't know how easy it is to find aspiring actors who will work for free. They just want their image out there and they want people to know their name and that they can perform, it's not that hard.
Praising one fan film does mean anyones forgotten others. Conveniently or otherwise.
For whatever reason I never finished watching Redemption.
Same as every other fan film in existance.
I think everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten about Redemption. That sorta set the benchmark for fan films and CGI.
There was some nice touches here. General story, camera work, editing, sets, a lot of effort went into it. Marine costumes, weapons were good. The alien costume was alright apart from the teeth but it's difficult to compare this fanfilm to SEED. The human story is better here but the aliens didn't get much screentime. There was a lot more creature stuff in SEED even if the action was a bit chaotic, they put a lot of work into the costumes. I don't think you can deny that. As already said, I wish more effort had gone into the delivery of lines. Some of the guys were quite good but more often than not, they may as well have been reading the lines off of their hand. But overall, it's one of the better fan films we've seen in this franchise.
but i enjoyed it. it was good, for a fan film.
I think I enjoyed more on a...nostalgia level than a technical one.
Yeah, I laughed at that bit too. I
But it was kinda the point and they did put it on front street, so can't complain too loud.
That bit when the dude shoots the lab technician accidently. "Aw bollocks!"
It suffers from the problems that plague every fan film. Script needed a good edit to reduce the exposition and stuff lifted straight from Aliens (even taking the 'You know you don't need to say all that' gag into account), editing needed to be a lot tighter, acting from people who aren't actors.
But that said, the main characters (ie. the marines) all had a goofy charm - especially Kemp. The CGI was generally pretty good, particularly Gateway. But what made this not only the best Alien fan film, but one of the best fan films of any franchise - is the costumes and the hardware. All first class.
Very enjoyable overall.