Student Film - The Scarlet Avenger

Most movie reviewers will not revives submissions of student films. I understand that you can get buried with many films that all surround, ninjas, pirates, scateboard tricks or have suicide as a main theme. I imagine that for some it’s painful to watch an armature film. I however love the passion and the raw energy of a student driven project. Many are not done well, but really what do you expect, it’s a student making this film. They are just learning this art form. Even Spielberg, Coppola and Stone have all started out as students.

However there are some film makers who really shine with their story telling and there used of the equipment. If you want my honest opinion and critique of your work feel free to send me a link and I will post it on my blog.

My first student project review comes from Scott Clements, he is Canadian and has made a hero film that harkens back to the days of cliffhanger serials, and it mixes elements from Indian Jones and The Phantom.

Please enjoy it and I will give you my thoughts after you see it.
The Scarlet Avenger (1997 student film) from Scott Clements on Vimeo.

The movie was fun to watch, I appreciate how much work went into this film. They had a very diverse cast; usually student films have a bunch of young people all doing the parts because the film maker gets his buddies to perform. It was well cast and had a good spread in the ages of the performers.

Normally you have to overlook the sets and props and costumes because of budget constraints but the set design in this film really gives you the feeling of being in that time period. Great work on making sure you had the small details.

 I think that making this film all in black and white would have been better because of the setting. It has all the trappings of a good noire film.

Clements wants to develop this character into a feature length film. He has a plan to modify the story. There are a lot of similarities with Captain America characters but after talking with him, he explains where he got the character names.

“We'll definitely be changing the character names for the feature. The name for 'The Scarlet AVENGER' actually came from a mash-up of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and 'The Avengers' British TV Show. BUCKY came from the 1939 Buck Rogers serial. I saw it when I was a little kid and misheard the sidekick's name as 'Bucky', when it was actually 'Buddy'. I actually meant it as a tribute to that far off memory. THE SKULL was inspired by 'The Crimson Ghost', but admittedly the name was partly borrowed from 'The Red Skull', because I didn't know what else to call him and it was a bit of a tribute to 'Skeletor' from 'He-Man'. However, we've chosen appropriate new names for the feature.”

With the quality of this student project I think he has a good chance of making a go at this kind of film. Imagine what he could do with a real budget and support of a production team.