This short film is intended to be a parody of the audition requirements of the History Channel's 'Top Shot', a shooting competition that... requires an audition. Since I've never seen 'Top Shot', ever, I had to familiarize myself with the show, so as to understand the spoofing. From the 'Top Shot' website...
Are you skilled with a pistol, a rifle or another firearm? You could win $100,000 in prizes on the hit marksmanship competition Top Shot. We’re looking for people with amazing shooting abilities and lots of charisma to take on exciting, physically demanding challenges that test their command of guns and projectile weapons.
It doesn't matter whether you're professionally trained or completely self-taught, an Annie Oakley or an average Joe. As long as you're in good physical shape, have mastered a firearm and can adapt to new weapons and intense physical situations, you could be America's next "Top Shot."
APPLY TODAY!
Email TopShotCasting@gmail.com with your name, city, state, phone number, a recent photo of yourself and a brief explanation of why you are America's "Top Shot." For more information, visit pilgrimstudios.com/casting/topshot. Producers will get in touch if they need additional information.
This is an ongoing casting call. Currently there is no deadline for submissions or schedule for the final casting process and production of the next season. Still, we’d like to hear from you!
Huh. I could do that, as I'm skilled with a variety of weapons, including (but not limited to) pistols and knives. Rifles, well, I enjoy lever guns that have iron sights. Shotguns? any fool can use one of those! (just kidding; my inlaws are all duck - geese hunters and pride themselves on long-shot takedowns from their rented duck blinds, whilst sitting in rocking boats, in 20-degree weather where the even the dogs are shivery. Sheesh).
The review: bad news first. The film's soundtrack needs some major work. I've a nice set of speakers, and a subwoofer; the film's sound tracks up and down and side-to-side in an off-putting manner. The lead actor's voice, beginning at around 0:17, is tinny, and stays tinny throughout; I had to turn up the sound level to hear him. Worse, at 1:54, the sound drifts way left-speaker.
All good from here out! The shooting outtakes from various at-the-range videos are excellent. At about the 1:00 mark, the actor gets active in your neighborhood, taking out various suburbanites; when I first watched that, I though "uh-oh, there's gonna be some whining from the usual suspects: crybabies who think that this sort of thing isn't promoting safe shooting or bringing the shooting sports up to a high-enough level!" Sure enough, at the YouTube site, a comment from @GunWebsites...
Normally I like your vids.. not this one
I thought you were trying to be a positive example for the firearms community..
I just don't understand how this is funny.
@GunWebsites
Not a screeching rant from an anti-gun left-loon like one of MikeB302000's ilk, but still troubling. The intent of this short is NOT to promote 'gun safety' or anything like that, but to parody - spoof a for-reals shooting competition's audition, and to do so in a hilarious way. Cowboy's use of humans as the 'targets' is not any different from using humans as targets in 'Enemies at the Gates' or 'Sniper', or any of a long list of first-person shooter video games. If you want to protest actors getting shot, there's a long list of priors you can begin with. Lighten up, Francis!
Cowboy 'takes one' for the film at 1:48. One thing I'd like to have seen: the final shot, taken at 1:53, after carefully lining up on a glass beer bottle, didn't produce the visual of shattering glass (oh...something I'd never do - again: line up on a coke bottle at about 100 yards out, carefully acquire the target in my scope, and squeeze off a 6mm round that turned that coke bottle into a cloud of silicon dust! never again I say!).
Overall, I'll give this short a 3.7 out of a 5.0 possible. Audio gets a paltry 2.7; gunnery and weapons a solid 5.0.
(Now, where's that beer, Cowboy? )
UPDATE 11/5/11
Cowboy's final 'Top Shot Audition' cut, cleaned up and re-released:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuBaVxP8t0g
Looks (and sounds) great!
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