"The Letter" - 7D short film on Vimeo

00:00

180

See all Show me

12. Angel Wings - DARK Test

by Thomas Moser

1 week ago

11. Angel Wings

by Thomas Moser

1 week ago

10. Bigger Isn't Always Better

by Thomas Moser

3 weeks ago

9. Thomas Moser - VFX Demo Reel

by Thomas Moser

2 months ago

8. Be Still My Dear - Short Film

by Thomas Moser

5 months ago

7. Thomas Moser - Motion Graphics Demo Reel

by Thomas Moser

5 months ago

6. Thomas Moser - Animation Demo Reel

by Thomas Moser

6 months ago

5. Sisters-by-Marriage Trailer - HD

by Thomas Moser

1 year ago

4. "The Letter" - 7D short film

by Thomas Moser

2 years ago

3. The Fountain

by Thomas Moser

2 years ago

2. Office Break

by Thomas Moser

2 years ago

1. Moser Brothers Demo Reel

by Thomas Moser

2 years ago

A short film we did as a test for our new Canon 7D camera.

Synopsis: A professional hitman gets sick then discovers that his insurance company has denied him coverage. He deals with the problem the only way he knows how.

Written, directed, and edited by the Moser Brothers
Story by the Moser Brothers and Peter Mikhail

Gunman - Christopher Mur
Agent - Robert Ryan
Doctor - Katharine Phillips Moser
Punk - Afshin Peymani

Crew
Josiah Patrow
Aryan Peymani
Afshin Peymani
Samantha Yumori

Music by Paul Ruxton, Talking House Productions

Cut in Final Cut Pro and graded in Color

Credits

Thomas Moser
Director
Joel Moser
Director

301 Likes

Alexander Belan
5 days ago
john pyatt
1 month ago
H film A Ogando
1 month ago
Laja
1 month ago
Nick Wright
1 month ago
Gamma Ray Film LLC
2 months ago
Jonas H.H.
2 months ago
Kris Night
3 months ago
Ruben Rodas
4 months ago
This Hideous Replica
4 months ago

See all 301 likes

Tags

Krishna Yalla 2 years ago

loved it! best drama work on the 7d so far. keep it up. By the way what lenses did you use and what did you use for sound.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks! The lens is an EF 24-70mm. The sound was recorded from an AT shotgun mic to a Zoom H4N.
Fusco Brothers Films 2 years ago

good job on audio and the footage is very clean and smooth,nice.
John Caballero 2 years ago

Excellent! Obama health care plan anyone?
Krishna Yalla 2 years ago

do you find the zoom enhances the audio that is recorded from the mic or this audio is already coming from a otherwise good mic.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

It definitely doesn't enhance the quality. You have to have a good mic for sure. But the quality of the recording of the Zoom is excellent.
Mark Simonson 2 years ago

I like the look and feel of the garage scene.
Conrad Studios 2 years ago

Uhm, holy shit. lol
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Is that a good or bad reaction, Connie? :)
Conrad Studios 2 years ago

Its a good reaction!
7DPRO.COM 2 years ago

Well, I loved it! Well done! :-)
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks!
Arnaud Muller 2 years ago

Very nice, photography is amazing. What lights did you use ?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Arnaud! We used a set of Arri Fresnels: a 1K and two 650s. These were blue-gelled to simulate the window light coming in. We also had a white bounce card.
Joel Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Arnaud (co-director here)! You have some really sweet images in your reel :)
Arnaud Muller 2 years ago

Thank you guys, keep up the good work !
Ryan Woo 2 years ago

well done. Congratulation!
Will Gallego 2 years ago

Love the story. Hope Hollywood finds this and turns it into a movie or series and make you and your crew a ton of $$$. Best of luck. Keep the movies coming. I am a fan.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks! As they say, from your lips to the Hollywood Gods' ears. :)
Paul Yonna 2 years ago

That was great..... but.. but... but I NEED to know what happens next....!!
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Me too! Haha! We're working on it, but that's all I can say about that. :)
Paul Wong 2 years ago

I like the ending, you know he goes and wacks the rest of them.
El Holandes 2 years ago

Another movie which shows how important audio is in film. It is sure half the work and often forgotten element. The quality is high. I would prefer some faster editing. How many 7d-s did you use?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks! We just had the one 7D.
Simon Packman 2 years ago

The doctors office scene was lit really well. That was cool. Just out of curiosity what camera presets did you use?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Simon! We used the superflat preset for the whole movie, except for the doctor's angle in that scene. That was the first scene shot and we still had it accidentally set to Standard.
Simon Packman 2 years ago

Seriously though, Wow really good directing in general a great story
Paul Wong 2 years ago

I loved it, dramatic and suspenseful! Nice shots and editing! Let me nit-pick now. The iPhone call was bogus as you can see the screen when he calls and starts to talk, it shows the menu screen not the in-call screen. Being a Professional Hitman, why would you need health coverage? You make Gobbbbs of tax free money!!! =)
Joel Moser 2 years ago

Paul, you're only the second person to mention the iPhone error, and you're right, but hey, we didn't have time to fix it in post :)
Paul Wong 2 years ago

I'm still in awe! GJ!
Wayne Arthur 2 years ago

Really looks great! Did you use Magic Bullet, or Color only? Were you on a flat picture style or standard? Really impressed
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Wayne! We shot with superflat and graded I'm Color. No Magic Bullet.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

That should say "in Color.". Stupid iPhone. :)
Christopher Visser 2 years ago

Excellent short. I think my favorite aspect was the audio. So clean and natural. Very well shot too. And to echo someone earlier, this is one of the best dramas (or just narratives in general) I've seen on a 7D.
rickflick 2 years ago

Well made film ...only the plot was a bit thin.
Alex Onfire 2 years ago

Well Done! The editing was really great!
Jon Chema 2 years ago

Wow this is the exact setup i just bought...Zoom h4n with shotgun and 24-70mm. I'm shooting a short this weekend. Any tips? what FF did u use?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Just take your time. Light it well. Pay careful attention to audio. We didn't have a follow focus this time but normally we use a Chrozeil. We need to gets nmew gear ring for our new lenses.
Jon Chema 2 years ago

Thanks..what did u light with? Any reflectors or scrims used?
Joel Moser 2 years ago

Jon, (co-director here) we used a bounce card for some things to get the light nice and "big". You can use anything big and white. We also used a windshield reflector here and there. For the lights we had two 650 fresnels and a 1k fresnel, with dimmers. A big piece of bounce is just as good as a soft box or diffusion frame, but you have to make sure you fill the card up with light, since the card effectively becomes the light source, and you want it big relative to the subject for a soft, natural light. Hope that helps.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

We had a 1k, two 650's, a double, and a sheet of white foam core.
hak 2 years ago

Excellent work guys. Just got my 7D and can't wait to make some short films. Lighting and audio were real nice! Anxious to see more from you all. Regards, Kenny
Glen Graham II 2 years ago

Amazing work! The shots were amazing and you had an interesting story
Make Some Tea 2 years ago

This looks absolutely fantastic. This looks and feels very filmlike. Well done. Thank you for sharing all the info.
Hassan Aziz 2 years ago

Hi Thomas, its really great :)

Did you have a rig for the canon 7D if so can you share some details. I want to get the canon 7D soon! Please do let me know of your setup if possible. Thanks
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Hassan! We have an older Bogen tripod that we used, a Cobra Crane, a home-made skateboard dolly, and a shoulder mount. We originally got that equipment for our DVX, but most of it has worked well for the 7D.
69Tm 2 years ago

after seen this amazing video i take a time to read little about this camera i read this: "Cons: video sound not very usable (use external mic)". You did it? i'm not PRO so i would like to know if the video sound is good after all or you if used external mic.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

We recorded the sound with a boom mic to a Zoom H4n. We did not use the camera audio for the reason you mentioned.
Tim Wilson 2 years ago

Footage looked good... but seriously? Is this a lame attempted to promote government controlled health care?
Because we all know throughout history that governments have never committed any atrocities.
Joel Moser 2 years ago

Tim, if you're seeing politics in this, then you need to lighten up, dude. This story comes from a friend of ours, and it really happened to him. Except the revenge killing of course.
Tim Wilson 2 years ago

Fair enough.
Desiderata 2 years ago

I'm from Canada and I'm all for social health care. Just like every other industrialized country in the world except for...USA! Go figure!
peterlames 2 years ago

Nice to see such great pictures from the 7d. Really a big statement for using this camera too (even though everybody doubts because of the aliasing-issue).
If you know how to shoot and postprocess you can produce awesome imagery. Thank you for proving that :-)
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Totally agreed. Every camera, especially in this price range, is going to have limitations. You just have to be aware of them and know how to work around them. If you do, you can make some really great images.
Peter Franklin 2 years ago

haha like an intense health care statement. thats great, a film about something thats defining our time.
love the camera too! nice diffused dramatic lighting and nice feel
Hassan Aziz 2 years ago

Thanks Thomas, hope to see some more cool stuff on your channel.
mctoom 2 years ago

Great cinematography and sound quality! The plot is not solid though.
Emmanuel Tenenbaum 2 years ago

I did enjoy this shortfilm. I like the concept of the killer who, as everybody, has problems with the administration. Well shot and acted. Congrats
George Bakalov 2 years ago

Well that is very much the way a good leftist will approach a situation like this, not?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Our hitman is no leftist. ;)
Matt M 2 years ago

Great story arc, a well crafted story in 3 minutes.
Corax Incarna 2 years ago

Hmm... something a bit off in this. With the final act I ended laughing (assuming it was meant to be humorous, with the musical style and the pacing), but now I'm not quite sure that was the intention. Don't know exactly what to think.

But the 7D... isn't that a still camera? If I'm correct in that belief, well done on the camera work. The weight of the camera (with pans and such) was very natural.
Alvin Nyemah 2 years ago

Very nice, is it me or the 7D is putting DOF adapters " Letus mini" and consumer camcorders out of business? only time will tell, about the sound, was all from the Zoom H4n and AT shotgun mic? or did you do anything to the sound in post to make it sound better. sorry for all the question, I'm new to the video and sound thing.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Alvin. I think there's still a place for camcorders for sure. Hopefully sensor sizes will continue to grow and the need for all that extra stuff will go away.

For the sound, it's pretty much as recorded. I did the sound editing and mixing myself and I don't personally know of any way to enhance it in post.
Blake Calhoun 2 years ago

Curious if you used any lens filters? Actor's skin seemed especially "silky", which is a good thing. Or maybe the Superflat setting did this on it's own... thanks.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Blake! No lens filters. We just used a soft light look and superflat. I probably would credit the lighting more than the superflat setting.
Trey Cook 2 years ago

Great work! Really enjoyed it.
Austin Upchurch 2 years ago

Nice! Would love to know which AT mic was used. Audio was sweet!
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks! I'll have to check the model when I get back into town. Glad to pass the info along.
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

It was an AT835b.
Lance R. Lucero 2 years ago

Nice!

vimeo.com/7093147
vimeo.com/7339043
George Loch 2 years ago

Great production values. The story idea is fun but development was ok (scene in car making calls was a little long for the overall length of the film). Excellent effort. Looking forward to seeing more work.
phillipj. woods 2 years ago

incredible
Wybe Pieter Feenstra 2 years ago

That was nice. I liked the lighting! I spotted two minor flaws though. There is a macbook powerbrick in the cabinet at 1.16 which isn't there a shot later. Also the guy is not making a phone call in the car because you can see all the app icons on the screen of the phone. I just couldn't help noticing :S
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Ha! You're the first one to notice the powerbrick. :)
Nick Bibbo 2 years ago

What model mic? It sounded Awesome!
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Nick! We used a AT835b. It's an Audio Technica shotgun condenser mic. Good quality and very affordable.
John Vine 2 years ago

Can you shoot a entire feature film on the camera?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Features have been shot on it. We're going to take a crack at it hopefully very soon.
Davon Corbett 2 years ago

do you know what feature films have been shot with it? oh and btw this is awesome, do you remember your render settings?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

The features haven't been released yet (the camera just came out last fall), but if you go to dvxuser.com you can find out more info.

Not sure which render settings you're referring to. We rendered the final project out to 1080p/23.98/h264 for Vimeo and Youtube.
Davon Corbett 2 years ago

i mean like what format? and you pretty much already answered the rest haha
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

We used Quicktime in Final Cut Pro. We transcode the footage from the camera to ProRes for easier editing. It stays ProRes until we finish, and from there we can pretty much output whatever format we want.

Hope that helps. :)
Paulo Monte Serrat 2 years ago

BRAVOOOOOOO awesome photography!, you just should work your acting a little bit lol, but very cinematic!
Graeme Hay 2 years ago

Awesome job on the video work and the actor's expressions are good (I was expecting the Killer to have a bit more forceful voice, but that just me). I'm impressed with the 7D "in the wild" use in your video.
Scaphoïde 3D 2 years ago

Super,
C'est d'une efficacité redoutable. L'image est bonne, la mise en scène terrible, le son impressionnant et les acteurs excélents. Un +++
Ah si juste un -
Il n'y a pas de sous titre francais ! (Sic)
Joel Moser 2 years ago

Thanks! Sorry for the lack of subtitles, but we don't speak French. Maybe next time.
Ray Jay 2 years ago

Hey Thomas…
Im speechless :) BRILLIANT!!!
What are possibilities of shooting a feature with this Cam?
Thomas Moser 2 years ago

Thanks, Ray! I'd say the possibilities are pretty good. I know of people who've done it. I'm planning on doing it sometime later this year. I don't see why it couldn't be done. The workflow isn't that much different than any digital camera except you have to sync the sound in post.
Ray Jay 2 years ago

Cheers for your Reply Thomas...
That sounds great… I was actually aiming at Sony’s HXR NX5U. But now I strongly feel that I should go for this. What is the Chroma subsampling? Is it 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or 4:4:4?
Thomas Moser 1 year ago

It records 4:2:0, although you can theoretically record out via the HDMI out to uncompressed 4:2:2.
Ray Jay 1 year ago

Thanks Thomas...
Lee Okami 1 year ago

this is insanely awesome, I need a resonable priced camera and it seems like the 7D with a Red Rock Micro (and a better mic) is the way to go. Your vid has almost sealed the deal for me
Joel Moser 1 year ago

Lee, (co-director here) you don't need the Red Rock Micro or any adapter to get shallow DOF, etc. But you're right, you need a better way to record audio. We used the Zoom H4N.
Thomas Moser 1 year ago

Yeah, like Joel said, the main advantage of this camera is that you get the large sensor/shallow DOF without the need for that extra cumbersome gear.
Lee Okami 1 year ago

cool, another question would be is now with the update on the 5D allowing it to play 24fps which should I invest in? the 7D or 5D

I am planning on filming short action (gunplay martial arts) stuff with my martial arts team.
Thomas Moser 1 year ago

If you can afford it, then go for it. There are two main advantages of the 5D: chip size and sensitivity. If you need that extra chip real estate (shallower DOF and no lens conversion) and extra stops, then it might be worth it.
Cody Gittings 1 year ago

Thomas,
Did you use any sort of external on-camera monitor in order to pull focus properly? I'm considering buying a monitor for my 7D as it seems rather difficult to pull focus by looking at the built in screen, especially during any shots where the subject-to-camera distance is constantly changing. Would you say that a monitor is necessary?
Thomas Moser 1 year ago

Hi Cody, we didn't use an external monitor, but you should be able to connect any newer computer monitor via HDMI fairly easily. I wish we'd had this, but we didn't have a lot of movement to and fro, so that minimized the amount of focus pulling we had to do.
Cody Gittings 1 year ago

Thomas,
Did you use any sort of external on-camera monitor in order to pull focus properly? I'm considering buying a monitor for my 7D as it seems rather difficult to pull focus by looking at the built in screen, especially during any shots where the subject-to-camera distance is constantly changing. Would you say that a monitor is necessary?