Another short film teaser/trailer

[Wanderlust]

Ok, after being called out by Sal306 in his post about other Schmoe's posting some of their work I've finally pieced together a small teaser for my short that is now in its final editing stage (leaving only visual effects, some adr, and scoring/sound design to go.)

Some notes regarding the teaser.

1)It's friggin' huge - 53.9 megs. Better have high speed to even attempt it. I'm posting this at work and am not even sure of what speeds can be attained from DSL/Cable.
2)It's Quicktime, and you might need to update if you don't have version 6
3)The website it refers to is in desperate need of an update. But I wanted to get this out for y'all to see since I have enjoyed this board for a few years now.
4) It's zipped, so you will need WinZip, WinRar, or someother decompression software to get to the AmberTease.mov file.
Ok, hope you enjoy it, I would appreciate any feedback as this was done with SDI downconverted footage and I will take all advice to heart when we cut the actual teaser/trailer in a few months.

Here is the link
http://www.zyfi.com/AmberTease.zip

[LilWolf]

Nice trailer. Shot well, a little to dark but maybe thats what you were going for. I didn't really get what the story was about, I'm guessing that one of those guys is going to save that little girl (Amber) from something. I don't know. The font you use looks to plain maybe use another one. The music was a good selection. I just think you may need to tell the story in a better way so the people viewing can get a better idea of what the story is about.

[sal306]

Can't....get.....it......to.......play............ ...............................









:confused:

[sal306]

Wait, got it!!! Very nice trailer, really love the some of the shots - and the filters u used were terrific. What camera did u shoot on and what editing system did u use - also, is this a short or feature length. And finally, how much was ur budget?


Thanks, great trailer:

sal306

[Tuukka]

1. Was this done on a shoestring budget? If so, your cinematographer has done a very good job. There was some unneeded shaky cam (the shot of the woman lying on sofa), but the compositions and use of light were quite effective.

2. Althought the Matrix tune is basicly a good choice for a trailer, it's maybe a bit too recognisable. I was thinking of Matrix right away.

3. The titles are terrible. If you don't know how to handle these things, I would advice you to contact some graphic designer.

4. The momentum doesn't build enough. I would advice you to show more relaxed pictures early on, and leave the most hectic ones to the end. The shot with the gunshot would work best in the end, where you have the sound of a gun. It's a dramatic shot and raises curiosity on who shot who.

5. The story is not clear. You are being too vague. You should be able to sell the concept with this trailer, but I have no idea what is going on. It seems to me that the story is dramatic, so why not to sell that big drama right away in the trailer? It makes people more eager to see your film. Being vague is fine if you are building mystery in horror-movie style. But in here it doesn't work.

...The film itself looks pretty good and I would be interested to see it. But since you have pretty slick looking footage, you can easily cut a much more effective trailer than this. I also thought that he actors, sets, and general mood were effective.

What exactly is the story? Could you tell it to us?

[XvoorheesX]

I started to download it, and then left for a while.
When I came back to my computer twenty minutes later, the estimated time left was over nine hours... :rolleyes:

Looks like I won't be watching it then.
Too bad.

[Kastman]

How bloody long is it?

Do what bankholdup did and make one thats only 3 minutes in length that only took 20 minutes for me to download i think, or maybe even less.


Can you make a shorter version?

[Tuukka]

It's only about 90 seconds, I think.

The file just hasn't been compressed enough. It could easily be fit into a 10mb file with good enough quality.

[Wanderlust]

LilWolf) Thanks! Yes, I was going for a dark look at a few of the locations, but I probably should brighten some of the downcoverted video. The real HD footage looks much brighter. I definitely need to give a little more of the story as a few of you have mentioned this. Thanks again for the feedback!

Sal306) Thanks man! We used a Sony F900 with quite a few different filters. The budget ended up being around 12k, the gross majority coming out of my empty pockets. I am not an editor, but I used Premiere Pro to cut this teaser. The actual teaser will be cut on an Avid of some sort. It is a short, likely ending up at 15 minutes if I can cut another minute or two out of it.

Tuukka) Relatively shoestring. 12k. The d.p. was amazing and did a remarkable job. I feel bad using the shaky shot as it was never intended to be in the film, but I liked the feel of it in this. Yes, my titles suck. :) I used Premiere Pro and luckily others who actually know what they are doing will hopefully alleviate this issue. I direct and write, everything else is an adventure for me. ;) I will work on building up a little better on the next cut as I see exactly what you mean on the momentum and I will try and build the drama a little more throughout the teaser (as well as more insight into the story without giving away too much) Thanks for the awesome feedback! Oh, and yes we are scoring music for the film/teaser over the next few months. I will be removing this "Clubbed to Death" at that point as I have no rights whatsoever to it.


The story is about a man who is imprisoned for a year and a half. While he sits helpless in prison his wife loses her battle with a drug addiction, pulling their daughter into the same dark world. Upon release, confident a custody battle is pointless, he does what he knows how to do - take his daughter by force. So he ventures into the drug house they live in, to face some very physical demons which look to stop him from saving his daughter.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback and please ask away with the questions as I am thrilled to answer them!

[XvoorheesX]

I did manage to d/l it after, but then I realized I don't have quicktime. Anyone know where I can get it?

[Cyd V]

I liked the lighting, i know it was underlit, but it made for good atmisphere. It would have been nice to hear some dialogue, or have a better sence of the story, but i have to say it looked decent, a couple of nice shots. I just wanted to know if you filmed hand held, did you used any kind of dolly, and did you use a light meter?

[Wanderlust]

Yeah, we used sticks, handheld, and even a few dolly shots. Yep, light meters were used for sure as we treated this thing as professionally as we could.

[XvoorheesX]

I'm new at this stuff, so go easy on me; What exactly does a light meter do? How does it help you with lighting a scene?

[NobodySpecial]

Couple of comments off the top of my head...

1. Most of the shots were too dark. You should try and clean that up a bit.

2. I couldn't figure out what the story was, which isn't particularly a good thing, especially for a film like this one. If you want a good example of a trailer that gives you an idea as to what the story is about, without actually giving it away, look at the new Riddick trailer.

3. The shots are all running long, especially against the music you picked (bad call on that, too). You might want to tighten up on the editing.

Otherwise, it looks okay, and unfortunately looks is all we really have to go on.

[Cyd V]

Originally posted by XvoorheesX
I'm new at this stuff, so go easy on me; What exactly does a light meter do? How does it help you with lighting a scene?

It reads light based on what speed of film your using, then gives you the # to set your lens to, so you don't over or unlight the shot...

[wilykily]

Fucking awesome dude It looks very cool the shots are awesome.

How did you get the widescreen format to stay in a Quicktime file?? I use primiere also and the widescreen format I use gets messed up

by the way the server you got is fucking awesome

[Wanderlust]

NobodySpecial, I agree with you and the others on the darkness issue. The footage is pretty dark, but all detail can be made out - it never darkens to black. It just looks brighter on my cpu and it was a mistake on my part not checking it out on someone elses cpu. Will be corrected on the upcoming real teaser. I agree with the music and can't really even use it anyway.The music for that will be replaced by original, but I really don't know if that's good good or bad :) . I feel there is quite a bit more heart to the story than the current teaser displays and I'll be working on conveying that heart. My editing will luckily have nothing to do with the next one. Thanks for the awesome feedback!

WilyKily, thanks for the kind words. Excitement is contagious and its cool to see someone hyped over it. I had the same problem in Premiere when I was exporting to 16:9. It kept squeezing it to 4:3. Then I selected 4:3 ratio and tried it and it worked fine. If you are using 16:9 native footage try exporting in 4:3. Hope that helps!

Thanks everyone that has checked out the teaser! I appreciate you taking the time to give me some tips and advice. I feel the next cut, and possibly final (but I should be realistic) will be better and I look to post it within the upcoming weeks. I will also be posting some photos from my shoot on the site, and some of the crew/on-set footage if all goes as planned.

Some more good came of this when a local production house, one of the two leading production houses in my state, offered interest in working on titles for the film. Very cool and timely!

I will leave the teaser up for a few more days before taking it down if anyone else wants to check it out.

[CanadianVampire]

Originally posted by XvoorheesX
I did manage to d/l it after, but then I realized I don't have quicktime. Anyone know where I can get it?


...... www.quicktime.com ?






Anyways, What are dolly shots?

[Maestro]

http://www.imdb.com/Glossary/D

Scroll down about 2/3rds of the page to "Dolly".

Maestro

[CanadianVampire]

IMDB: Is there anything that site doesnt know? :o

[Kastman]

They can't recite the first 10 billion digits of pi, that's for sure.

[CanadianVampire]

Oh, yeah.

[wilykily]

Originally posted by Wanderlust
NobodySpecial, I agree with you and the others on the darkness issue. The footage is pretty dark, but all detail can be made out - it never darkens to black. It just looks brighter on my cpu and it was a mistake on my part not checking it out on someone elses cpu. Will be corrected on the upcoming real teaser. I agree with the music and can't really even use it anyway.The music for that will be replaced by original, but I really don't know if that's good good or bad :) . I feel there is quite a bit more heart to the story than the current teaser displays and I'll be working on conveying that heart. My editing will luckily have nothing to do with the next one. Thanks for the awesome feedback!

WilyKily, thanks for the kind words. Excitement is contagious and its cool to see someone hyped over it. I had the same problem in Premiere when I was exporting to 16:9. It kept squeezing it to 4:3. Then I selected 4:3 ratio and tried it and it worked fine. If you are using 16:9 native footage try exporting in 4:3. Hope that helps!




So if I get you right you edited the footage and then you exported it to a 4:3 ratio or did you reconfigue the project and make it 4:3, I'll play with it though, thanks a lot for the response