Butterflies in the Wind in pursuit of happiness

I think cutting a new trailer and selling DVDs more aggressively is the best course of action at this point ... until I get myself into the next international film market.
 
I went through the whole movie today and picked out about 20 shots that I will use for the new trailer. This trailer has to sell the DVDs. They're just not selling enough. Hopefully I can finish cutting and posting the trailer in a day or two. I'll post the link here for criticism.
 
I thought I was going to edit the new trailer in a few hours. It's always like that with me, even after all these years.LOL

I'm putting in so many transitions between the twenty or so clips I've chosen. I have all these darn filters. I keep putting them in; they look good at first, then later I'm going to take them all out :-)

I hope I can post something tonight, but most likely it will be tomorrow. I will need feedback so I can make corrections and end up with a trailer that will sell my DVDs.
 
It's looking a lot better than I expected. I picked all new shots and they're working well. I think I'm getting better at cutting trailers.

Tomorrow I'll have something to show ....

Even if I don't finish the trailer to my satisfaction, I'm going to post it for criticism, because I think the editing will go faster if the bad edits are shot down sooner.
 
thanks for bringing this to my attention. I thought everyone was able to see my trailers in QT.

I'm going to encode a Flash version. I hope these are the only two formats that I need to install. Is that correct for all video on the web?
 
Vick, might I suggest perhaps getting someone else to cut the trailer? It's possible you're too close to the material to cut a "traditional" Hollywood trailer. I'd be willing to give it a go if you'd like. I cut a well recieved 2-min trailer last year for my 20-min short . And of course, there's always Zak Forsman who is a Jedi Master at cutting trailers for indies.

Let me know and good luck!
 
I don't know if a traditional Hollywood trailer can be edited based on the content and style of my feature film. Editing a trailer based on the 97 minute movie would entail a great deal of work: reviewing the movie many times, picking out the shots, dealing with all the dialogue sync issues (I shot the whole movie MOS) and finally doing a big time Hollywood trailer for BUTTERFLIES IN THE WIND.

First of all, this is a no budget movie and it is already being sold on Amazon. It's pulling in a few hundred dollars a year.LOL So I have no trailer budget and no marketing budget for the entire movie as well.

It's too expensive as an exercise. However, I'm asking for advice based on the trailer itself. So I understand you wouldn't buy a DVD or even download the movie from Amazon. This helps me, because I respect your opinion. I've read a lot of your postings. You're a serious filmmaker, always generous with your comments and recommendations.

If an editor would be willing to play around with about 100 shots, I can put together those shots with handles and send them via pando.com and see what will happen. But it's asking too much from someone to do it gratis.

Thanks for your comments nevertheless....
 
Hi Vick. Thanks for considering my opinion so thoughtfully. I know we as storytellers and artists often find it hard to hear other points of view.

I actually wouldnt agree that I wouldnt buy or download the movie. I was actually seconds away from doing so. The trailer actually caused me to hesitate.

Here's why I wanted to buy the film:
You're a regular on dvxUSER and contribute a lot
You shoot on film
You seem to be a veteran of the indie movement.
You have interesting ideas and a unique point of view

So the main reason I wanted to buy was because of YOU, the filmmaker. Your presence on the boards gave me a picture of you. The trailer gave me a picture of the actual film.

The disjointed editing, the non-traditional transitions, some of the actors performances, my inability to grasp the story based on the info conveyed by the trailer served to talk me out of purchasing the film.

I understand that none of these things may actually be a problem in the actual film. This is why I suggested another edit of the trailer.

I respect you and think your film has hope. I'm ready to buy. I just want to know what I'm getting into. The trailer doesn't serve to help me determine that..... yet.

Good luck with it. The offer's still open if you want a second set of eyes.

Take care.

*Regarding sync sound: Have you not conformed the audio and video tracks yet? If so, sync sound shouldnt be an issue for a trailer editor. Especially if you have music, dialog, and sfx on seperate tracks.
 
mentatDUKE: The disjointed editing, the non-traditional transitions, some of the actors performances, my inability to grasp the story based on the info conveyed by the trailer served to talk me out of purchasing the film.
Click to expand...
1. Disjointed editing -- that's how the film is :-)
2. Non-traditional transitions -- I sent two days on them LOL
3. Some of the actors' performances -- my fault...shooting alone, no energy left for directing. *sob*
4. you would not purchase the movie -- SUCCESS! You shouldn't buy the movie; I don't want to lose a friend.

The movie cannot be synched. I should have clarified: this movie was dubbed, not lip-synched, because the dialogue was not always what the actors said. I decided to change the dialogue and dub the movie ala Federico Fellini, my Italian filmmaker hero, who shot MOS and dubbed all his movies after he had finished principle photography.

He wrote the script for the dialogue after he finished with the PICTURE.

When theater actors asked him what they should say, he said, "count one two three four five six seven ... count."

He just needed lips moving so he could dub anything he wanted later.

BUTTERFLIES IN THE WIND was the first movie I dared shooting like this. What I discovered was that I was able to treat directing the dialogue to be a lot more of a creative process, almost more than the picture part.

I'm going to go further with this concept in my next feature film.

Thanks for your interest and help with my movie.
 
I believe in trailers that reflect the true nature of the movie. I'm looking for an audience for my style of filmmaking. I'm not interested in watching and certainly not in making genre movies.

I've worked on plenty of genre movies. I still don't mind taking an assignment and working on genre movies, but as for putting my own money into them, no, I really don't believe in them at all.

So when doing a trailer for BUTTERFLIES IN THE WIND, I want to represent the movie as it is. The movie is an art film. It's highly creative in terms of shooting and editing. The trailer must reflect that. I'm just trying to see if there is an audience for my movie at this point, and the trailer should entice the viewer to consider looking at my movie.

How can I say, this is an art movie that you won't be disappointed in seeing? Maybe it will open up a window in the way you look at life?

LOL
 
I'm wondering if Flash trailers work better as everybody can see them.

QuickTime trailers look better but many people don't bother to download the QT players and as a result never get to see the trailers.

I need to figure out how to reach my audience and sell DVDs.
 
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