feedback

The trailer looked pretty good. Kinda cliche, but interesting.

Have to say though, had I not been tired and bored, I would normally have stopped watching after the opening "emotional" shot. It just looks extremely cheap and melodramatic. It might work in the full length film, but at the front of a trailer it just doesn't really work for me.

The the "laundromat" voice-over and city shots work pretty well though to sell the story.

Voice at 1:26 sticks out as being recorded in a high reverb room, and needs looping.
1:22, is that Neo dodging a bullet? Or having a seizure?

A lot of the camera movement looked slick.

1:12 something about the shot and the line delivery strikes me as a "cut above" the quality of the rest of the film. Not sure what it is, but it works.

Nice work overall.
 
I'm digging it. Looks like a grittier, well shot version of the Transporter flicks. Just a few things I didn't warm up to:

- I wasn't digging that first V.O.
- Lots of quick fades to black, it became distracting after a while. Not sure if most trailers do this, but I began to pay attention to that then what was going on.

Overall, the trailer would sell me on paying to see the flick. How big was the budget? What camera did you use?
 
Hmm... this is a short? How long?

It's just that I get the feeling that I've seen all the good bits, why bother watching the actual film, especially if it is a short, there couldn't be too much more to it. Whether that's actually right or not, I wouldn't bothered to find out. I think it would work better if you slowed it down and cut some of the shots. At the moment it's like all the shots have been put in because they are the best or favorite but they don't seem to have a purpose other than that. I think there's too much going on in the trailer, too much revealed in one way and not enough in another; and there's really not enough hook. While the quick succession of action may have been to produce suspense, it fizzles. I'd lose about a 1/3 of the shots and make the ones you put in mean something more, enough to engage an audience without telling them the whole story.

For instance, I personally, would have stopped at "we need you to smuggle something across the boarder", this would make me think "oh, what is it?", "what's it for?" - I'm going to have to watch to find out, but now I don't because I've already been told all of that in the trailer - the rest is just logistics. I also get to see who dies. I know all the bad guys die, I can see their bodies in the trailer - you've made it so I know who wins, again I've lost my motivation for watching.

I have to agree about the opening shot, it looks like it belongs at the end (if at all), I would personally start where the voice over begins.

Overall the camerawork, colouring etc. is lovely. The acting is pretty good too, its hard to pull of gangster well - so that was well done.
 
Good point with the fades bro, it is in fact an industry standard, and depending on what you are looking for it has one or the other emotional effect on you.

The camera we used was HVX200 with lenses, but then we had my DP's incredible lighting skills and apple's Color to make it even spicier
 
Hey Yeddi, thanks for taking your time man! It is in fact 33 min short and as far as shots go, every scene is packed with eyecandy which made it very hard to chose the shots for the trailer, perhaps your assumption is based on the fact that you know this is an indie project and for that reason can't have more to it.
Also, all bad guys don't die. There are no bad or good guys in this story, and it's not really about smuggling, but smuggling is in a away the logistics. It has way lot to it than meets the eye, but you got some very interesting points and thanks for sharing those.
 
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