Into Darkness trailer

Kevin McElroy

Kevin McElroy

Active member
Just though I'd post the trailer for my short film "Into Darkness". I had a lot of people flake out the past couple months that pushed this project back so far which left me with only a week to film & edit to meet the deadline for the Sundance Film Festival; it was very intense. It ended up as me being a one man camera crew, and three actors playing four different roles. I am very happy with the outcome, everyone did a tremendous job, just need to get to know my camera and 35mm adapter a little better (first time using both; first short film). Anyways, I'm just curious to hear what you think.

http://www.vimeo.com/1801294
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies, I really appreciate it. I re-edited the trailer to be more visual rather than having a lot of moving text. I just felt that the text took away from the overall feel of the project.
 
Last edited:
I really liked the shots, the feeling created, the mood. I thought it looked polished. It shocks me you did this with basically no crew it sounds like, haha, you made it look fantastic! Best of luck to you with this one.
 
Ksun83 said:
Damn. looks real crisp. What were your settings??
Click to expand...
The settings I used was 720/24pN. Thanks, much appreciated.


I really liked the shots, the feeling created, the mood. I thought it looked polished. It shocks me you did this with basically no crew it sounds like, haha, you made it look fantastic! Best of luck to you with this one.
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah it was just me as a one man camera crew, it was intense! I really appreciate your input, thank you.
 
Last edited:
Beat Takeshi said:
Looks great. I love the look you got going on in that and the music is cool. Who composed that for you?
Click to expand...

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I did the entire short film without the use of any dialog, kind of like a modern day silent film. I really wanted to emphasize the actor’s body language/facial expressions and match it with the artistic flow of filming & music; it was a fun challange.

The track in this trailer is called "Revisitation" by Jorn Lavoll; such an amazing sound. I purchased it over at NEO Sounds (royalty free music site). http://www.neosounds.com
 
I think that's a really good challenge. Way too many short films focus too much on dialogue. I think the less dialogue in some ways, the better. I'm not saying that's true across the board, but if you think as a filmmaker (if you're a director / screenwriter especially), "Ok, how I can tell this story with as few words as possible?" then it forces you to be more visual. Since filmmaking is a visual medium, it's not a novel, then by telling your story visually you strengthen your craft and your final project, in my opinion. My first serious attempt at a short, while still unprofessional, had very little dialogue. Also what dialogue there was, it wasn't very good. I wrote it myself, but I had no time to revise almost, and we didn't have time to cast good actors. That's another issue with a lot of shorts. If your actors aren't that good, and a lot of them aren't in shorts, it's best to have as little dialogue as possible because you're minimizing one of your weaknesses.

So kudos!
 
nice! very nice.

the only thing that I don't like is the soft glow on the footage, the color on them looks awesome, but to me the footage without the glow looks way more professional than the ones with it.

plenty good shots, but the shot on the stairs with the polaroid is my favourite, it tells a whole story on its own, awesome!

and the music, prefect fit!

this is good work!
- Derrick
 
Last edited:
JonathanLB said:
Since filmmaking is a visual medium, it's not a novel, then by telling your story visually you strengthen your craft and your final project, in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Very well put, this is exactly what I was going for. Some times I notice that people use heavy dialog to spell out every detail in the film; to me it seems too machanical, very unnatural. For this short I wanted to just use pure visual storytelling that could emotionally connect the viewer with the film on a deeper level, give it a little more meaning. Anyways, thank you very much for your input Jonathan, I really appreciate it.

Derrick_SA said:
nice! very nice.
the only thing that I don't like is the soft glow on the footage, the color on them looks awesome, but to me the footage without the glow looks way more professional than the ones with it.

plenty good shots, but the shot on the stairs with the polaroid is my favourite, it tells a whole story on its own, awesome!
and the music, prefect fit!
this is good work!
- Derrick
Click to expand...
Hey Derrick, thanks for the kind words and constructive criticism. I totally understood what you meant with the soft glow look on some of the footage (they were scenes from a flashback). I was going back and forth with that when I was putting together the trailer, just didn't look right to me either. I took your advice and lost the soft glow look in the cemetery scenes just for the trailer, looks much better that way. Thanks again for your input.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top