Movie Trailer

Personally, I had a little trouble getting over how nearly ever shot is a C.U. with the exact same framing.
 
not too shabby.

The acting was so so, depending on the character it varried from good to kinda bad. The framing was great as was the editing. I would tweak the sound a little bit more as well as play with some of the CC'ing.

Your ligthing, although there was some, was still pretty poor. Using a light definately helps but play play around with bounce boards if you only have one so that you can have a backlight as well as a bounce and a key from another source.

All in all great though :) thumbs up!
 
Looks amazing

Looks amazing

I loved the trailer. The plot looks interesting, and I love the theme of "forgiveness is the hardest thing to give." A wonderful story of redemtion it seems. Parts do look a little "video-esque." Overall I though it looked like a quality production. I love the religious themes no matter what this other poster says. It is something you don't see often brought up, at least overtly, in movies. Nice job...looks cool.

-Michael
 
thef0x said:
God is dead.

poo poo you and your make-believe.

This was an agressive post--oh well.
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I don't know what the hell that means, but it's uncalled for, and should be deleted. I'm by no means a religious person... but C'mon dude, grow up.



First, welcome to the boards... have a look around. The trailer looked alright to me. Stronger at some points than others. One thing I couldn't get past, though, was the audio. I hope it's becuase of compression for the web, but most of it I could barely understand.

-brown

p.s. Don't type in all caps, please. It make's it hard to read.
 
I enjoyed the drama of the trailer. To be blunt, some of the shots and framing were amaturish... I really liked the drama again, and I like that you have a message.
 
Not bad. Didn't necessarily blow me away, but caught my attention. Anyone who uses Final Cut Studio will know what that Crossing River title is all about.
 
I liked it. Lighting could use a little work and as mentioned above, the audio needs work to make it sound more professional. But, I like that you're tackling a drama like this. Is the whole movie completed?

Steven
 
Ya I'm still brushing up on the sound. I am working with a composer on that. He composed the music to the film. Yes not all the shots are tight. I wanted to keep the trailer as personal to the character as possible. Its funny that people don't like the lighting. The ruff cut has been screen for people and the first thing the like was the dark lighting.

No one has let me know on what they think on what will happen in the movie based on what was revealed in the trailer??????

As for the person with the first post. He's not the first. Believe it or not theFOx, God has a plan for your life as well.

Thanks for all the great post everyone!
 
hey man, congrats on making the film. that's a big step.

now for some critiques (which can't be fixed since you already shot it)

the lighting looks extremely flat. for future projects, try to get a 3 point lighting system, or atleast a keylight to help you. there isn't any contrast from light to dark, which doesn't add depth to your shots, which is what you may want to add extra style.

also, try using different framing techniques to tell the story. don't be afraid to get extremely close, get some wide shots, even use the long end of the lense to get a more shallow depth of field. the more you work, the more it will show in the final product.
 
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Doug Funnie said:
Its funny that people don't like the lighting. The ruff cut has been screen for people and the first thing the like was the dark lighting.
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Where was it screened? Because I agree with the comment above about the flat lighting as well... that is a very good way of explaining how it felt. On a monitor, it will look a lot different than anywhere else. I screened a feature that I worked on in a huge theater and it looked outstanding because a lot of the grain was crushed due to projection, but on a monitor it was a tad annoying.
 
rcbrown23 said:
I don't know what the hell that means, but it's uncalled for, and should be deleted. I'm by no means a religious person... but C'mon dude, grow up.



First, welcome to the boards... have a look around. The trailer looked alright to me. Stronger at some points than others. One thing I couldn't get past, though, was the audio. I hope it's becuase of compression for the web, but most of it I could barely understand.

-brown

p.s. Don't type in all caps, please. It make's it hard to read.
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Thanks for responding to that. You beat me to it. Be respectful, dude.
 
As far as the trailer goes, I did use a lot more angles and shot sizes than you see in the trailer. I'll see if I can post a scene from the film and you guys can check that out. As far as the lighting goes. On a 32in television it looks great. It will be eventually projected on a large screen. So well see what it looks like on that screen.

Thanks for the great comments guys. Keep'em comin!
 
thef0x said:
God is dead.

poo poo you and your make-believe.

This was an agressive post--oh well.
Click to expand...

That didnt come across as a joke if it was meant to be one.

Anyway Ill try my best to critique. The car shots were too dark. They can be, but you still need to create something for us to focus on, maybe an exterior source across the eyes would have been good.

Others mentioned the tight framing in the trailer. It's common to have tight framing on emotional words, so assuming there are some wider shots I would try and cut them in and show some of the action also.

Although I got some idea what the story was, I felt it was a little too vague in the trailer.

Overall lighting needed some work. When you light a room watch the predominant skin types arent fading into the walls. Give the walls some texture and use gels to give them some color, this will also add a lot of depth to your shot.

Sound seemed Ok to me for this level of production, could use a bit more post work, but there is nothing drastic in there that couldnt be evened to an acceptable range.

Good job on getting it done.
 
thef0x said:
God is dead.

poo poo you and your make-believe.

This was an agressive post--oh well.
Click to expand...

I love people like you. You really let them Jesus-freaks know what may be ahead of them if they let their faith show in their filmmaking. Bravo to you for standing up to the mean old poster who posted his evil clip. I'm glad someone had the balls to stand up with force to this person for their evil deed of -- posting a religious oriented video clip.

Doug learn from your mistakes. Your next clip needs to promote adultery, drugs, promiscuity or something else more along the lines of what the world expects, none of this turn your life to Jesus stuff. By the way check out my films "The Fourth Beast" and my upcoming project "Wages of Sin" when you get a chance.

As for the trailer tighten up on the sound and the acting and I think you'll be cool. I edit with FCP and people use the effect all the time so I think you'll be okay with that. I don't have a problem with the acting but films with a hardcore Christian theme usually suffer from bad acting as it's hard to convey some of the emotions you'd have in these type of movies. But over all tell a story. People don't want to see messages, they want to see people. "The Passion" wasn't about Jesus' message it was about Jesus. Keep this in mind. I hope this helps. As for your framing it's very straight forward but it doesn't convey anything. Watch some of the better dramas for framing the makes a difference.

Doug Funnie said:
As for the person with the first post. He's not the first. Believe it or not theFOx, God has a plan for your life as well.
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You're not alone. I've already talked in other post about an experience I had while shooting scene on the northside of Chicago a few weeks ago that involved a street preaching scene. I was amazed at the ignorance some people can show. I'm glad you have the right attitude about it.
-Nate
 
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I liked the trailer. It's difficult to portray a tease of the story. I thought you handled it well. Most trailers end of being quick-cuts of scenes, without any narrative framework. Good job.
 
Thanks for all the comments everyone! I think either today or tomorrow I'll have a hi-res trailer posted so you can see it better. I'll let you all know when. Its awesome to see all the people who have the love of Christ in their hearts want to be filmmakers. I welcome all the comments you all have put forth. Some I will take and some I won't. Its all for Jesus anyway.

We who love Christ understand that. The whole goal of what I want to do is bring Christian entertainment to the for front. We as Christian Filmmakers need to be setting the standard for filmmaking, not the corrupt entertainers in Hollywood. Spilling there violence and sexual promiscuity into the most popular medium entertainment.

We as Christ filmmakers need to take Hollywood back for Jesus, not destroy it. We need to pray for Hollywood to see the need for Jesus in their lives. Once again pray for not only for your success as a filmmaker but pray for other Christ filmmakers as well. One person alone can't do it. But through prayer and faith we WILL take back Hollywood for Jesus!

Thanks for the amazing comments and encouragement!

Blessings to you all!!!
 
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