OTHER: Trailer for our love story narrative

Patryk_Rebisz

Patryk_Rebisz

Veteran
Unlike our two previous trailer for other films that were serving more like mood boards, this one (also having to exist as a mood board to present to investors vibes and images) is trying to get a bit more "story":
https://vimeo.com/40308546

Let me know your thoughts.
 
Amazing visuals! please could you elaborate what cam was used to shoot this great piece. Grading and lighting really adds to the production value on this as well.
 
Thanks for the reply on this. For some odd reason and I half to do some further investigating but the motion cadence on that 7d seems to be more filmic than my 5d mark II, and that is putting both at a shutter of 1/50. Also I think I like the skin tones and over all color for video on the 7d over my 5d. Great job none the least.
 
Color grading did change the skin tones - i like how the colorist was able to make the skin tones more golden as opposed to traditional DSL "red."
 
The visuals of the piece are gorgeous. Unfortunately the content didn't work for me. It came off as pretentious. And I know you say you tried to go more for "story", but I didn't see it anywhere to be found. For me, two people being in love is not a story. Something needs to happen, and I didn't get a sense of that with this trailer.
 
stellar visuals, well done. I kind of agree with JG about the story, I was looking forward to seeing more conflict and drama between the two characters given the sort of mood that was created. regardless, great piece. best of luck

cheers,
Adam
 
I also agree that the trailer seemed very overwrought, especially given its extraordinarily long running time. Great visuals, but feels pretentious.
 
jghenderson said:
For me, two people being in love is not a story. Something needs to happen
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Love stories are probably the most difficult of genres out there - mostly because in general nothing of excitement really happens in a love story so the drama needs to be in a way manufactured. Although there we great love stories of the past (Rome&Juliet, Casablanca) we are reaching a point where the formula of love story (two people that can't be together for whatever reason) ends up just that - a formula and thus not something that we as viewers can open our hearts to. So the struggle of making a XXI century love story is what is that "something that needs to happen." And i would questions our preconceived ideas of what that "something" really is.
 
First, I got nothing about the conflict in the first half of the trailer (I didn't finish it). I only know there is a conflict with the woman's fiancé from the description. This trailer runs nearly 3 minutes in length (the MPAA doesn't allow trailers to be longer than 2 1/2 minutes...and for good reason I would imagine) and in the 1 1/2 minutes that I watched it, I didn't see any of the "universe being born" or lensless camera shots that I had seen you post about. No, for an entire 1 1/2 minutes we see two attractive people in all kinds of staged romantic sequences. Now, I'm not a woman, so perhaps I'm not the demographic that is being appealed to, but I do enjoy a good adult drama, and this seemed to be lacking in drama. Two people kissing and making verbal proclamations of love is not drama. Conflict is. And after 1 1/2 minutes, there was no conflict and I was incredibly bored by it.

The "pretention" stems from the description of two people's love for each other causing the birth of the universe. That sounds ridiculous on the face of it when reading a text description (we're artsy! we're edgy! we thought this up after some good times with a hookah!) but you could have won me over with the trailer, but apparently the editor decided to burn 1 1/2 minutes of perfectly good screentime to make the movie look as boring as possible?

Frankly, your visuals alone got me to the 1 1/2 minute mark. I always watch in HD full screen and even with Vimeo's compression, I already proclaim it some of the best Canon 7D footage I've ever seen (at least, from what I've gathered it was a 7D, could be other cameras, anyhow it looks good), but the storyline didn't encourage me to watch all of the trailer, and the film even less so.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
LAnd i would questions our preconceived ideas of what that "something" really is.
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You can fight the idea of "conflict" in drama all you want, but I don't think you're going to win much of an audience if "something" doesn't happen, no matter how cliché you may think it is on the surface.
 
Gary, let me ask you when is the last time you watched something and were "mmmm... that's some good drama!" Because for me it's been quite some time. Because of avalanche of content certain more-or-less obvious patterns emerge from watching films and those patterns make the film watching experience painful. I find myself more and more attracted to films with no typical drama... "Color of Pomegranates," "Wings of Desire" (here there is some traditional story), "Sweetgrass" (a doc with no words), "The Mill & The Cross." Often when i detect that artificial construct of a drama... ... i get turned off because i know the filmmakers are "just" telling some kind of story and that in itself doesn't interest me anymore. Am i minority in this kind o thinking? Maybe, or maybe not as people get to see as much content as i do and they themselves can be bored with traditional structures and formats.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Gary, let me ask you when is the last time you watched something and were "mmmm... that's some good drama!" Because for me it's been quite some time.
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Once a week, it's called MAD MEN. And, this is me saying that: I'm a product of the video game generation. I ALWAYS think something has to be going on, and technically there IS always something going on in Mad Men. But, not the kind of going on that my young mind would try to create.

I think you can still find a structure for this trailer, or maybe you don't want to and it's fine for you. At the end of the day, it's a reflection of how you want to be perceived so if that's doing the job, then why change it?
 
I definitely agree Patryk that for those who see a lot of films, it can become difficult to be genuinely excited by anything within the traditional form. I'm only 23 and i've already reached a point where it is extremely rare for a film to incite any real response in me (last year only 5-6 films did this for me). And it is definitely good for the film world to have directors challenge that structure with works like The Tree of Life, the films of Tarkovsky, and all those you mentioned.

Thing is, even though those films went away from traditional structure, they still had very fascinating and profound things to say, and more importantly, I believe what they're saying. My definition of pretentious is making grandiose statements that are unfounded. I recognize that there is a very fine line to walk between pretentious and profound. The works of Tarkovsky and Malick are always on that borderline, but for me they tend to stay in the profound because I get a sense of wisdom and depth from them, and therefore accept what they say to me. I didn't get that sense from this trailer. Instead I found the whole thing to be agonizing hipster nonsense. Perhaps you're not yet old enough to make a film like this.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Often when i detect that artificial construct of a drama... ... i get turned off because i know the filmmakers are "just" telling some kind of story and that in itself doesn't interest me anymore.
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But when it comes to being "artificial", is there anything more artificial than better-than-average looking people proclaiming their love for one another amongst contrived romantic settings? Uttering things like "I don't want money, I just want happiness "(paraphrase)?
 
I should also add that the film itself may play better. So far it's all my impression from the trailer, so it may just be that the trailer doesn't do it justice.
 
For the record, I saw it as more existential than anything else, which isn't inherently bad by any means. It's just a choice, and if this is how it's portrayed then you've made the right choice for yourself.
 
To call this short/trailer, whatever it is, pretentious is a total failure to understand what they're trying to portray - in my honest opinion, and I mean no offense by saying this. I felt very moved within from watching this, as if you tried to take on a philosophical examination of what love is, why it occurs, and what it means to everyone else who doesn't experience it, almost like - does the world change from someone else's' experiences? I really enjoyed it, through the elements and cinematography story telling through colors and lighting and grades were spot on. This is the sort of indie film I watch thinking "oh great another love story" and I finish the film questioning the bounds of genre. I'm 'geeking' this thread out, so I'll stop now!
 
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