OTHER: Trailer for our love story narrative

I learned a valuable lesson on my first feature. that being, if you want to deviate from the conventions of the cinematic form, you've really got to earn it. and i think bruce's advice on replacing those discarded elements of the typical movie framework with something uniquely compelling is crucial to shaping a piece of art that "entertains" in a different way. In my case, despite the film's minor successes, I don't think I succeeded.

a 16 year old girl rented my movie on dvd a week ago and started quoting and praising it on twitter. that was a good feeling, but isolated, and I hunger to connect my ideas with a larger pool of people. so learning to take what's personal to me, what i'm passionate about, and deliver it in a form that is inclusive rather than exclusive is where i've focused a lot of my mental real estate lately. and it's why I followed an indie drama with a crime thriller. the themes aren't all that different, but the wrapper has changed.
 
TheDingo said:
I liked some of the imagery in the first half, but found a lot of the imagery in the latter part of your trailer to be very random, as if the editor threw together a bunch of very graphic looking images that really had no common thread..
Click to expand...

Which images? If you are a bit more specific then i can tell you why the images are there and how they interact with the images before or after.
 
mentatDUKE said:
I enjoyed this and the discussion it birthed. In a way, the film is already successful if you think about it. I view this as more of a short film than a trailer. It reminds me of "The Science of Sleep". Gorgeous photography of course. If this were a full length feature, I'd pay to watch it. Personally I enjoy narrative primarily, but there's a lot to be said for powerful character arcs, and commentary on emotional perception.

What's the next step with this?
Click to expand...

Thanks!
This project along with our documentary "Spirit / Will Loss" (you can find it in my signature on my production website) are the two projects we are concentrating on making this year.
 
Zak Forsman said:
I learned a valuable lesson on my first feature. that being, if you want to deviate from the conventions of the cinematic form, you've really got to earn it. and i think bruce's advice on replacing those discarded elements of the typical movie framework with something uniquely compelling is crucial to shaping a piece of art that "entertains" in a different way. In my case, despite the film's minor successes, I don't think I succeeded.

a 16 year old girl rented my movie on dvd a week ago and started quoting and praising it on twitter. that was a good feeling, but isolated, and I hunger to connect my ideas with a larger pool of people. so learning to take what's personal to me, what i'm passionate about, and deliver it in a form that is inclusive rather than exclusive is where i've focused a lot of my mental real estate lately. and it's why I followed an indie drama with a crime thriller. the themes aren't all that different, but the wrapper has changed.
Click to expand...

I think a more interesting question for you would be that of dissonance of form with content. Specific with your film, which i have seen on Netflix as research at some point, the conflict of familiar form (hand-held, music video like, attractive but traditional framing) with very unfamiliar story-less story. If you look at Antonioni's films (especially later ones where he doesn't care much about traditional story) every frame is "wrong" and thus the felling of a meaning is born in the viewer's head.
 
EXACTLY!

Failures:
Bladerunner
The Science of Sleep
12 Monkeys
Being John Malkovich
Prometheus
etc

I hope I can fail one day... :)
 
OH! I see where you're coming from now. You don't think Patryk's trailer had conflict. I believe you're wrong about that of course, but now I understand you.
 
I'll answer your question with a question. How do you define conflict? Do you define it as obstacles in the way of something the protagonist wants? If so, do you not see artifacts of these obstacles in the trailer? You don't see protagonists wanting love/happiness/each other and their failing to retain said things in the latter part of the trailer?

Please explain.
 
Gary, recently doing research i ran across the following quote that relates quite nicely to part of what we are talking bout here:

"Voters are basically lazy, basically uninterested in making an effort to understand what we've talking about. Reason requires a high degree of discipline of concentration; impression is easier. Reason pushes the viewer back, it assaults him, it demands that he agree or disagree; impression can envelop him, invite him in, without making an intellectual demand. The emotions are more easily roused, closer to the surface, more malleable."
Replace "voters" with "film viewers" and see if you agree (from Nixon's speech-writer)

Even though you disagree either with goals or means of this trailer you still engaged in reason-based conversation and in that sense the trailer succeeded - somehow it made you so mad that you decided to stick around for the conversation that followed.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Even though you disagree either with goals or means of this trailer you still engaged in reason-based conversation and in that sense the trailer succeeded - somehow it made you so mad that you decided to stick around for the conversation that followed.
Click to expand...

But no one is talking about your film specifically, only about the idea of breaking the story-telling rules of cinema and whether one can be successful in that or not.

I've shown the trailer to a few friends and all of them said they would not see this movie (though they did mention that it looked pretty). I don't see how you can pull success out of that.
 
Patryk,

I think you're pulling the wrong lessons from this thread. If you agree that you need a strong story, and you actually have one, then you need to make a better trailer that shows this. Most indie film trailers suck. Move on, and cut another one. It's possible you've got a watchable film, but we aren't convinced yet. And if we're not convinced, then likely a lot of others won't be either.
 
Gary Huff said:
But no one is talking about your film specifically, only about the idea of breaking the story-telling rules of cinema and whether one can be successful in that or not.

I've shown the trailer to a few friends and all of them said they would not see this movie (though they did mention that it looked pretty). I don't see how you can pull success out of that.
Click to expand...

You can’t deny that the conversation went on for a number of pages and it didn’t really start with someone pointing out a dump on the side of the road but rather from this trailer (whether its successes or failure).

Moreover your definition of success seem to be pretty narrow. By showing it to “a few of your friends” you, in a strange twist became better advocate of this film then probably even the few people who enjoyed it.
 
mail4joeg said:
Patryk,

I think you're pulling the wrong lessons from this thread. If you agree that you need a strong story, and you actually have one, then you need to make a better trailer that shows this. Most indie film trailers suck. Move on, and cut another one. It's possible you've got a watchable film, but we aren't convinced yet. And if we're not convinced, then likely a lot of others won't be either.
Click to expand...

You are making a fatal flaw in your logic assuming that the movie going audience is monolithic and thus wants the same thing. Or that filmmakers are made out of the same material and all want the same thing. Both audience and the makers are diverse (duh!). Just because “you” are looking for a story doesn’t meant everyone is (smaller “duh!” cause i said it a few times before). In the same way that just because “you” enjoy fast cars (as it seems from your earlier link) doesn’t mean anyone is.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
You can’t deny that the conversation went on for a number of pages and it didn’t really start with someone pointing out a dump on the side of the road but rather from this trailer (whether its successes or failure)
Click to expand...

And you cannot deny that the talk has not been about any specifics of your film, just in how your trailer shows a film that won't entice many people to see it.

Moreover your definition of success seem to be pretty narrow. By showing it to “a few of your friends” you, in a strange twist became better advocate of this film then probably even the few people who enjoyed it
Click to expand...

How so? If a million people watch your trailer and no one watches or buys your film, that's a success? If so, then we do have a very different take on what is successful.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
You are making a fatal flaw in your logic assuming that the movie going audience is monolithic and thus wants the same thing.
Click to expand...

Not wanting the same 'ole same 'ole does not mean they want to watch something that doesn't follow basic story structure, or doesn't give them anything more than a pretentious treatise on "love" that entails two overly attractive people talking about how much they love each other in contrived romantic settings. I think that's been made pretty clear by the myriad of different responses on here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top