Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Trailer - Need Honest Opinion

M

Matt W.

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 3, 2009
Messages
1,350
Reaction score
1
Points
38
I'm applying to a bunch of film MFAs for next fall. So far I submitted my reel to most of them, and this

www.vimeo.com/17391716

to one of them.

There are a lot of people who REALLY know their stuff here. I got negative feedback on the original project's rough cut but did a major re-edit to turn it into a trailer. Should I submit it to the last school I'm applying to (Cal Arts, maybe my top choice if I can afford it) or not? Any advice would be appreciated; a simple "yes" "no" or "dear god no" would be enough, in the case of "maybe" feedback on how to improve my trailer and reel would be highly appreciated.

I'd rather take the blow to my ego now (and shoot a new short this month to submit) than not get in; it's been my dream since high school to go to film school. Thanks all.

P.S. This counts since half of it was shot on red.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the feedback. The idea was to try to show "storytelling ability" (scare quotes mine), and I couldn't figure out how to make it coherent under 2 mins 45 seconds, even though I agree it's long. If it's boring at that length, I'll just cut it entirely and make a new short film instead.

The following lighting reel has already been cut to hell and isn't getting any shorter than two minutes. Too late to change in this case, but thankfully the lighting reel is all I sent to most schools.
 
Last edited:
cut the trailer.

you would probably do well with the reel. you obviously have a little bit of talent, use it.

The MFA Admissions Board doesn't need to see a glorified youtube video. if you want to show storytelling ability, tell a story.


EDIT: A month doesn't seem like a long time to tell a story worth telling on film. What's lacking here are the ideas and thought before the camera is even close to coming out. Maybe you could submit a screenplay for a short. If you don't have screenwriting software, get Adobe Story for free, it's good.
 
Thanks for the honest advice. Need to think about it but I'll either cut the first half of the trailer or cut the trailer entirely. Either way I'll make a new short and send that, too, and apply to a few more schools to increase my chances.

I'm applying as a cinematographer and only sent this trailer to one school, where I doubt I have a shot of getting in, anyway. So no catastrophic loss, thankfully. It actually was a short, originally, but it was the first time we'd used the red and the nikon mount didn't work alongside a million other more serious production problems, and so I couldn't send the rough cut in the state it was in, either. I have to send a video sample to be considered, especially as a cinematographer.

EDIT: A month might not be long enough to tell a good story on film, but there's a chance it will be long enough to tell one on the 7D. I do have a script I wrote a while back, thankfully.
 
Last edited:
Agree with above comments. What really stands out about the first 1:15 isn't the narrative, but that they are playing a game to see who can say 'shit' the most.

If you are making a trailer, don't try to tell the entire story. Use the question/answer pattern to engage your audience and leave us wanting more.

You'll still have to deal with narrative and you've got the elements:

Stoner needs to take a crap.
Q: He sees something in the toilet. A:It's a monster.
Q: Who is the monster, and what does he want? A:Wants to kill you. Oh, and its grandpa from eating preservatives.
Q: What are they going to do about it? A:Try to survive.

That's it. Don't try to fill in all the blanks. You have more than enough content to make a trailer work.

Make the story beats more important than the color correction, 'mummy' cam, and the constant dips to black.

Find a music track that escalates. Think of different tempo and mood - create asymmetry. Suspenseful start that has rising action to a climax. Have each cut and clip cascade us into the next moment with greater intensity. Consider what each new shot is going to communicate to the audience. If we already know it, or have that information somehow through context, cut it.

You need to spend more time on your titles. Use a consistent font. Create some dynamics and create some depth with z-axis movement. Center the type or pay more attention to the typography and layout.

Cut the self-conscious performances during line delivery. We are catching your actors 'acting' all the time. Your other visuals are much stronger. Do as much as you can with off camera dialogue in this case.

If you end up making another short for MFA consideration, I'd concentrate on honesty over spectacle. Content over form. Find actors with professional training and work with them to develop character and bring the beats and transitions to life. You're great at creating strong visuals, now it's time to balance that with honesty and seamless narrative.

Your cinematography looks strong, and your SFX/VFX work is really surprising! Hang in there, it's a miracle that any low budget film gets made at all. Keep working.
 
Thanks for the in-depth comments; they make a lot of sense. I'll do a significant re-edit and work on another short, too--see where it goes, then apply to a few more programs. The vfx work is mostly just a product of huge amounts of time invested (on my part) repeating the same few tricks in after effects, which is why it's so hard to cut some scenes. The titles are meant to go from comedy (modeled after Judd Apatow movies) to horror (modeled after Saw, etc.). I did them very quickly, and I guess it shows. Plenty of time to redo them entirely for the next round of schools.

Embarrassingly for me, most of the actors in this are extremely accomplished and talented. It's my fault for thinking self-concious readings of the word "shit" are funny, not theirs. But point taken.
 
Last edited:
Thanks, I definitely won't submit it anywhere else as is. I may try a rather drastic re-edit and then supplement that with additional material. Obviously I agree, to some extent, that it's sorely lacking; otherwise I wouldn't have asked for advice.
 
I agree with what everyone is saying, the trailer isn't going to help you get into film school probably, but I must say I did "get" it. I laughed out loud a couple times and I think you are creative guy. Keep at it and don't give up even you if you don't get in to film school.
 
The reel is really well done, the trailer would be helped enormously if you cut everything before the guy in the toilet finds the monster; if I may be so crude, the part before the monster is a bit stupid, with the music, all the "shit", the flat lighting, the bad acting; after the moster it becomes rather funny (is my opinion)
 
Matt W. said:
Any advice would be appreciated; a simple "yes" "no" or "dear god no" would be enough, in the case of "maybe" feedback on how to improve my trailer and reel would be highly appreciated.
Click to expand...
On the clip I saw, my main observation is that the backgrounds are too hot, and there's not enough contrast between the characters and the set around them. In other words: I think you need more shadows, more drama, more depth. Open up to reduce the depth of field, so the background isn't so sharp and the audience is forced to concentrate more on the characters.

Good color-correction could solve some of this, but a lot of these are lighting issues -- adding flags to the background, getting rid of hot spots, changing key-to-fill ratio, basic stuff like that. I'd think about establishing mood, creating a sense of depth, and making things look a little more real and less sit-commy.

But I've seen a lot worse on broadcast TV (let alone student films). At least it's sharp, the shots match, and it's in focus.
 
Great Start

Great Start

Keeping in mind that this is the start of your carreer I would be impressed. Of course there are a few basic rookie errors but that is why you want to go to school to learn right? I find the reel to be the strongest of the two and is great just the way it is. Remember, keep it short as the reviewers probably have a stack and want to get through it fast and move on to coffee!

Keep up the great work and stay intouch!
 
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm not too worried about technical errors, particularly in the trailer, since most schools place little emphasis on technical perfection from what I understand. I'll try to cut it down by about a minute, though, and mostly from the beginning, before sending it elsewhere. And I can always apply again next year.

Clint Lealos said:
Keep at it and don't give up even you if you don't get in to film school.
Click to expand...

Thanks, for better or worse and no matter if I get in anywhere or not I'm writing a script based on this concept, which maybe should have been my approach in the first place.
 
Last edited:
Just want to say that by no means to I think I've got it all figured out. I've made more than my share of mistakes while directing, and they still haunt me today.

I've been lucky enough to figure out what some of them were and try to fix them. If you care about your work, mediocrity is a stern teacher.

Here are some books that have been instrumental in figuring out where I went wrong when intuition failed me:

First Time Director, Gil Bettman
Directing Actors, Judith Weston
Directing Feature Films, Mark Travis
Working Director, (forgot author)
The Eye is Quicker, Richard Pepperman (Editing)

It's a big cheezy, but Save the Cat brought all the esoteric writing books like Robert McKee's 'Story', and Joseph Campbell, into perspective.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top