(no subject)
Okay, so I always meant to make a good advertising trailer for my movie, The Krone Experiment, but it always proved elusive. I made several attempts to cut a trailer, but they were always disappointing. I'd lose track of the mental vision I had for it as soon as I started pulling clips, and other frustrations. All of the attempts got shelved. Then I finished the movie, and I was so exhausted I didn't feel like even looking at the footage for a long time.
Then a special occasion came up this week that demanded a trailer, and a good one: a chance to advertise the movie in Austin's new downtown movie theater, the Alamo Ritz, before a sold-out showing of the movie Real Genius. I did a lot of grumbling and complaining while working on it, but I came up with the goods! This trailer even makes me want to watch the movie, and I've already seen it eleventy-seven times.
I need to write a separate post about that event, because there's a whole subplot that goes with that, and pictures. For now I just want to post the trailer and make a couple more comments about it.
Okay, first the YouTube link:
This does finally get my vision for a Krone trailer out of my head and into existence after carrying it around for five or six years. I culled ten minutes of possible clips from the 2 hour movie, then tightened them up and/or threw them out until it was 2 minutes long. I even followed the proper post-production order: locking the picture, scoring the music, and then doing the final sound mix. When I did the movie the edit was constantly changing, like shifting sands, up until the moment I shipped the DVD to the replicator. Not a good way to work. Not very professional (more on that below).
I was aware as I worked that I'm a better editor now than I was when I put the movie itself together, because that was several years ago now (he said, ruefully). It's got a lot of energy and punch to it that I wish the movie had, overall. I was reminded, actually, of a distinction that I've heard made twice before, first by Alfred Hitchcock and then by Edward Dmytryk (director of The Caine Mutiny, who taught a directing class I took my second year at USC). Hitchcock, comparing his two versions of "The Man Who Knew Too Much", one made in the 1930s and the other during his prime in the 1950s, said that the former was the work of a talented amateur and the latter was the work of a professional.
Dmytryk used the two terms to compare two of the Oscar nominees in 1993 for Best Director (or rather, Best Acheivement in Directing): Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List, and Jane Campion for The Piano. His opinion was that Campion was just a talented amateur. I knew what he meant.
I have to be careful about saying critical things about my movie, because I'm still selling the DVD to people, and I don't want them to think I'm palming off dodgy merchandise on them or something. But I still feel like the editing never realized the movie's full potential. However, it was the best I could do at the time. It would be ridiculous to suggest I stinted on the effort I put into it. However, looking at the trailer compared to the movie, it seems like I've since made a jump from talented amateur to professional, and the difference is dramatic to me.
I also got to rework the score while making the trailer, drawing on the six months of recording and composition practice I did last year. It's got a kooky mix of piano, strings, xylophone, bassoon, and a noisemaker GarageBand calls an "angel box". Doing the music for the trailer was the part I enjoyed the most. Well, that and showing it to an audience.
But that's another story, as I said. Tune in tomorrow.
Then a special occasion came up this week that demanded a trailer, and a good one: a chance to advertise the movie in Austin's new downtown movie theater, the Alamo Ritz, before a sold-out showing of the movie Real Genius. I did a lot of grumbling and complaining while working on it, but I came up with the goods! This trailer even makes me want to watch the movie, and I've already seen it eleventy-seven times.
I need to write a separate post about that event, because there's a whole subplot that goes with that, and pictures. For now I just want to post the trailer and make a couple more comments about it.
Okay, first the YouTube link:
Click to viewThis does finally get my vision for a Krone trailer out of my head and into existence after carrying it around for five or six years. I culled ten minutes of possible clips from the 2 hour movie, then tightened them up and/or threw them out until it was 2 minutes long. I even followed the proper post-production order: locking the picture, scoring the music, and then doing the final sound mix. When I did the movie the edit was constantly changing, like shifting sands, up until the moment I shipped the DVD to the replicator. Not a good way to work. Not very professional (more on that below).
I was aware as I worked that I'm a better editor now than I was when I put the movie itself together, because that was several years ago now (he said, ruefully). It's got a lot of energy and punch to it that I wish the movie had, overall. I was reminded, actually, of a distinction that I've heard made twice before, first by Alfred Hitchcock and then by Edward Dmytryk (director of The Caine Mutiny, who taught a directing class I took my second year at USC). Hitchcock, comparing his two versions of "The Man Who Knew Too Much", one made in the 1930s and the other during his prime in the 1950s, said that the former was the work of a talented amateur and the latter was the work of a professional.
Dmytryk used the two terms to compare two of the Oscar nominees in 1993 for Best Director (or rather, Best Acheivement in Directing): Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List, and Jane Campion for The Piano. His opinion was that Campion was just a talented amateur. I knew what he meant.
I have to be careful about saying critical things about my movie, because I'm still selling the DVD to people, and I don't want them to think I'm palming off dodgy merchandise on them or something. But I still feel like the editing never realized the movie's full potential. However, it was the best I could do at the time. It would be ridiculous to suggest I stinted on the effort I put into it. However, looking at the trailer compared to the movie, it seems like I've since made a jump from talented amateur to professional, and the difference is dramatic to me.
I also got to rework the score while making the trailer, drawing on the six months of recording and composition practice I did last year. It's got a kooky mix of piano, strings, xylophone, bassoon, and a noisemaker GarageBand calls an "angel box". Doing the music for the trailer was the part I enjoyed the most. Well, that and showing it to an audience.
But that's another story, as I said. Tune in tomorrow.