Trailer - Final Evaluation

Final project evaluation.

On the 7th of January 2019 we were presented with our new project, a trailer campaign, I was very interested in the project and I had a few ideas that I wanted to convey for the trailer, one being a car chase and another idea, something that was similar to a Netflix series trailer, however, I was more interested in Taryn’s idea, Taryn’s idea would be easy to film but hard to pull off as it was pretty complex. I was up for the challenge for tackling this idea and so was the rest of my team, Joe and Kes.

So now I will fast forward to the end of pre-production, I was in one word ‘beaten’, I was not doing well at all, it was like everything was going wrong even though everything was planned out, I think I had pushed myself too far with things. It all began when our actor (Ellena) had broken her thumb and we had to sort out new filming dates, this was difficult as I had to produce a whole new call sheet almost and plan it around the drivers who would be taking us from location for location, this was not easy for me or for them, my mums partner had his birthday on Sunday the 10th and instead of having a nice relaxed day he offered himself up to help me film, taking the gear from location to location and also driving Ellena from Clevedon to Wrington and then back at the end of the day, as she could not drive. So, things weren’t going the best for anyone at this stage.

The funny thing is we did all the planning in advance for backup actors if Ellena fell through, we even had Ella Winterbourne on our call sheet who is a reliable cousin of mine, however, unfortunately, she was not available when we needed to film. So, we had to play the waiting game. Luckily like I had said in a previous post we did manage to film on our planned Monday with Taryn just wearing the hood of the green coat up to cover her face. We also got lucky with the weather on Saturday the 9th and Sunday the 10th where it was practically sunny all day for filming.

So back to pre-production, we did well, very well, we managed to produce 6/7 RECCE’s and 6/7 risk assessments, each taking about an hour and a half, we also had time to include a contents page into our folder as well as completing the rest of the written work to a standard I was very happy with. As well as this our poster looked amazing (other than the embarrassing spelling mistakes), so on the whole I was extremally happy with the amount of work we put in as a team to our pre-production folder, I especially loved Taryn’s storyboards for our trailer and the detailed shot list which made this incredibly easy when it came to filming knowing what exact scene to write on the clapper, these little extra touches made things significantly easier when it came to editing knowing which take to use and what order the scenes take place in.

Like I have said in other previous posts I was astonished how productive and helpful my team has been, though as mentioned, people were getting worried when the last week arose and we had barely any footage other than Monday's shoot, though they still trusted me, which says something, to me at least. To be honest, in the long run, I think it paid off waiting even if we didn’t have as much time to edit compared to other groups.

So, the final project produced and edited in 3 days. Pretty incredible in my opinion (though stressful), we made what we could in the time we had without exhausting ourselves mentally and physically. Kes and I were both happy with the final piece and so was the rest of our group, though with more time (of course) we may have done a better job. What would I have done if this went to plan then, we filmed in filming week the footage was good and we were left with 10 days to edit (rather than two days).

I will first criticize myself (things I thought could have been better) then after this include points that others had made on screening day.

So, at the beginning of the film the only clip in the part scene that was getting on my nerves, was the Steadicam movement showing the family, I think the light above Denise (Ellena’s mum) should have been turned off and we should have re-positioned some lighting to match the light that was hitting Ellena by the window sill. Next change that I would have made would have been the inclusion of my brother in the corner of one of the shots, I think we could have shown him a little more as I have discussed in a previous post.

Next fast forwarding to after the reading of the letter and the scene around Backwell, I was not too happy with this scenes editing and I think I could have used some external ideas if I had gone into college and asked the teachers and other class mates how I could have put it together and whether I should have asked Ellena round to record some more dialogue, as I thought this scene (in my opinion) was pretty boarding and could have done with being spruced up a little with possibly the extra voice over and also in this scene we could have had flashes of her family in danger, I think that would have been pretty effective, as well as that (the colours were not the best), they were good for a two day edit but if I had more time like my documentary I would have perfected them, they would be more seamless with the transitions and more fitting with the characters, for example, I would have gone through for about a full day just perfecting the colours with Taryn asking her what she thought for each scene and I would have found a way to change the colours scene by scene, but seamlessly, this would have taken a lot of time but it would have been worth it. Other than these changes for the Backwell scene I think our shots were very effective, however, I think with an extra day or two we could have doubled the impact of this scene on the audience and possibly made them want to see more of it?

After this was the cabin in the woods scene which was edited good to the music, but it still felt like the music didn’t fit? Again, with some more time, we could have possibly put this scene somewhere else in the trailer, with some different music. Then the scene where Kes died, I think it could have been a bit clearer and show that it was Kes who had died. Again if we could have used our original actor Sam I think removing Kes from the acting part would have only benefited us (no offence to Kes he did an amazing job stepping in for Sam), But if Sam was available he could have possibly had some dialogue before he died, the reason we didn’t do this with Kes is because I am not sure he would have been comfortable with more dialogue.

So other little things, I think we could have shown more shots of the family in danger, for example, a shot of my Dad walking back from the pub and Ross walking behind him with a saw or dangerous implement, whilst the light from a lamppost lit the way for my Dad and Ross in the shadows. Also, Denise (the mother), we could have her in danger when she gets back from work, this way I could have got a car scene in the trailer with Ross following her in a car behind driving along the road, I think a shot like this could have been amazing, provided I thought of this before, well, now… However, I could have thought of this if I had gone into college and spoken to the teachers and other classmates. After this little change I think we should have cut as soon as (in the barn in field scene) when we had the beautiful shot of the camera behind the box and Ellena opening the door and maybe shaved a few seconds off the trailer or replaced those extra few seconds with shots of the family in danger.

So, after this self-evaluation with little influence from what others had said on screening day, this is the order I would now create the trailer in.

• Birthday scene

• Title screen

• Backwell scene (Ross)

• Dad in danger

• Cabin scene

• Mum in danger

• More Backwell

• Boyfriend in danger

• Emotional scene

• Ellena waking up the scene

• Confusion from Ellena

• Barn in a field scene

• Clevedon scene

• Credits.

I think this order of events would have been better suited for our trailer.

My last change would have been something Chris had picked up and I was thinking at the same time, this was the fact he possibly thought it was a series trailer, this makes complete sense. It makes sense as the story is fundamentally a treasure hunt to both find the one responsible and the ‘treasure’ to save loved ones, I believe it could make an amazing series. How I didn’t think of this before now, I have no idea, but now I think again for the time we had, we did a good job.

So, what did others think? Also, what did I learn from the feedback and what would I have changed if I had more time available to me?

Below is the feedback I had written down on screening day.

What was mentioned then and what needed to be changed?

We began talking about the fact, at the very start of the trailer when the letter was being given to Ellena, my Dad says, “it must be from your Auntie”, this was a little confusion that we had purposely thrown in and looking back I can see how it could have been possibly confusing, this is as the letter was pink, which was also on purpose, we dressed it like this so there would be nothing suspicious and we could get a deeper impact when she opens the letter to find its old, so what I would have done instead, which would have prevented confusion. The letter would be old but plain, the Dad would pick it out from a box that he has in his room, (to throw off the viewer, making them think it’s the Dad that’s the evil one), he brings down the letter and says suspiciously, this letter came in the other day and him expressing some confusion as to whom it was from. Then Ellena opening the letter after the presents, then cut to the impact of the looking down shot.

The next thing that was mentioned, was that the trailer was a bit too long, which I would agree, there was too much, and we could have cut things down a little, or added extra scenes like the ones I discussed earlier of the family in danger. We were then told we could have better fades with the music, I agree with this as the Backwell scene was messy, towards the beginning of the trailer, I could have perfected the fades from cut to cut. The next part that was mentioned was it was if the family was not in danger, I agree again and have addressed this already.

The next important thing that was mentioned was that people became lost after Ellena had woken up from sleep, I can agree completely with this looking back over the trailer a few times, I think what we could have done was to place flashbacks of Kes and her family dead after she wakes up from her sleep in the bedroom, this would be to enforce the mysteriousness of the whole trailer. We could have after this, had another letter come through the post and cut back to the birthday scene but this time the letter says, “it's not over yet” (in big handwriting). THEN we could play a cannon sound and THEN show the barn in field scene and end on the Clevedon scene then after the credits show a quick flash of Ross with a saw or Ross killing another family member. I think if we had done this, our trailer could have been incredible.

Then after this we had a few more improvements; We were told we could have used better drone shots, though this comment did confuse me as I thought as well as others that the shots we used with the drone were fitting, though maybe what they meant was that we could have on the last scene at the barn (this is after looking through the trailer a few more times) would could have only used one drone shot and cut some time out of the trailer, I would agree with them is this is what they meant (there was also one other drone shot at the Clevedon location that I would have removed to cut back on some more time). Next was the fact that it almost felt like a shot movie, I agree we should have made it more like a series trailer which is like a short film rather than a movie trailer, like we did which should not be like a shot film ( I talk about this a bit more both in a previous post and also earlier in this evaluation), though in conclusion for this, we should have structured our trailer more thoroughly and also changed it from a film trailer to a series trailer for Amazon Prime.

The last things I would change or that were noted was that there was little urgency implied in the trailer other than the second from last and last scene. We could have asked Ellena to act more frantically, but I didn’t feel right to do that especially for the locations we were filming in, for example, Backwell, it was a day time shot and if it was for a series trailer, we shouldn’t try and get everything crammed into an only action trailer. Though I believe we SHOULD have shown more real emotion from Ellena when she was looking around, this would have added more emotion into the trailer, I believe something it needed rather it only be cinematic shots. Then finally the colours were off which I have talked about previously. Then the fact that we have shown too much, which I think we did as the Backwell scene could have been shorter but also, we didn’t want to show too little, though like I have previously discussed we should have made it a series trailer and added some more scenes and made the existing ones shorter.

In conclusion to our critical feedback, I think it’s hard to come up with your own idea and make a trailer for a film /series that does not exist. In a nutshell its stressful and a hard job, you need to be hardworking and strong-minded to pull make it work and fair play to others in our course that did amazing jobs with their trailers, I just can’t help but imagine what ours would have been like if we weren’t hit with brick wall after brick wall! It would have also helped if I came into college more for some help from the teachers, though this would have been difficult for this project, it is something that I will DEFINITELY do for future projects, even if it means I must edit in college now.

So over with the critical! what went well?

We successfully pulled together 6/7 locations, this added a range of different rich cinematic footage. We also used good camera angles, we had a strong concept idea if only we had more time and things went well for us! Then after this, we were praised for mysteries that we had in our trailer, something that I think we had also done well. We also choose good music for our 1st and second 2nd tracks in our trailer, these were tracks that Kes had chosen. People also like the grainy orange colour we put over Ross whilst he was walking around Backwell location. People also thought that cinematic shots were beautiful which is nice to hear.

Most importantly however I think I am most proud of my team for working with me, I am not the easiest person in the world to work with and I am aware of that. For my next project, I would ‘like’ to take a more laid-back role and let others do their thing and me only getting involved in some editing, paperwork and cinematography. I also know my positives are not if my criticism’s, this is because I have already listed some positives in between my critic comments, but here are some personal things that I thought went well.

Everyone in the group who was meant to be at shoots made it there on time, the cinematography was good, very good in my opinion for the trailer, I feel as if I did use the drone effectively, our locations and organisation were Stella even though we had 3 days to do everything. I also praise the fact that although I was close to quitting when things hit rock bottom I did not, and I continued to work not only for myself but for my team, I could never let anyone fail because of me. Finally, I enjoyed editing and filming the project, I also praise myself for bringing water and food to locations to feed our actors as I knew we would be out for a long time. I also praise Kes for working with me when it came to editing and how helpful he was, we couldn’t have done what we did without him!

So that’s all I’ve got for this project, I would love to revisit it one day and film the extra scenes in my own time and correct the format, but we’ll see. Some things are better left in the past than being brought back into the present. I would like to think I have learned a lot form this project, things that will only benefit my projects in time to come.