Hey y'all it's Soph! It's been awhile since I posted on here but I'm back! In this post, I wanted to share a project I recently did in class, and reflect on what my group I did well, and what we could have done better :)
What Was the Project?
For the film distribution project, we collaborated with the creative writing class and were assigned to turn one of their stories into a teaser/trailer for a potential film, as well as outline a plan for how we would distribute the film to audiences.
The story that my group and I selected was titled Rot, and it follows the story of two characters, played by Cristian Velazquez and Olivia Wagner, who are trapped within an isolated junkyard as one tries to escape, while the other tries to kill for survival. Throughout this murder chase, the two characters are both longing to escape the junkyard, which drives them further to insanity and fear.
Choosing the Story/Pre-Production Process
After our group was given a small list of stories to chose from, we decided to go with Rot because of its eerie concept, and we were intrigued with the setting of the potential film, which was in an abandon junkyard. Our group was interested in taking on the challenge in re-creating the location and filming at night, as it would allow us to play with lighting and hopefully present the empty and frightning atmosphere of a junkyard. When planning for how we would film the teaser and the trailer, our toughest challenge was deciding on a location, as it was difficult to coordinate our schedules and meet in an area that was nearby. Originally, we were going to shoot behind a plaza where there was a mini, empty parking lot and a dumpster, but we decided not to go with that option since it location was too small, and it wouldn't be enough space to portray what is meant to be a void of darkness. Therefore, I showed my group members an area in my neighborhood that was more open, and had areas surrounding the space that resembled parts of a junkyard, such as electric boxes. We decided to settle for this location since it was easier to meet with each other there, as well as meet with the actors that took part in our project.
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| A picture from the trailer that specifically highlights the emptiness of the location. There were dead palm trees lying on the ground that we thought would best resemble the dirty atmosphere that the characters are surrounded in. |
Filming Pros and Cons
Once we selected the location, we knew we wanted both the teaser and the trailer to present an eerie and isolated atmosphere, hence figuring out how we wanted to portray that became another challenge. Rot only contains two characters, so we had to be strategic and careful in how we presented their time on screen, as well as their relation to each other. Hence, the teaser starts off with Cristian's character alone, as he is engulfed by darkness and little to no resources, only his lighter. We felt that by gradually closing in on him, we would bring the audience closer and closer into his secluded bubble, thus allowing them to feel isolated with along with the character. Additionally, we felt that emphasizing the lighter Cristian is holding, it would create intrigue as to how he got a hold of it, how that is his only resource, and who is alongside him in the junkyard, since the lighter was mysteriously thrown back at him.
Since the teaser creates suspicion as to how Cristian's character landed in the junkyard and who is the mysterious person with him, we had the trailer purposefully give away two main questions of the teaser. The trailer not only presented the mystery person to be Olivia's character, but we also provided the audience context as to what each of the character's motives were, and how that adds to the premise of the film. In regards to filming the trailer itself, we found it difficult to stay on track with the storyboard we outlined earlier in class, as the dialogue we originally wanted to incorporate didn't properly outline the plot of the film, hence we had to rework the scenes we initally planned during filming, which unfortunetly ran our time behind. However, we were pleased with the final result of the scenes we did change, because it provided clearer context to the story we were trying to tell.
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| A scene taken from the teaser in which Olivia's character threatens Cristian's character. |
Both the teaser and the trailer were filmed at night, so lighting was definietly a major obstacle. On the two days we filmed the teaser and the trailer, we used three different types of lights, which included a bright flashlight, our cellphone lights, and a tiny blue light used for darker/intimate moments, such as the close on Cristian during the teaser in which he looks out to see who returned the lighter to him. While some shots could have been lit better, we felt that we were successful in keeping out external shadows from our shots, such as shadows projected from our own bodies, or of the actors that weren't on screen.
Post-Production
Our group decided to edit together and edit both the teaser and the trailer. While Paola and Andres worked on the trailer, I worked on the teaser. I wanted each shot to be focused on for about 3-5 seconds, so that as the subject comes closer into the view, the audience is constantly wondering who the person is, and why they are by themselves. Since the shots we had were dimmer than we expected, I had to brighten them up during post-production using the color correction features provided by Adobe Premiere. While editing, I also noticed that the audio provided by the original clips distracted from the action being presented, so I decided to find nature sounds from YouTube in order to insinuate the isolation felt by Cristian's character and how he is mainly by himself, or at least he thought he was.
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| Image of editing the teaser (to the right is the color correcting system I used to brighten up the shots shown in the teaser). |
Since our film is apart of the horror/thriller genre, we wanted to distribute with companies such as A24 and Neon, since both companies are known to distribute independent films, and A24 is known specifically for its horror projects, while Neon specifically targets low-budget films such as ours. While we outlined the reasons for distributing with them, we did lack detail in how we would market the film, and how the marketing would in turn effect the way we distribute. What my group could have done differently is delved into more extensive research, and compare our distribution plan to previous plans that worked for successful projects. One group in our class highlighted this, and I felt that it clearly demonstrated their plan, and we could have incoorperated this research as well. What worked well with our plan is how we wanted to reach our target audience, as we wanted to do initally do a limited release of the film in order to test its engagement with people before we wide release it. If it were to be unsuccessful, we decided we would release the film on demand, so that people still have the option to watch the film and we would still earn revenue from it, even if it wasn't as successful as we hoped it would be.
Link to the Full Project (includes teaser and trailer!)
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