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Showing posts from May, 2005

Cutting Trailers, & selling a movie

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The past few weeks I've been busy cutting trailers for my film "Deadly Obsessions", and looking into expanding the web site and getting a merchant account so I can start selling the film. I also need to put the film onto DVD, and I've been looking at pricing. In the past day I've finalized the video, and converted it into an MPEG file. Cutting trailers is an art form all to itself. I read interviews with filmmakers who worked for Roger Corman, and in the interview they say that they would cut in a shot of an exploding helicopter if the footage from the film wasn't visual interesting. While cutting my trailer for the film that sentiment reverberated in my head for some time. To put it bluntly there are no rules to editing trailers. Just as long as you get people interested in the film. Well I haven't gone that far and edited in some exploding vehicles, but I hope I have made the film a bit more interesting with the footage I've included. At first I jus

"Cinema is Over"

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In an article in Britain's Guardian Jean-Luc Godard was quoted as saying: "It's over, there was a time maybe when cinema could have improved society, but that time was missed." Now far be it from me to criticize the great Jean-luc Godard, but I have to disagree with the above statement. To me it sounds like sour grapes. Godard himself mentions in the article that his movies have been unsuccessful in a commercial sense. I happen to disagree on that also but that's another argument for another time. I guess Godard is measuring his success to what Hollyweird produces, and it's success at the box office. I'll agree that the film business is just that a film business, but to say that cinema is over, and that no good can come from it is wrong. There is a lot of cinema out there that works, and gets it's message through. Of course since the results are not measured in the millions, Hollyweird and its brethren are not paying too much attention to theses small

What's Next?

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I've been in a quandary for a while now. I've completed my first film, and I'm trying to get it into film festivals, but no luck there, so what do I do? I've been itching to do another film, but my resources are stretched thin. I'm also still working on getting my film "Deadly Obsessions" out there and seen. At this point all I want is to see it on a video shelf, but there isn't enough hours in the day for me to concentrate on selling the film, getting another film together, and of course working at my day job. After all I have a family and I like my job, so it's hard being torn in so many directions. I would like to just get a home for the film, and get it out there. I didn't make the film for profit though I was aware of keeping my overhead down so I could do the film for less, and for all intensive purposes I did that, but now I need to sell it. By the summer I'll be able to put the film onto DVD. Come hell or high water that's what

The Mix

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After locking the film down I was ready for the mix. I mixed my film at Agnello Films in northern NJ by Tom Agnello. Tom is a cinematographer & editor, and he knows his stuff. Over three days we mixed the film, and it all went well because of Tom. The one problem that Tom found was that some of the footage seemed out of synch. This was attributed to me not coding the film and mag track so that when I began cutting the film I lost synch. When projected it became a bit noticeable, so Tom had to take the time to re-synch some of the footage. We also added some new sound effects that he thought would help. Tom has an extensive collection of sound effects, and it took him no time to cut them in. We edited on a another 6 plate editor, which was similar to a KEM. Tom is one of the few who still edit this way. His basement is his studio, and it works without a hitch. Tom is also familiar with the people at Color Lab down near Washington DC where the film was printed. So if you are going to