We just posted 2 teasers to our independent film "heads or tails". Would appreciate any feedback!

NEW - 03/16/04 - TEASER C - SEE BELOW

TEASER B DOWNLOAD
LARGE http://www.foolmartyr.com/shorts/teaserblarge24.mp4
SMALL http://www.foolmartyr.com/shorts/teaserbmedium.mov

If the above links don't work, please try the links at http://www.foolmartyr.com

Thanks!
Clark Kline
Co Writer/Director


I edited to remove a deadlink. link to a Brand New Teaser below!

NEW

TEASER C DOWNLOAD
LARGE http://www.foolmartyr.com/shorts/teaserclarge.mp4
SMALL http://www.foolmartyr.com/shorts/teasercsmall.mp4

The encodes are beautiful, but the files are a bit large. I didn't get any sense of the story, characters, etc. The teaser should really tease me & make me interested in the film, not just show a random selection of shots.

Well, I love both of them. They definitely tease me.

I love teasers that are short and contain nothing but images (I get frustrated with teasers that are 2:30 minutes longand full of dialogue - that's a full trailer, people!).

Both of these are good teasers, if you really got into the characters and the story it would end up being a full trailer.

The only thing that bothered me was in Teaser B when the guy in the Brown Leather Jacket was talking. Its' irritating when you see the people speaking but can't hear what they are saying (I know, Im nitpicky).

Was the film shot on 35mm or HD?

Poke

Well shot.

However, I too was left wanting at least a hint at what it's about.

Nice shots though...

Martin

Well, I love both of them. They definitely tease me.
...
The only thing that bothered me was in Teaser B when the guy in the Brown Leather Jacket was talking. Its' irritating when you see the people speaking but can't hear what they are saying (I know, Im nitpicky).

Was the film shot on 35mm or HD?

Poke

thanks much for the comments/suggestions.

i'll have to relook at the guy talking, that's a pet peeve of mine too, i tried cutting around it.

We shot on Panasonic Ag-DVX 100 cameras.

We'll be cutting teasers that hint more about plot soon.

No kidding?

I've got to tell you, that gets me extremely excited. If you can get images that good froma DVX ....

Poke

Very powerful teaser. I liked it. The shots look great. I agree that I'd like at least SOME hint of what the film is about, but nevertheless, the teasers intrigued me.

- Mike.

(PS: I also have the same pet peeve as Poke in that if I can see a character talking but don't hear the dialogue, it's kind of annoying).

Amazaing that it was shot with the VX-100. I've done some stuff with that and it still amazes me how closely it mimics film for a prosumer camera...

Yes, your shots look really well composed and executed. The timing of the shots felt a little too short to me, like you could have lost one or two shots and expanded the scenes to let the moments breathe a little more. I'd agree with the post that seeing someone speak without hearing their words is more of a nuisance than a nuance.

So, yes, I'm curious, though not enough to go out of my way to see the finished product. A tease should offer just a little more semblence of what we're dealing with besides a montage of good shots, unless those shots are SO breathtaking and groundbreaking that you wonder what the hell the filmmakers were up to. See Jojo and the stars teaser for an example...

But looks good and good luck to you

M

...

So, yes, I'm curious, though not enough to go out of my way to see the finished product. A tease should offer just a little more semblence of what we're dealing with besides a montage of good shots, unless those shots are SO breathtaking and groundbreaking that you wonder what the hell the filmmakers were up to. See Jojo and the stars teaser for an example...

But looks good and good luck to you

M

Thanks for the comments. We are planning on making teasers with hints at plot soon, since we were still in production at the time of making these, they were more for the whetting of appetites and getting the ball rolling, and moving forward with our score.

At this point the actors and most of the crew don't even know what the film is about as we shot the whole thing without giving any actor any more than their part of the story (some actors only got their lines, some actors didn't even get that).

In the next couple weeks we'll be posting a more plot driven trailer.

We just added our brand new teaser to the webpage. It 2:18 and gives a bit more information about the plot, although we're still being a little bit stingy.

View it here:
www.foolmartyr.com
Or you can download it directly here:
http://www.foolmartyr.com/shorts/teaserclarge.mp411MB
http://www.foolmartyr.com/shorts/teasercsmall.mp45MB

Absolutely amazing!!!! That is the best teaser trailer I've seen in a long, long time. I can't say enough about the visual style, the faces of the actors, the music, or THE FREAKIN' AWESOME LOOK OF THE DVX!!!!!

Is it obvious I love this project?

Poke

Thanks!
Glad you like! It's great to hear about the music specifically cause we've had the teaser cut for about a month now and have been struggling to get the music right.

clark


Absolutely amazing!!!! That is the best teaser trailer I've seen in a long, long time. I can't say enough about the visual style, the faces of the actors, the music, or THE FREAKIN' AWESOME LOOK OF THE DVX!!!!!

Is it obvious I love this project?

Poke

Good looking teaser trailer. Moody, but maybe too moody in the sense that you don't have a clue what's going on. Well shot. The only shots that bothered me was the shakey cam of the guys looking at the sunset.

Scott

Wow, it looks awesome! When and where can we expect to see this?

Wow, it looks awesome! When and where can we expect to see this?

Yeah, any idea of the Fests you guys are gonna try for? I suggest SXSW, that way I can check it out.

Poke

thanks everyone.

we haven't locked down what festivals we are gonna shoot for yet, all depends on when we get it done but we hope to be submitting them out once we have our local premiere in May/June.

SXSW? Is that only in March or are there other dates?
What other ones are good for DV features? So many out there it's difficult to cycle through them all.

SXSW only comes once a year, but it kicks ass. Check out Without a Box featuring Brigit Fest (http://www.withoutabox.com/). For a fee, you can search for and submit to fests online. I heard someone say it's the most extensive list out there.

Poke

awesome. i'll check into that site when it comes time. i'm on the film festival committee of our local town (infant right now in it's 2nd year) and we're going to use that site.

as far as when this is coming out, we'll be premiering it around end of May/June in/around Frederick Maryland or Baltimore Maryland. Then go to festivals from there.


SXSW only comes once a year, but it kicks ass. Check out Without a Box featuring Brigit Fest (http://www.withoutabox.com/). For a fee, you can search for and submit to fests online. I heard someone say it's the most extensive list out there.

Poke

just posted a few more screencaps/behind the scenes pics
at
www.foolmartyr.com

we are looking for help on heads or tails-
we are looking for graphic/web designers to help redesign the site as we go into the first stage of promotion. if you want to be involved, check out the site www.foolmartyr.com

I've watched the trailers and read the site... I still can't decide whether this is a supernatural themed film or not. It's all very mysterious! :shock:

I found it interesting the lengths gone to, to keep things close to the chest, as it were... this is from the site www.foolmartyr.com :

Each of the cast was given only their parts and some scenes were held back entirely until the date of the shoot

Talk about keeping everyone in suspense! :o

Good luck at the festivals. :)

thanks for checking it out!

Best part about keeping the cast in the dark was cause it was fun. We're still in sound production now, but hope to have a rough cut ready in July.

Good luck at the festivals. :)[/quote]

*

is mp4 a new format?

i mean i know i've seen it before but i cant view it in either ie or netscape

i cant edit it in vegas video or after effect or techsmith or even pinacle pro.

i did change the format to mpg and mpeg and both got it to play but only sound then it locked up with a single frame with a guy standing on a bridge in a greenish hue.

how is it you guys can view this?

mp4 is a codec that runs in either avi or qt wrappers. It's been out quite a while.

Maybe update your codecs?

ok, where do I find it? I downloaded the entire codec pack for limewire some months back but mp4 isnt one of them.

i opend it with quicktime, and it worked sweet.

thanks!

this shot we picked up because we were on location for a dialogue scene but the wind was killing us (look at the trees in the background, it was nuts!)...so we salvaged the day with a couple of dolly shots. we originally had this shot set up for a totally different location but i couldn't pass up the way the trees looked in the wind. this particular shot we did do a couple quick color corrections in Final Cut Pro to get the green to pop more. we do have a list of filters/lenses that we used with the panasonic ag-dvx100 to help achieve a film look that we'll be posting on the website when we're done.

for movement, we do everything from use our homemade dollies to using cars.

wow, this shot surprised me:

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/8684/teaserclarge.jpg


it looks VERY film-like how the hell did u achieve this? cunning camera/lighting techniques? luck?

the camera movement was also totally sweet. so was the composition. my favourite part of the teaser :D