watch 'Work in Progress' First Teaser for my first project.

This is a VERY rough, work in progress, teaser trailer for my first ever project.

I still have more to film (its certainly taken its time), but thought I would try and make something from the footage I already have. The style of film is 'Found Footage' and there is an air of 'Blair Witch' to the trailer...I'm not claiming originality here.

I'm aware of the cheesy 'wording', that will change down the line, but just added it to get a flow of things.

Anyway, enough rambling. If you could watch and give some constructive criticism...or just plain criticism, I would be very grateful.

Thanks and enjoy and watch it in 720p (for some reason 1080 doesn't look so good)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLav7o_9gKo

Sorry for double post, but how do i embed youtube videos on here, rather than just making a link? Plus if you do have any feedback on the trailer i would fully appreciate it. Thanks

I'm at work so I can't watch it with sound. But I'll give you some feedback on the other aspects.

First thing I noticed is the length of time. For a full-length theatrical trailer, two and a half minutes it fine. But if you're going to call it a teaser trailer, it should be no more than thirty seconds and ten to fifteen seconds is more typical.

I'm not sure if you're actors are hamming it up on purpose since this is meant to be found footage of them making a movie. But it doesn't seem like it since they are equally hammy when they aren't 'acting.'

I'm not a nazi about shaky-cam, but a lot of your shots were way too shaky even for me. It did, however, work when you did the extremely shaky fast movements of the ground, it was very disorienting (I'm assuming that's what you were going for.)

For a first time I think you did a pretty good job though. Keep at it

Oh, and to embed youtube videos on here, you type [YT.]the letters and numbers after v= go here[/YT.] take out the periods in the brackets and voila!

First, copy and paste the goobledy-gok after the equals sign, then...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLav7o_9gKo[/yt] <--- add a close bracket at the end and you'll get this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLav7o_9gKo


Okay, the BLAIR WITCH shaky-cam is simply dreadful. It's been overly done to death.
No one likes it.
You can do hand-held documentary camera work without the shaky-shaky.
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=36313

Since you're almost finished shooting it just chalk it up to educational.
Don't change the shooting style now unless everyone is just dying to redo it "better".

The setting is beautiful. A really nice find there.

The premise of why "things" and "bad events" are happening has not even been alluded to in the trailer itself.
And then the trailer also has too many black/blank spot in it.

Some of the acting is over acting while others are just fine.

The title MODULE 17 sounds more like a space station sci-fi premise than five people in the woods.
Consider modifying that. (It can be your "working title" <wink! wink!>).

Oh, and the audio sounds largely pretty decent enough, so congrats on that, as well!

GL!

Wow, thanks for your feedback.

The idea, for the trailer was for not to give too much away, and the black spots were pretty much just filling up scenes that i hadn't filmed yet. Again, just messing with what i had.

Also with the title, i wanted something that didn't give too much away. I'm not sure how University/Colleges work where you are from but in the UK we study 'Modules' which make up the degree. The modules are generally followed by a Number or Letter.

Who knows, if this gets a worldwide release the title could change to fit the demographic of the country its playing in

Anyway, thanks again for both your feedback, i hope to film some more soon and make a much improved trailer.

You can give just a wee more away.
Without the BLAIR WITCH reference I don't think enough people would get it.

In fact, you can probably just come right out and say "THERE'S A FREAKING EVIL SPIRIT IN THIS FOREST!" and folks would go "Oh, cool. Does it do more than confuse people, stack rocks, make creepy stick figures, and steal teeth?"


Understood about the blank spots and US/UK modules thing - agreed. You're okay, then.

rayw said:

You can give just a wee more away.
Without the BLAIR WITCH reference I don't think enough people would get it.

In fact, you can probably just come right out and say "THERE'S A FREAKING EVIL SPIRIT IN THIS FOREST!" and folks would go "Oh, cool. Does it do more than confuse people, stack rocks, make creepy stick figures, and steal teeth?"

Click to expand...

Yeah maybe. In answer to the previous comments about the acting, I wouldn't say it would be completely wrong to describe this project as a comedy/horror. In fact I'm attempting for the first half of the film to resemble the comedy aspect, hamming acting etc then for 'something' to happen which completely changes to tone of the film.

I know for the audience that either works or completely falls flat on its face. I suppose its the ever learning experience of filmmaking.