DONE (almost) + the Teaser Trailer

It's been nearly a month since I wrote on this blog. I've been quite busy with many other things, plus I was dissuaded from writing because I would periodically read other blogs from other "indie filmmakers", and it sort of turned me off from wanting to write about the progress. There's just something too self-assertive about this, what this blog is, and I hope it doesn't come off that way, but I'm afraid it might. It may just all be in my head anyway.

145 minutes. That's the length of the entire film at the moment. It's a good length, I feel. I understand the need for a lean film, a movie where the fat needs to be trimmed. But I think if I do that too much with this movie it might lose some of what I originally wanted; which was just a movie about....well, that's pretty much it. There's not much of a plot that this movie rides on, so it just happens, for the most part. However, with that being said, there are a couple scenes that I could cut. But there's already been debate about that. In every motion movie film, you're always going to have some great scene that you ultimately need to scrap, whether things are repeated, etc.

I'm hoping that I can keep the length without ruining anything. I know I should probably learn now to let go now, but part of me wants to keep as much as I can while I can. We'll see. In describing what NICOTINE is, I'm having trouble. People want a short synopsis, so I give it to them, but even that doesn't explain what the movie is.

Maybe this trailer will help.



Or, maybe not. I don't like trailers. I can't make a trailer. I don't want a lot of footage to be in trailers. I wish Hollywood would only release teaser trailers, not full trailers with every single piece of material they shot contained within 2.5 minutes. That's insane.


Going forward:

Sound Design / Foley: I love this part. Everything will be Mono, not Stereo. So even though you may see a car enter frame left, and exit frame right, I will not be moving the sound with the vehicle. It was a conscious decision to do that. It just wasn't the right movie to exercise that ability. It has a lot to do with how we take in sound too, more specifically, how Paul receives sound.

You walk down the street and you're aware of all the sound -- all the small details; dog barking, someone on a bike, yelling in the distance, a gas pump across the street, the cadence of a car hitting the stone wall driving through a tunnel, a radio on in a car as it speeds by. We could have done a lot with sound, where it engulfs you and surrounds you, to a point where it drives you a bit mad. But I thought that maybe it could all be achieved in Mono. It's all down in front and the sounds are all garbled together. That seems to fit Paul a bit more.

I have a lot to do with sound yet. It will become important too because we're not using any traditional score, so in part it needs to supply the natural sound effect of the particular location, but also act as an emotional tool.

That's all I have for now.

Oh, here's another poster; the same as before really. I went a bit fancier, adding some stuff too it -- my H8C logo, the work-in-progress logo for Self Destructive Films. I didn't need to, and was maybe a bit silly of me to do, but I became incredibly giddy once I finished the movie a few nights ago. I'm not sure if this will be the final poster, but I'm liking it more and more. But is it too loud? "I'm An Indie MOvie!!!!!!!!" I hope not.