Ben X

Gotcha. Well, not that I have any knowledge of the short film circuit, but my advice: 1) give yourself a strict deadline for making the new version (a week? You don't want to be tinkering with this forever, better to learn lessons and move onto the next one) (Also, make a version with a public domain music cue for later use - even if it's a bit sloppy, better to have something than nothing.) 2) send it to every festival that fits your criteria but won't accept films that have been online 3) put it online and promote it as much as possible 4) send it to all the other festivals that fit your criteria, and at this point I don't see any reason not to send it to every festival going as long as it doesn't cost you anything. Make the most of that music licence! Even if you're not there to see the screenings, something good may come of them. 5) Make another short film! Also, you mentioned that having a trailer might be helpful but you're too burned out on this film to make one - do you know (or could you find) any editors in training whom you could ask to make one for you? It would be good experience for them.

Aw, that's a shame. Why wouldn't there be any point in sending it to a festival?

People who use the term "mystery-box storytelling" - what do you mean by it? Because Abrams' TED Talk use of 'mystery-box' was so broad as to not really mean anything. He called the Darth Vader reveal in ESB a mystery box. He calls movie theaters mystery-boxes. I think some people use it to mean "the enjoyable speculation over a never-explained mystery", but then the term is also applied to LOST which did explain pretty much everything (how successfully is subjective, imo very).

Well, it's only a teaser trailer. It's a Christopher Nolan movie that seems to have lots of atmosphere and tension and maybe some narrative timeline tricks. Up to you whether you're excited by that or not! (If you're confused by it having Russian text, I believe that's because this teaser was only played in cinemas and they've been taking down online versions so it's hard to find one in English.) I can't immediately think of any favourite teaser trailers that haven't already been mentioned, but I always thought that if this one cut off at the 1 min mark it would have been great:

Agreed on El Camino, Two Ferns and Wine Country. Disagree on Always Be My Maybe, which I thought was the most bland, toothless archetype of a romcom I've seen in a while. I also watched Dumplin' but for some reason I forgot to put a review on letterboxd. It was meh to good. I didn't realise Shaft was a Netflix co-production! I should have realised when it came on the service two weeks after theatrical release. I can't be bothered to watch it after the bad reviews, though, even if Roundtree does get more to do than in the last one.

Cool idea! Make it!

Those are some Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition levels of digital noise reduction right there.

Wow, that is an insane career trajectory.

Hooray, episode 10! My listening habits mean I don't end up posting a lot of comments or questions on these threads, but I'm enjoying this 'cast very much!

I think you mean "vowel" rather than "vocal"... I was pleased to help with such a lovely film - it's a very impressive debut! Also, that poster is great. I hope it does well on the festival circuit, and that you can muster the energy at some point to dive back in and replace the licensed track with a public domain one

Aww, good stuff!

Did you mention Watchmen in the 'cast? The Koyaanisquatsi one is also cool, but I prefer the Pumpkins one, partly because it sticks to one track (as far as I can tell) and has a lot less dialogue. I wouldn't mind naming inconsistencies so much if at least each trailer was publicly given specific designations for each of its versions and all the people on YouTube used those names instead of just calling all of them "official trailer"!

I'm totally with you on the Sin City trailer - I was a big fan of the comics and this trailer got me so excited. It was the early days of being able to easily view trailers online, and I went through this one frame by frame, as much as technology would allow. Apparently that second track is an instrumental version of Cells by The Servant, the original of which was also used in The Transporter a few years earlier. It's cheesy but propulsive and kind of Wild Westy, so it's a great choice. The film turned out to make a lot of bad choices on what to keep and what to drop, sadly. I think this is the right one: Similarly, the Watchmen trailer had a great vibe, helped by another great music choice (a deliberate, sleazy Smashing Pumpkins track which is an alternative version of a track they wrote for Batman & Robin), a great look and more exact panel recreations to pause on. And similarly again, the film turned out to be... misguided. Again, I'm pretty sure this is the right one, but there are some slightly different edits out there and there often doesn't seem to be much attention put into formalised naming of different trailer versions: In fact, I think superhero adaptations are generally a good place to go when trying to find great trailers for awful movies. The Green Lantern trailer was really promising as well!

I promise this is the last time I'll do this: The Swindle for the Switch is now 60% off in the UK and the US. Well worth £6 or $6 in my biased opinion!

http://www.sizefivegames.com/games/theswindle (Note: Although people asssume so because of the Dan and Ben games, I am not a Size Five Games permanent employee. I was not involved in the making of this game!)

I just saw an online organisation asking for donations specifically in bitcoin, and it made me realise that I don't really understand how this thing works. So, it's a digital currency, right? It's essentially like transferring money to your Paypal account but with a different exchange rate. Is it safe? Easy? Ethically sound? Also, it seems like there's a social stigma attached to it. Is it because it's so nerdy and annabe-cyberpunk, or is there some kind of alt-right/MRA/similar association?

Finally saw Away From Home today. Things I liked - ; the end action scene (for once, I could tell what was going on and where everyone was, and it had some character beats. Spidey still didn't get to do much past his basic move-set, though). Things I didn't like - pretty much everything else. All of the comedy was dreadful, the script is flabby and aimless and doesn't gather any energy for the first hour or so, the action is mostly dull and muddled, the exposition is clumsy, and SLJ obviously didn't have much time booked because there's some really sloppy editing papering over cracks in his scenes.

Please keep posting about it here! Looks really cool!

I haven't read it yet, but here's a New Yorker article on the rise of sad cover songs in trailers: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-the-cover-song-conquered-movie-trailers

I guess not!

Bit of a weird thread title for it. Couldn't we use the Games Writing thread?

I think it's unfair in that Marvel is doing something very specific and it's understood that, despite the titles, these films are all chapters in a single story. I also think it's understandable, if one isn't au fait with the Marvel set-up, to have assumed that Spider-Man 1 -> Spider-Man 2 would not have huge story jumps.

Due to various things I've barely got anything done on this (thankfully I didn't mention it to my sister!). I'm hoping to bend the rules, as is WizJam tradition, and get something basic in for the Showcase Weekend/Breckon Stream... EDIT: this did not happen

At the last minute, I've decided to take part in Wiz Jam 9! I've just realised that my sister's birthday is right near the end of it, so I'm taking this opportunity to make her a little game as a present. She loves her cocker spaniel so my immediate thought is a simple platformer with her dog as the player character, and the endorsement 'interacting with humans' will hopefully give me some ideas for mechanics. I'll probably use Construct 2, as it's free and hopefully quite easy to learn the basics of. I'll probably also change the name at some point, so my thread title is placeholder. Depending on how things go, I might put a call out for help with art and sound..!

We discussed the term a bit here.