Ben X

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Ben X

  6. Posted

    If it's the case that they all came in, did good work on Alyx and then make Valley as a VR game, I'm happy with that result even though I'm probably not going to get to play any VR games for quite a while - once I can, will be great to have a new awesome HL game to play and to see what the Campo Santo team can do with a 'walking simulator' game using high levels of VR interactivity and Valve money. And if Valley turns out not to be VR that's fine too. As long as it still gets made (or at least we get a different CS game instead, I guess)! 

  10. Posted

    Also don't burn yourself out looking after/worrying about everyone else - you've got to look after yourself first. I know it can be hard to prioritise yourself over family and close friends when they're having a hard time, but it doesn't help anyone if you end up having a breakdown.

     

    If possible, might be helpful to see a mental health professional (a therapist or whatever) to help you work up some techniques to deal with the new stress factors in your life. You don't have to keep going forever, and if you don't like the first one you try you can keep trying different ones until you find a good fit.

  12. Posted

    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.

  14. Posted

    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).

  15. Posted

    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:
     

     

  16. Posted

    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.

  21. Posted

    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 :)

  23. Posted

    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"!

  24. Posted

    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!