Trailer for 'Sleep'

[Michael Collier]

 

Since this is a trailer for a short...it didn't make much sense to do a long one so I kept it pretty short. Let me know what you think. This is the first film I DP'ed (well first on film, plenty of others on video)

 

check it out. leave feedback or rate it on youtube if you'd like. I didn't want to use youtube, but I don't have that sort of bandwidth on my server, and its short so I was able to keep the bitrate up. It should play instantly on most broadband connections. let me know if there are problems.

 

as always: I would love all the feedback I can get!

 

Thanks!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The lead actress has a nice face, pretty but not glamorous, realistic. Good for this sort of material.

 

The naturalness of the photography works for this story, it seems, just like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" has a realistic look to offset the surreal elements of the plot.

 

I'd just say that some of the interiors look a little overlit or over-filled or something -- a little more contrast would have helped.

[David Sweetman]

Finally got it working, the audio wouldn't work on my laptop for some reason...

 

The ext. shots are awesome, the door scene looks really interesting. I especially liked the soft light on the man kneeling by the car. The hospital scene too, that guy has a great voice for the part.

 

Just some comments about the edit - In the diner scene, Rach's "go on" seems to come way too early, on seeing it the first time - I realize that might not be how it plays in the acutal edit though. Also it should be "...When you're losing your mind". ...a small thing, maybe, but spelling errors always jump out at me.

[Jacob Stalhammar]

I liked it. It definitely had something, I went back and watched it again and it stayed in my head for a while. That's really good. Wonderful opening shot, good choice of faces. Nice look to it. Great colors.

 

My only critique would be that I found the last "who are you" a bit over the top, and maybe, maybe it's a little bit jumpy continuity-wise. You see the lead from the left, from the right, from the left again. That sort of "restarted" my imagination for each cut, rather than building in the same direction.

 

Still, a really nice piece of work. I'd love to see more.

[Michael Collier]

Hahaha. I was waiting for the first person to say the 'who are you' is over the top. It sort of is (in the context of the trailer, less cheesy in the film itself) I wanted to see what people thought of that one, I was on the fence about leaving it in or taking it out. I figured why not, its the point of the movie is who is the stalker. I can see the argument for screen direction, it does sort of switch sides a lot. My biggest problem cutting was keeping it from being all about her. Its a short so she is in every scene and some are only her. Cutaways didn't seem to work as most that are in the film either need too much set up or gave too much of the story away. Maybe I will try reversing a few of the shots for the trailer and see how it plays. Theres no text in shot, so it shouldn't be a problem to flip it.

 

Sweetman, thanks for the kind words. Yes I found out that spelling is off. Its my akiles heal (sp?) and was probably working too fast to do a spell check on my work, though that doesn't excuse the mistake. It will be fixed tonight and reuploaded.

 

Tom was great in that role, though hes a stage actor and sometimes he leaned more towards the stage acting tradition, but my co-director did a great job of working with him, and he did well. It was his first time on camera. Man can he project, we dialed it down most of the time, but sometimes it was great to have him really put some gravitas into his lines. Just had to make sure the recorder levels were ready, since theres a lot of dynamic range in his voice. Shortly after this wrapped (like 3 days after) he flew to pheonix to start a new stage gig, so he is out of Alaska unfortunatley.

 

I can see what you mean with the 'go on' edit. In the film, she is leading the conversation and it seems to cut to her early to allow her time to react, and to let her set the pace (which by that shot has started to quicken). Doesn't play that way in the trailer because its her first apperance. I will look at triming that edit line for the trailer. I just didn't want to dig the original shot out of the synced tracks. I was trying to kick this out the door since I won't be able to in the next few weeks and the writer and actors all want to see a taste of what we did.

 

David Mullen, thanks for the view and critique. I definatley respect anything you have to say regarding my or others work. I tried to keep it naturalistic not to keep the sureal story for becoming cheapend by overexerting myself photographically. The contrast could have been upped a bit, but this was my first attempt with neg (or any film for that matter) and actually thought I was pushing the capabilities of film....oh well live and learn. Next film I am sure will be nuclear white and velvet black with no in between.

 

 

Oh and good call on the actress, I thought the same thing when I cast her. Didn't seem like the part for the femme fetale buxum blonde.

 

 

Thanks for all the replys and keep them comming!

[AdamBray]

As far as lighting and such, as a casual observer it all looked good to me. Though I did think the guys were better actors than the females. That Rachel girl looks really uncomfortable.