Showing posts with label Houston Horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Houston Horror. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

CAN A BAD TRAILER RUIN YOUR INDIE FILMS PREMEIRE?


The honest answer to a question about the potential of having a solid Indie film trailer is “Yes, a projects success depends on what it takes to bring attention to your Indie film!” and it makes a HUGE difference to the success of your films potential for having a premiere – but don’t actually believe that people outside of your little circle really care. Indie films come and go all the time, and most of the time, the only people that truly care about your film project are the actors, the production team, their families, and friends that know about the Indie film and what it’s all about from the team. So, what should you do to get the best attention for your film?


First, get someone outside of your circle to promote your film to all of the news outlets and through all of the local Internet news circuits that they can; having someone that isn’t biased to your pride helps out a lot. Local Indie film directors try to produce fancy websites and Facebook pages to help quick-start the promotion process, but directors have BIGGER things to worry about than try to promote their own Indie film. Sure, every actor in the film claims to have ‘this contact’ and/or ‘that agent’ that can help to get the word out about your film, but a true promotions director knows the real contacts to get the word out about your film. Let them do the hard work and give them the best material to advertise your project without remorse or recourse for under promoting it.


A solid promotional director will cost you money, but to trust an accomplished advertiser to push your work to the right people outside of your circle is the best investment you’ll have when the premier date comes dancing around in the local community. A proven promo-director has to out-smart the previous ‘big Indie hit’ that came before you, so it’s always a contest to get the best person at the helm of pushing your new Indie film. 

With that, you’re going to need a solid trailer. So, where do you begin with your first trailer? What source material do you need? Should you use real material from your film?


Well, trailers are a tricky thing. Some production teams use ‘trailer ideas’ to bring investors and producers in to help their projects with money or locations; the proper term is ‘pitch film’ or ‘sizzle reel’, so if you decide to work with a team who say, “It’s called a trailer”, I highly recommend you bail out from that team right away. These types of people find out the hard way about movie making, so as a growing actor, it’s always a good thing to know when it’s time to bail when you’re working with stubborn people.


If your team has an Independent film idea you’d like to ‘pitch’ to an investor or potential producer, you want to produce a ‘pitch film’ [or sizzle reel] which is usually a seven or eight minute look into your project idea. But, we’re talking about a ‘trailer’ for your Indie film, right? So, let’s go over what you need to present to people outside of your project to get them excited to see your potentially exciting film.


I will begin by telling you that having a ‘clique of friends’ to help support your film is a good thing, but you need sheer honesty to see if your film is worth bragging about. Remember if you’re an Indie filmmaker/director, people outside of your friends circle [or clique] always expect local Indie films to be crappy and lack material worth watching, so your trailer has to prove those people wrong. Always show them that you have class within the production, and that yeah, it’s actually going to be a fun film to watch. I know what you’re dying to ask; “How do I do all of that?”


As I stated earlier, it’s all about honesty. First time local Indie directors are always looking for someone to hand out accolades for every small scene they complete; but how good are those scenes really? How did everything tie in together? Was the mood you wanted to present in retrospect all there? These questions cannot be answered and evaluated by the production team. I hate to say it, but if you clearly have a scene between two people sitting on a couch, passing out what you think is a key point or important information within the films storyline, you should truly consider not showing that in your trailer. “Couch scenes” are considered amateurish, strong signs of a low budget production, and will give the audience an ill fated glimpse into the quality of your film.


I recommend for first time directors to set up a private screening for different genres of people after your films first run at post editing who are not part of any clique or production circle. They should be split up in several groups to best evaluate a rating system, evaluate flow, and gage interest for maturity purposes if your film declares a film rating of PG or higher. These groups can be split up in age groups, like this:


- First group 8-16 years of age.
- Second group 16-24 year of age.
- Third group 25 or older.


Keep the numbers of each group small to less than three per age group. These groups should be allowed to take notes and openly review your film. If you feel that the younger audiences[8 to 16 y/o] won’t understand your film or be too afraid of the projects content, remove them from the first group and add another age group who will help you get the right type of review that’s good for your project. Ask this audience of reviewers to be brutally honest as their review will help you establish a movie rating for your film; whether the film will be PG, PG13, or R. Don’t ever just assume the rating of your film because you ‘feel’ it should be a certain rating for future audiences.

So from here, let’s pretend you have your review and now you’re considering on producing a ‘trailer’ because the initial reviews from your unbiased group gave you good marks. Keep in mind that most professional trailers to a finished film should run under two minutes in length. If you’ve produced a comedy, make sure the trailer is funny; if you’ve produced a dramatic film, make the trailer dramatic; if you made a horror film, make damn sure it’s scary; if it’s a sexy film, make the trailer sexy. The best advice I can give is, don’t tell the viewer the whole story and plot about your film. A trailer is preview of things inside the project that best represents the whole meaning of your film. Push the envelope where you need to and if you have a film format that separates you from other Indie films, toss that in for good measure.


Some of the best trailers we’ve ever previewed have been those trailers that have presented the unexpected without giving away too much. Most of those trailers were produced by persons not related to the production team; meaning that the director put the production of his films trailer into the hands of an experienced editor who has actually seen the film and knows what will make the trailer tick to audiences. A good sound track is also key to delivering a punch [or dramatic peak] that fits the mood of the trailer. The prowess of your actors will be evaluated by the audiences when they watch your film, so don’t worry so much about trying to present the total acting quality in your trailer.


People love to see flowing scenes from one scene to another, so be sure to make your trailer flow constantly with scenes you now will set the mood for the trailer. If your trailer can bring in only one person outside of your friends circle to see your project, then the trailer has done its job. The list for bad film trailers is long and distinguished, but if your current trailer design has the following bad practices in trailers, you should consider cutting a new trailer.


- Trying to show the entire cast of your Indie film in the trailer; because you feel like you owe it to the entire team.

- Making up scenes in the trailer that are not in your film.

- Showing a plot twist in the film that gives away your film’s best avenue for stunning your future audience.

- Presenting the names of all of the actors and production team in a trailer “credit scroll” just to satisfy your crew’s vanity.

- Presenting a release date or venue location on your trailer; as you will wind up making updates to every change of venue; always present only one trailer for your film to use in all promotional venues.


If you’re an Indie filmmaker who has several successful films in your resume, the lists and the information shared may not mean much to you. But if you have yet to successfully break away from your local Indie clique and get impressive ‘outside’ numbers for your films premiere, it might be due to not bringing in the newer crowds through your previous trailer. Try a change in your post production habits, put your faith in an experienced Marketing or Promotions Manager, and try some of things we’ve presented to help you on your way to improve the attendance in your new films premieres.

D. R. Quintana
CEO and Editor of the QSE
Submitted as Liner Notes - His opinion is not the opinion of all of the QSE Staff or the actors who work with him on film projects.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

CHINESE/KOREAN AUDIENCE KEEPING CLOSE TABS ON SPECTRE ZERO


Thanks to some smartly prepared promotions through various internet sites, the studios supper-thriller SciFi series, SPECTRE ZERO, is taking strong roots with many Oriental fans due to the reason of the show including a talented and heavy Oriental cast who portray lead characters who delve into a career of searching for spiritual phenomena.

One of the series leading characters, Wynn Mi, is played by the talented and beautiful Sara Mao of Katy, Texas who has made a name for herself on the internet with cosplay modeling she has produced online for the last few years.  Her character is gifted with the psychic ability to step through a doorway of the "minds eye" and communicate with evil spirits that live inside a sub-space world that has parallels with our own world. Her clairvoyant abilities are pretty impressive as all she has to do is see and sense the area around her to fully engage with spirits and try to communicate with them. In many cases, the trips into the "minds eye" are simple and a bit scary, but at other times her trips into the nether world are quite horrifying and seem to send a warning about seeing things in the dark that people shouldn't.


Wynn's team members are the creators and inventors of the band name company, Spectre Zero. Markus McCain, is played by Daniel Erik, and Lewis Denmark, is played by Bishop Asher [both of Conroe, Texas] who run a website which lists only the proven "active" places in Texas that have ghostly phenomena and also have an Urban Legend tied to them. In the series, the trio trek through the Texas landscape verifying or debunking ghost sites and make a good living off of them. In some cases, the phenomena is so extreme, that Wynn Mi is put in peril over some evil forces that are up to no good.

The series director and creator, D. R. Quintana, said that the studio project was seriously only intended to be another web series, which was being produced solely for fun.

"I never want to over-emphasize or over-hype any of the projects I produce through our small enterprise, but the Chinese audience is watching, listening, and reading every article and trailer we release on the web" says Quintana. "The numbers are real and there is no exaggeration about the expectation for this low budget series, that doesn't look so low budget in final production."

Quintana says that the high quality video production has everything to do with thinking about how to produce the best material possible before actually rolling their cameras. The series must maintain a high quality video production and at least a 7.2 Dolby surround sound production format with original music score and full scripts to have a chance for approval to Amazon's film and series acceptance program for streaming services.

"In years passed, it was all about filming this scene and that without thinking of the quality of the production" added Quintana. "Where I wanted quantity of material to spill out onto the internet, racing the remaining time of a young cast of actors, in Spectre all of the actors are adults and there's no racing required to keep the look of the cast in check." 

The studio continues to produce episodes for the series, aiming for a goal of 13 to 15 episodes for final delivery to Amazon for streaming and distribution. The studio is hoping to wrap up season one by April and commence production of season two by the end of July. With a young cast and  a plethora of stories to tell, the studio is sure that the series will find it's way to fans across all corners of the globe, just like previous project releases produced by the studio.

The studio is planning to release a new series trailer in the first week of March.

J. Jazz
[Contributing Writer]

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

THE AFTERMATH OF LARRY CARRELL'S "JACOB"

Jacob Poster
In 2011, the Houston Film Scene was much in astir about a local filmmaker [Larry Carrell] who put "the best" of what Houston, Texas had to offer in one film and through some daring production shams and scams, as he was able to put up the cash to make his dream film come true. Give this man some pretty impressive "ambition points" as he set out to do something and make it look big as possible. In a few months, he had a written script, a few thousand dollars in his pocket, and he tore away at Houston to make this dream come to life.

There was ton of double-dipping going on prior to the production of his film JACOB; the filmmaker infiltrated several local films and evaluated talent in them, then sucked the talent right out of those productions to bring into his film, all of the time promising huge success and big contracts. Quite truly, the film was the talk of the town...at least in the local independent film scene.  But when the first premiere hit the streets, it was a complete disaster of 'unfinished mastery' missing sound, filled with incomplete scenes, and presented scraps of an unfinished film to the cast, crew, and their families...and like most amateur indie film actors in the vast landscape of "wanting to be stars," no one complained about it all during this initial premiere. Instead, local actors and their families stood proudly and took pictures afterwards; smiled and boasted the films "huge success."

Just a month prior to the first premiere of Carrell's JACOB, a local short film produced entirely of teens, boasted huge success at several "Sold Out" premieres which seemed to jeopardize Carrell's potential future film success with his uncompleted film. During JACOB's first premiere in Houston, most of the attendee's in the seats were just the cast, crew, some family and a couple of local indie film critics who were begged to come see the film. People outside of the films clique who attended were not impressed with what the film presented and Carrell knew that. Some of the people in attendance openly complained that the price paid for tickets should have been refunded...and of course, even though he [Carrell] was ashamed, nodding in agreement with them promising something would be done about that, that never happened and Carrell and his team pocketed the cash with a nice grin and went on about their business.

Carrell Picture
You see? that's the way "real" film business is run in Hollywood and Houston should do the same. For him being someone who always tasted the long reach of top fame, Carrell was finally on the right road to success, not caring what or who was standing in his way. People in his inner circle began to believe that his attitude was the right one to have if you truly wanted to step into the real world of movie success.
 
But through diversity and patience, Carrell and his team continued to push forward. Over a period of months [up to even a year] they added scenes to the unfinished film and were able to scrounge up a known Hollywood name to bring more credence to the film. None of what is written here is fabricated...it's the truth. Through thick and thin, the film made it's way from one convention to another, then eventually onto Netflix. The film crossed the oceans and landed a following in Europe, where the title of the film was changed to "Sister." The film won countless local Indie awards and practically over night Carrell's clique grew and some names were added to the "producers" list who seemed to jump on the bandwagon ride of success...and all were very proud of the end results; which weren't easily attained. None of the local actors in the film have ever been paid for their work...not that they expected anything due to the shady contracts they signed.

So, in the end, Carrell got his film made and he got the attention and money he dreamed about...sort of. Below are comments made on the films IMDB page. You have to get passed the comments posted by the cast and crew to see what the real thoughts are by the REAL people who previewed this "fine masterpiece" of 80's horror. 

I still have yet to see this film, so I cannot review it properly....but I thought it was best that you, the reader, know what your getting into should you choose to decide to watch it yourself.

D. R. Quintana
Editor








Tuesday, November 22, 2016

"HER CRY" FAILS TO IMPRESS...AT ALL

Houston has had it's long-ass-list of Indie film flops, many of which I wouldn't even dare review on this blog to contaminate your lives, and unfortunately this mega-mega flop is right down there with them. 

HER CRY [(2013) from Dark Lightning Films] is no doubt another slap in the face to real filmmakers in the local area. This hour long schlep of crap won a couple of awards, one being a Houston REMI for best "mystery" and "thriller"... REMI's are the prime example of "participation awards" given to anyone who submits a home video as an indie film.

Directed by Damir Catic, HER CRY tries to tell the Urban Legend of La LLorona, a Mexican story concerning a female spirit who appears during rain storms and thunder claps and tries to drown people who hear her cries out in the wind. The story is brought out through "found footage" and is not brilliant in it's adaptation of the legend, nor in it's screenplay. This is definitely a "hold a camera in you hand" type of film; don't expect anything else out of it.

I'm not sure what it is about having shaky camera footage and bad sound dubbing that was supposed to make this amateur film scary, but I wasted a little over an hour of my life [89 minutes] just trying to get through to the end credits. The acting is atrocious and definitely not what I expected to see from one of Houston's "brightest award winners" for that year...or any other year for that matter.
The absolute worst part of this film was the lighting; many segments just in the opening scenes which were poorly shot on camera without any attempt at bringing light to scene...a dire attempt to use darkness as a scary tool, I'm sure. There was use of an infrared night camera [of sorts] for some shots, but the techniques used with it were very poor and not thought out well at all. Some child actors were brought into the film who seemed to have no training or concept of working on film, seemed to give the film an amateur feel that brought no charisma to any scene at any time. These big failures make me wonder who accepts a film for preview by the awards team in Houston.
Again, the blame for this crap film goes directly to the production staff and it's director. Editing was inconsistent and the sound jumped from static to clear sound; to muffling; to garbling; leaving me with the impression that two to three people were involved in the final editing, and just trying to put something together to complete a film.

In the end, the film had a clever idea in a story but it was delivered with an overall feel of "an awkward kindergarten play that deserved an award for participating in a localized event where the production team were lucky that all of the actors just happened to showed up at the last minute."

I would honestly warn you not to waste your time on this little indie "train that couldn't." If you decide to want to watch it, you'll have to pay to see it.



[2 of 5 Stars]



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