After a very “back to school 2021,” this year I was itching to make something — (1) well, because I was itching to make something and (2) because it seemed like the fastest way to learn a lot more about film production, cinematography, and working with a professional crew.
In Jan, I set the goal of shooting a short film as soon as I could. I ambitiously targeted a Feb shoot in West Oakland, and I was able to a make it actually happen not too far behind schedule in Mar.
I learned a ton that I want to write about —
- finding a team
- shot listing / lining a script
- storyboarding
- casting / auditioning / rehearsing
- building props / making costumes
- budgeting / creating a shooting schedule
- safety protocols / insurance
- unions
- production
- post-production
- etc etc etc…
— but I figured I’d start by sharing what I’m working on right now — which also probably happens to be one of the more interesting things if you’re not excited about the nuts and bolts of how films are made — a trailer:
I got inspired to work on this last week, when I got back some more-or-less-final versions of the music from the composer I’ve been working with on this project, Justin Geller (ht Laris for this intro).
I was digging the music whenever I listened to it, so on Monday morning, I threw the most upbeat track in a new DaVinci Resolve timeline and started pulling in few-second clips from the final cut of the short and immediately liked the vibe it was creating.
I find editing a much more subconscious or intuitive process than writing, and this was especially the case for editing the trailer (perhaps because the entire thing was set to music, perhaps because I was already so familiar with all the footage).
In any case, it wasn’t long before I had something that seemed to work OK.
I realize that not that many people watch short films, let alone trailers for short films, but I’ve heard from a few folks in “the biz” it’s useful to have a trailer for your short, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
If you like the trailer, stay tuned for updates on where/when the short film will screen (hopefully at some festivals, but at the very least on the internet).
More soon!