Mock-up: A Trailer to Sell the Idea

The EYES mock-up trailer was a component I was very keen to implement into the project, as I felt it would help to strenghten the overal presentation of EYES being a web series proposal package.



The purpose of a mock-up trailer is akin to Kickstarter campaign video - to get funding!

Black Dynamite is a comedy homage to the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, the film was released in 2009. Below is the original mock-up trailer followed by the trailer made from the finished film.

 

 


Prototype is a film currently in production thanks to the funding its mock-up trailer managed to secure. 



Below is the initial vision I had for the EYES trailer material:

EYES Season 1 Trailer - This will be produced and exhibited online and two versions will be produced: a standalone one (2 mins), that would feature footage from the Pilot, and one to fit on the end of the Pilot (30 secs). I'm keen to do this because it would allow me to hint at what happens in the rest of the first season and would demonstrate that EYES has a story that can continue beyond the Pilot. Producing a mock-up trailer is also a very current concept and demonstrates an understanding of advertising and a completely different style of editing. My plan is to write a trailer script based upon the treatments of the other season 1 episodes and then film this footage alongside the Pilot. Likewise, the two edits of the trailer will be edited during the same period of the Pilot.

Overall, the development of the trailer really just suffered from lack of time and my inability to invest any real attention into it, as I said in the vlog it became apparent to me that it would require an equal amount of time as the Pilot.

The Trailer was something I was very keen to do.

I had many Ideas for the trailer, its contents would have been comprised of snipet-scenes of significant turning points in the first season. However, this plethora of material was part of the problem - I just didn't have the time to sit down to work my way through these ideas and structure them into a form that was aesthetically pleasing. You can read all that exists of the script here.

The trailer would have opened with something like this.

More time would also have been required to insure that everything that was in the trailer synced up with what was in the Pilot episode. This is was even more problematic when you consider that I was rewriting the Pilot at the same time. Therefore, on top of the Fencing documentary and my dissertation, I think I made the right choice in disbanding the trailer.

However, after we completed production, Daniel (EYES' sound designer) put the following video together to showcase some sound design he had done and to demonstrate a possible idea for a teaser trailer.

While a trailer created from the Pilot's footage did interest me, it was something I felt I wouldn't have time to do and I have been proved right. Ultimately, a trailer was an embellishment too far and something that will have to be tried another time.