Once I practiced a few times with the four clips I started to go through all the clips I had taken and began choosing what I thought was the best. I then had my friend look over them and agree or disagree on what clips I had chosen. Once I had a series of clips we had both agreed on I inputted them into Corel in the rough order that I wanted. My initial idea was to enter all the clips I thought would be good into a long trailer. I would then go through and edit each clip and link them into the next scene. I would then end of with a long first version of the trailer. From this I could then cut down the trailer to a much shorter version which I could cut clips from and add any new ones that were required.
Once I had finished editing each clip I then proceeded to add captions and both soundtracks and sound effects. making sure that the caption were both in-tune and emphasized by the soundtrack. Below are a few print screens I took while working on my trailer. Underneath each one I will discuss what I was doing and what my thought process was at the time.
Above is a print screen showing me editing the timeline of the teaser trailer. The timeline is the order in which clips the progress through the trailer. I never really had a set order for my trailer, I just laced clips in the order that I thought looked good. I choose to keep in line with the convention of an action trailer by starting off with slightly longer shots and ending in more fast paced clips.
Unfortunately Corel Video Studio 12 is not the best piece of video editing software and at times it was so frustrating that i felt like picking up my computer and hurling it out the window. Most raw clips you have will be to long so you need to cut segments of the clip out. In Corel if you cut a clip to much you couldn't simply undo what you did you would have to delete the clip from the timeline and re insert it from the library and then re cut it. This got extremely frustrating at times, especially if you cut a clip several times.
In the screen shot above I' am editing the length of my Production studios' logo. This wasn't a clip but rather an image that I had running for a set amount of time. I needed to make the image display long enough for the audience to take it in but short enough so that it doesn't drag out or bore the audience. Its important to keep clips as short as possible otherwise your teaser trailers length goes up very quickly.
Throughout the trailer there were several clips that I needed to speed up for different reasons. Some I had to speed up because they took to long and others to make them more action oriented. For example if you looked at the raw clip of the FIXER running across the construction site it would just look like and average person sprinting. By speeding up the clip you can turn ordinary Stuart Mc Cammont into a pure athlete by making it appear as though he is running at an Olympic speed.
In the print screen above I'am speeding up the clip of a motor bike passing the camera. In Corel its very easy to change the speed of a clip. If you look at the pop up window it gives you the option to change the play speed using a slider or by typing in the play speed yourself. You can test the new play speed by clicking test. This is useful because it allows find the right speed you want before you alter the clip. The reason I had to speed up the clip of the bike passing is because he was travelling to slow. In action films its very unlikely that you will see someone driving cautiously, they will almost always be travelling vast. So in order to use the clip I would have to speed it up.
Once I had finished placing all the clips in order and editing them I need to add captions. Captions are used in trailers to give away a small piece of narrative or to hint at what the film is about without giving away the overall storyline or any major events in the story/ film.
For all the caption I choose the font Palatino Linotype because its has a very bold and outright look to it. I choose size 68 so that the words would be large and stand out making them more powerful. I went through the teaser adding text where needed. After my first version of the trailer I changed a few of the caption and the layout of them. I had the idea to link in some branding. I would have key words in each caption the colour red so they stood at more and emphasized what was being said. I would then transfer this same branding over to my poster and magazine where the title would be laid out in the same order. The (in either white or silver) FIXER (in red). I got the idea for this when i saw a similar branding in the Bourne Ultimatum teaser trailer.
By far the hardest and most difficult aspect of editing my trailer was the sound. In a good trailer the sound track/ sound effects should match events within a clip. this helps emphasize what is going on and make the trailer visuals and sound more fluid.
I spent several hours searching for a possible sound tracks to use for my trailer. There is of course a legal issue involved in this. You cant just take someones work and use it for profit. However as a result of my work just being coursework and non profit I don't have to worry about breaking any copyright laws. If this were an actual funded add campaign you would require permission from the publishing company to use the record. At any rate I haven't used the full length version of any tracks.
After looking at several different songs I eventually settled with the non- lyrical version of 'The Servant' by Cells. This is a track featured in several different action films and it is used in all 3 Transporter movies.
I spent ages editing clips and the sound track so that both events in clips and the sound matched up together.
The only sound effects I used in my teaser trailer was the sound a of a suppressed pistol being fire. I got the sound by converting a youtube file to an mp3 file format. I then duplicated the sound and synced it to the two shots in the final clip.
This is the first extended version of my teaser trailer
I had planned to make this long version of my teaser trailer (this is normal trailer length) which I could then cut down and add anything needed. Once I finished the extended trailer I looked at with Myroslava (A2 Media Student) and we both looked at what worked and what didn't. We looked at areas that could be cut and what needed to be added or changed.
The first thing we decided was that the first shot of the FIXER panning his head to the mountains was too long, so I shortened that.
The ninja bit when he was walking down the stairs needed to be spend up and the second ninja shot needed to sped up also.
The running segment although good needed to be cut. I decided to keep the first part of the running shot and speed it up. I then cut all the other integrated running shots and the motor bike shot.
I then decided to cut the last shot altogether. The clip was too long and the hit over the head wasn't a very good climax to the trailer, it was to subtle and plain.
Once I removed what needed to be cut me and Mosh (Myroslava) Started to discusses what need to be added. I consider added some more action to the piece as well as speeding up a few shots and cutting a few more milliseconds off some clips. I decided to add two fighting scenes and then an execution at the end of the trailer as a more effective climax that created a image that provoked the audience imagination to try and understand why this person was being killed.
Once I finished re-editing the new shortened teaser trailer I had my whole Media class watch it and give me some feedback. Overall the feedback was very positive and some recommendation to shorten some clips further were made and I edited them accordingly.
Below is the final version of my teaser trailer for The FIXER
The FIXER teaser trailer from Alex Dodds on Vimeo.
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