we just posted 2 teasers for our feature film shot on dvx100 cameras 24p standard.

"heads or tails"

check them out at http://www.foolmartyr.com

thanks!
clark kline
co writer/director

Wow.

It certainly looks good, and the framing is extremely cinematic.. Were you shooting 16:9 and cropping?

Also what were you using to dolly the camera (having read through your site I'm guessing a dolly as you seem to have pretty high production values, but you never know :o)

Kieran

pretty sweeet stuff! Yea... was that done with the 16:9 and cropping?

Excellent work, Clark! The mood is very tense, creepy, but not in a shlock-horror campy sort of way. Great musical score. I think everyone here would be very interested to know the technical specs of the film (how many cameras, what filters & lenses, size of crew, which lighting instruments... etc.)

Congratulations, and good luck finishing the film!

Looks bad because it is squished vertically. It was extremely distracting. I downloaded the MP4 version.

Thanks for all the comments! Keep em coming.

Shot 24p standard with Panasonic DVX100...and edited in Final Cut Pro 4, with a 2.35 matte. I don't believe there is any "squishing".

Used a variety of in-house designed dolly's.

Hope to have more footage on the website in the coming weeks.

There definitely is some squishing, at least in the MP4. Have you looked at the MP4? It doesn't look right. It looks different then the pictures on your site, which are not squished.

By the way, you can stretch out the video in FCP and then export the Quicktime in a wide 2.35:1 aspect ratio so you don't waste all that bandwidth on black bars. :)

I enjoyed the trailer. The music is very ominous. Sets up a good mood overall. Did you guys shoot in Maryland? We're in D.C.

The MP4 I saw looked pretty squished.

Shots looked great though. I may take it and fix the aspect ratio a bit and see how it looks.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Franco : I enjoyed the trailer. The music is very ominous. Sets up a good mood overall. Did you guys shoot in Maryland? We're in D.C. -->>>

thanks. we shot in MD around frederick. we also shot in the mountains of WVA.

<<<-- Originally posted by Bryan McCullough : The MP4 I saw looked pretty squished.

Shots looked great though. I may take it and fix the aspect ratio a bit and see how it looks. -->>>

im gonna recompress it sometime soon in case the encoding squished it. i havent given a lot of time for side by side comparison because we're still wrapping up filming.

the teaser medium and teaser large are 2 different codecs (one an mp4, the other a .mov)...both were matted to 2.35. I'm still looking into how to use compressor and not show the "black bars".

thanks for the suggestions everyone! we hope to have a new teaser with plot within 3 weeks.

There was good framing in all of it. The long teaser, or trailer, didn't tell me anything about the movie or its genre. The short teaser should be thrown away. Some of the darker scenes show the typical dv washout while the sunset scene may be too vivid. But that might be the web/compression also.

1st teaser thrown away? Wow.

I'm hoping the dv washout you're talking about is in the compression. I haven't tried any other compression codecs other than the mp4's in final cut 4 compressor program. One thing I really like about the panasonic is how good it looks in low light.

we've logged about half of the footage and will be cutting a new teaser with dialogue soon.

Thanks for your comments!


<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Belics : There was good framing in all of it. The long teaser, or trailer, didn't tell me anything about the movie or its genre. The short teaser should be thrown away. Some of the darker scenes show the typical dv washout while the sunset scene may be too vivid. But that might be the web/compression also. -->>>

Great stuff!

Man you guys are the next Speilberg!

Hi!

I just saw the trailer and I was blown away buy it...

It has a fantastic mood and the editing is very good...

I am looking forward to see your film...You guys let us know when it is ready, right?

I live in Denmark and I can see that your film( and some of the others that i`ve seen on the net) is different that the ones we see in Denmark. But I like it alot...

VERY good job...

<<<-- Originally posted by Christian Hede Madsen : Hi!

I just saw the trailer and I was blown away buy it...

It has a fantastic mood and the editing is very good...

I am looking forward to see your film...You guys let us know when it is ready, right?

I live in Denmark and I can see that your film( and some of the others that i`ve seen on the net) is different that the ones we see in Denmark. But I like it alot...

VERY good job... -->>>


thanks for the comments! we just uploaded a few more pics from the film, and hope to have a new teaser up by the end of january. getting my protools system set up today.

little offtopic-
name some of your fave movies that end up making it to denmark?

viewed the longer version ( 1:40)
all the shots are composed excellent.
light used excellent in the shots ( excellent moods)
music very mood setting ..
actors look good ..
i found all the individual elements better then the whole ( trailer).
in the end i felt it was a slide show.
i can't remember what it's about but i do remeber it had very good photo images.

look foward to seeing more clips from it ...

<<<-- Originally posted by Don Donatello : viewed the longer version ( 1:40)
all the shots are composed excellent.
light used excellent in the shots ( excellent moods)
music very mood setting ..
actors look good ..
i found all the individual elements better then the whole ( trailer).
in the end i felt it was a slide show.
i can't remember what it's about but i do remeber it had very good photo images.

look foward to seeing more clips from it ... -->>>

Thanks for the comments. We've had some pretty interesting emails about what people think the movie is about. My favorite idea someone sent was serial killing girlscouts.

the next teaser will give people a much better idea of what it's about.

I have a hard time with the expression "favourite film", becase I like so many...

And really my taste in films is very broad... I like big-hollywood films like Braveheart and Gladiator and smaller films like: Tape, El mariachi, Bad Taste, Evil Dead, Spun, run Lola run and many many many more...(and then I am a big documentary fan too)

listed a bunch of my faves. i've always wondered what was readily available to people in other countries, because in America we only get a small selection of "foreign" films. Indian films for one, we get only a handful even though they produce on average more than hollywood in any given year. good to know some smaller films like "tape" find their way to other countries.

<<<-- Originally posted by Christian Hede Madsen : I have a hard time with the expression "favourite film", becase I like so many...

And really my taste in films is very broad... I like big-hollywood films like Braveheart and Gladiator and smaller films like: Tape, El mariachi, Bad Taste, Evil Dead, Spun, run Lola run and many many many more...(and then I am a big documentary fan too) -->>>

Great shots. Very well lit and exposed.

The story looks interesting, but little or none of it is reealed in the teaser. I guess that's why they call it a teaser.

thanks much!
we're very close to our new trailer. gonna turn it over to our composer in the next week. lots more screengrabs up too.

<<<-- Originally posted by Peter John Ross : Great shots. Very well lit and exposed.

The story looks interesting, but little or none of it is reealed in the teaser. I guess that's why they call it a teaser. -->>>

we posted teaser c at www.foolmartyr.com

Hi,
Nice trailer, but I have some constructive criticism for you, which should fix a few small issues. In your editing of the trailer, (I only watched the long one) many of the cuts come very abruptly, and it distracts from the flow of the trailer. I think the first one was right before the first line of text. picture... pircture... picture... BAM-BLACK!... Text... Thats the effect it had on me. Very distracting. I suggest changing these to a dissolve/fade. That should allow some smoother flow.
My other main criticism is it looks like you have used three different types of cameras to shoot this. It's somewhat distracting while watching the trailer. Some shots are crisp, some are over saturated, some are very soft. I suggest some extensive colour correction to balance them a better.

I like your photography very much, but the trailer didn't really tell what the movie was about, which is the whole point of the trailer.

Thats it. Nothing you can't fix with a little extra computer time. Otherwise, very nice!

All good criticism. I'm not a big fan of video fades, and we havent gotten the tools to simulate film fades yet but I plan to by the finished cut. And I agree about the color correction- part of it is because I am still learning it right now. But most of it is because there is essentially 3-4 styles of looks in the film itself, While we only filmed with one camera- we gave each story specific looks via lenses/filters/set colors etc, and couple that with some drastic corrected stuff and it's pretty jarring in the teaser.

By the time I post the full on trailer, I'll make sure it's much more consistent- thanks!

As far as the story- basically this teaser is putting a little of the story out there (having guarded it this far...we're only trickling it out). And honestly I'm a huge fan of teasers that are just that... The coming trailer will give more of a sense of the plot with dialogue etc...

clark

we just posted new screencaps and pics at www.foolmartyr.com.
check out the newly updated stills page as well as behind the scenes pics.

After having watched the teaser, this is what struck me the most: it seems disjointed. Now I know you don't want to give your story away, but while I was watching it, I felt like I was watching a collection of scenes from different movies. Even if you don't want to release information on the story, there needs to be some connection in the clips. Just my opinion.

thanks for the input.

we seem to get two responses. many like the ambiguity, others want more. but that's why we're still calling it a teaser even though it's 2 minutes...cause we still dont feel like it's a typical trailer. the trailer will feel much more complete.

<<<-- Originally posted by Travis Cossel : After having watched the teaser, this is what struck me the most: it seems disjointed. Now I know you don't want to give your story away, but while I was watching it, I felt like I was watching a collection of scenes from different movies. Even if you don't want to release information on the story, there needs to be some connection in the clips. Just my opinion. -->>>

Well, I like ambiguity. I just feel that if your teaser is too ambiguous (obviously that's subjective) then I'll just forget all about it. I'm not going to log it into my memory as "I want to see that", because I haven't a clue as to what it is about. I can't even tell if it's a thriller, a drama, a comedy or whatever. If I had seen that on TV last night, I wouldn't ever think twice about it. It just doesn't deliver enough to me to make a connection with me.

Hope that makes sense.

makes sense. i hope through the music we got the genre across and although it may not seem it, the images do back up the text, although the text is pretty vague. I know if something is too ambiguous it may not hook you, and that's what a teaser is all about.: hooking.

thanks for taking the time to watch and give us input!


<<<-- Originally posted by Travis Cossel : Well, I like ambiguity. I just feel that if your teaser is too ambiguous (obviously that's subjective) then I'll just forget all about it. I'm not going to log it into my memory as "I want to see that", because I haven't a clue as to what it is about. I can't even tell if it's a thriller, a drama, a comedy or whatever. If I had seen that on TV last night, I wouldn't ever think twice about it. It just doesn't deliver enough to me to make a connection with me.

Hope that makes sense. -->>>

edit: nevermind

we just added a few more screen pics at www.foolmartyr.com

we do the final two weeks of shooting next and hope to have the full trailer online by the end of may. Still hoping for a late June screening.