archived-videos Sizzle Reel of 7 films I wrote and directed last year

davidpustansky · May 3, 2015

Hallo one and all!

Over the last year I was lucky to get some funding to produce a series of six short films and a supporting documentary to support the performing arts and filmmaking scene in the town I live in Buckinghamshire England.

Well after a long process of post production I'm finally on the verge of putting the films out for the world to see, but first up I've made this short 2 minute trailer to show off the colection of films as a whole.

Would love to hear some thoughts on the trailer and on the films themselves. I'll have individual trailers for each of the films up to share shortly, but thought it'd be good to have this teaser for the over all project.

Here's the link:

https://youtu.be/wHmzc0dyn8I

WhiteOpus · May 3, 2015

looks like it hasn't really been color graded at all...kinda turned me off.

cheeseandachallenge · May 3, 2015

WhiteOpus said:
looks like it hasn't really been color graded at all...kinda turned me off.

To extend that, a lot seems visually lacking. The only film that caught my interest was "The Battle Of Aylesbury" because I'm a sucker for hand-drawn animation.

The rest of the films didn't really like they justified being externally funded productions. The issue is deeper than colour grading.

WhiteOpus · May 3, 2015

cheeseandachallenge said:
To extend that, a lot seems visually lacking. The only film that caught my interest was "The Battle Of Aylesbury" because I'm a sucker for hand-drawn animation.

The rest of the films didn't really like they justified being externally funded productions. The issue is deeper than colour grading.

I would agree completely. This looks more like an amateur production anyway, so I think color grading was just the first thing that caught my eye that could* save some of the boring compositions and lackluster acting.

*probably won't

Sweetie · May 3, 2015

I was lucky to get some funding

Grats. It's a tough thing to get funding. Mind if I ask what the budget was for all 7 films total?

NickClapper · May 4, 2015

All looks like standard amateur fare, which, for a community project, is not a bad thing.

The problem is probably that The Battle of Aylesbury looks so good. In terms of the future of these projects, you'd probably be well served to focus 99% of your time and resources on promoting that film.

gorillaonabike · May 4, 2015

Congrats on shooting so many and getting funding.

Would echo everything everyone else has been talking about.

davidpustansky · May 4, 2015

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Definitely right on the grading front - pretty much the last thing that needs doing across the board with some tweaking to the sound mix. The sizzle reel is just a teaser preview of the work in progress.

Grats. It's a tough thing to get funding. Mind if I ask what the budget was for all 7 films total?

And to answer your question Sweetie, the budget gave the films £500 each and they were each shot in one day. So yeah, certainly some aspects aren't as polished as I would have liked, but like I said it was a project to support the local filmmaking scene so brought together lots of people of varying experience levels.

Dreadylocks · May 4, 2015

davidpustansky said:
The sizzle reel is just a teaser preview of the work in progress.

Be careful with this. Non-filmmakers really do not understand the concept of a rough-cut or work-in-progress at all. It can hurt your future prospects both in terms of audience for these films and funding for future ones if you give a bad first impression.

If you really want to get a sizzle reel out before the films are complete, I would focus on making the small segments from the reel as polished as possible before releasing anything to the general public.

sfoster · May 4, 2015

Agree with dready.
Also I want to reinforce the point here that you should be patient.

It's great to show stuff off.. but that's why we work hard to get it ready for the public!
If you're showing it off before it's done you're dramatically lessening the final impact.

Obviously it can be different for a board like this if you're new and looking for opinions on the editing choices etc before your finalize.

Sweetie · May 4, 2015

the budget gave the films £500 each

This might put it into perspective for others.

certainly some aspects aren't as polished as I would have liked, but like I said it was a project to support the local filmmaking scene so brought together lots of people of varying experience levels.

It happens. We're all still learning as we go. The trick is to improve over time.

Mind if I ask what did you learn shooting each?