I haven't made this available to the masses yet, but wanted to get some feedback from people here first. This is what I've come up with for the new trailer. I think there's a few VFX shots that I'd like to touch up, and I might try having the trailer tell more of the story, rather than just be a montage of shots. At the end of the day, I'm realizing that I'm not much of a trailer editor. If I had the budget, I would totally hire someone to do this.
I know you've worked long and hard on this so out of respect i'll skip the pleasantries and just give you hard actionable feedback that I think might genuinely help your chances of success.
First off I would say that there's a lot to like about this, many aspects are done well, but simultaneously I feel there are a few things holding this trailer back from reaching its potential at the moment. The good news is that none of these changes cost anything other than time.
1. The music selection is excellent with great quality and some perfect moments of emotional crescendos that match certain scenes. It is not however dynamic and the emotional manipulation of the orchestral maneuvers only matches scenes once in a while. Near the end there were a few seconds where you really nailed it and everything came together perfectly. I'll give one direct example. When I'm listening to the music and watching the scene of the sink running with blood because the apocalypse is starting, The music is telling me that I'm going to Disneyland and the image is telling me that I'm going to hell. Basically you should be pushing the emotion fear in that moment, thus strengthening the impact of triumphant moments later in the film or trailer where I assume the protagonist's faith delivers him/her from said apocalypse. I'll note right here that I did not know from the trailer exactly who the central characters in the film were. To be fair this is typically telegraphed by the fame of the main star. It's kind of an invisible problem that indie films suffer from. A trailer with Tom Cruise in it doesn't need to spend time telling you which person is the main character.
2. This is more important than number one, don't know why I put it second. You should do a foley pass or three on this trailer. Get a twenty dollar artist subscription for one month, Spend three days combing through sound effects and specifically trailer sound effects such as risers and cinematic booms, And then do the following once you've collected up everything you need. Mute the music track and your editing timeline and begin creating the Foley for the trailer. Take a slow and methodical approach, And don't be afraid to use as many layers of audio as necessary. Add detail to bring your world to life by creating independent fully tracks for each element in the scene mixed at an appropriate volume level versus the master. Some scenes don't need foley, Some scenes could benefit from eight layered tracks. Here is the most important part of this section, Keep working on the trailer specific Foley until the entire trailer is entertaining WITHOUT the music. Think of trailer specific sound effects such as cinematic booms as "punctuation", helping to segment moments in the trailer. Then add in the music. If it was great before you added the music, It will be awesome after. Get it to 100%, Then push it up to 150% with carefully selected musical cues, Rather than one carefully selected unifying track.
3. Back to dynamics in sound, You might consider finding multiple tracks that work well together as opposed to just using one good track. In this trailer there are moments that should telegraph emotions such as fear, friendship, religious devotion, and hope. Basically I think that using one piece of music for a trailer that has this much emotional range brings out the best in some clips and greatly reduces the effectiveness of others.
4. A possible solution to this would be to sort of organize your trailer clips into mini chapters as it were. It's already pretty much like that, But starting to think of those many chapters as independent scoring opportunities, Which I feel might really enhance the dramatic impact of the trailer. While a significant number of shots in this are as I mentioned are a group together fairly well, There are a number of shots that seem to be out of logical sequence, In terms of creating a dramatic emotional pattern. We have the couple embracing on the dock as the music swells, And then immediately an angry man with a gun yelling at the sky. Here is the best piece of advice I can give you in this entire post, And if you look up documentaries on professional editing you'll find that this is rule number one pretty much industrywide. Every time you put a clip in a trailer the single most important thing is, " How does this make the audience FEEL". For example in the case of the swelling music and embrace on the dock you are building a good feeling. To give a positive example the last few shots at the end and the title are all pretty much perfect.
5. There are some issues in here with what I would call shot ego. One day over a decade ago I was out doing a time lapse shoot. There were many many shots in that film but on one particular shot I climbed a mountain and camped out on top with the time lapse cameras shooting down into San Jose. On the way up I tripped over a rock sticking out of the mountainside and shattered an $800 lens. It was freezing up there and the shot took hours. The shot itself turned out pretty good. Months later in the editing process I was trying to make a trailer for the film and I forced that shot into it because I considered it an important shot. it really wasn't though. I just wanted it to be in the trailer because it had cost me so much and I had spent so much time on it. Basically I was really proud of that shot and I wanted people to see it so I shoved it into the trailer even though it didn't actually do anything for the trailer. Respectfully I think it's possible that there are a few scenes in here where that may have happened with you. An example what does the dark shot with the northern lights communicate to the audience in the context of this trailer? I looked at it and I thought that's a cool looking shot and I bet Chris spent some time on this, but I had no emotional response to it and it did not illuminate the story. So from my perspective it simply watered down the reel rather than enhancing it. Why is the heretic in the forest shouting at God directly after the dock scene? Why am I more excited about seeing this film because of the inclusion of that scene?
I apologize for all the pedantic criticism, The intent is to give you my genuine feedback in a way that might be helpful.
My final advice is pretty generic, but it's good advice.
Spend one day watching movie trailers on youtube for films that performed well. While you do this take notes about METRICS. Really think about how they used their chapters, how the musical cues hurt or enhanced the impact of scenes in the trailer, How many of them focused on the characters? How many of them focused on the life changing event? What ratio of seconds utilized was put into each stage? Your trailer doesn't have to be and shouldn't be a copy of anyone else's style or work, But simultaneously I think it goes without saying that we can all learn something from people like Spielberg or Kubrick. Find a trailer that made you feel really excited or enthusiastic about seeing the movie, Then really nail down what that trailer actually did to create that feeling.
This means nothing, just my personal take, but here's how I would stage that trailer if I was trying to produce it.
A. Establish normalcy, A Christian family keeping the faith
B. Mysterious events occur, Normalcy is disrupted as strange signs begin to appear
C. Religious and family drama, Tension ramps and people clash as a result
D. The apocalypse hits
E. Faith family and love triumph, Even in the darkest time possible
It's not bad at all the way it is now I'm just pointing out a few ways where you might be able to enhance its impact and get a larger viewership with some simple changes.
