Plan for December, 2012

Greetings!

It is December 2nd.

I spent November poking occasionally at the trailer, but mostly working on a different project -- my National Novel-Writing Month (AKA "NaNoWriMo") novel.  The challenge of NNWM is to write a 50,000-word "novel" in 30 days (average "real" novel length is actually closer to 100,000).  One can do it alone, or meet at regular "write-ins" with other writers (sometimes as many as 50+ in a room).  It's a lot of writing in a month.  It was my fifth try and the first time I WON!  Yay! 

Somewhere in the late-middle of the month, already with as many words as I'd made in the entire month last year, I decided to try to ride the tide of determination/obsession out of November and into December, changing my project goal from 50K words to Full Rough Cut of S&B.  "Thirty days and nights of literary abandon" is NNWM's slogan -- could I do something similarly crazy to really get S&B done in 2012??!

There are some key differences that make transferring the experience not exactly easy.  For one thing, NNWM is an international event in which 10's of thousands of people are participating.  There are forums and buddies and e-mail pep talks from "real" writers, and there are those "write-ins."  If one doesn't want to go it alone, one has many, many opportunities to connect with people who are doing _the same thing_.  Psychologically, this is a big boost -- misery loves company and all that.

The other main difference is that 1) writing 2) from scratch 3) for yourself 4) for a project that others may or may not ever see is an entirely different task than 1) editing 2) existing footage 3) on a collaborative project 4) that a lot of people will see.  Writing from scratch "with abandon" is not editing existing footage that others have some stake in.

NONETHELESS.  There are overlaps!  And I have decided to do my best!

There are some things that might interfere:  job-getting, for example.

But I'm going to try to think of it as an average of a page and three-quarters a day x 24 days.   The page-count system may not pan out as viable - the scenes are so different from each other - will present very distinct challenges.  But I figure, it is at least a way to think about how much work it is, and to gauge at the end of each week how much progress I've made (four 6-day weeks = 24 days) -- it should be 10.5 pages per week. 

NOW: let's all acknowledge that this might be IMPOSSIBLE.  If I were able to do 10.5 pages per week, would I not have?  So I dunno.  But NNWM has inspired me, so I am going to TRY!

In service of this end, some kind and generous Friends from my Quaker meeting have offered each to call me once a week:  one on Mondays, one on Wednesdays, and one on Fridays.  I am hoping that the combination of guilt and support, company and venting outlet will keep me going! 

YOU TOO, whoever you are, if you want me to succeed at this, are invited to e-mail me, FB post to me, or comment here at any point to let me know that you even know I am doing this and that you care.  WHOEVER YOU ARE. 

I will post here regularly throughout the month to keep you apprised of how ludicrous this effort turns out to be. 

So - until next time...

Peace,
Rachel

PS - The trailer is on hold except when I might work on it as inspired in the month.  It might be easier to do once I have a whole rough cut, anyway.

"VO"

Hi -

Just briefly letting all my avid readers know that I have decided to add a voice-over (VO) to the trailer, after all, despite my earlier rejection of such an idea.

Since I didn't really know what to try next, I decided I might as well try a VO, and see how dumb I thought it was.  I could immediately see that it helped.  The next question was the approach -- Explain the plot?  Be mysterious and alluring?  Hey - how about BOTH??  That is, I'm using plot-relating rhetorical questions (for now):

"What if you remembered something

That you didn't want to remember

Because you met someone

Who was there?"

That's Larry's half; I'm still working on Marissa's.  

This will mean less dialogue in the trailer, more images.  I am leaving in some of the "Remember that game?" exchange because I feel that it is quintessential. 

A byproduct of deciding to do a VO has been that I am now very aware of how few female VO's there are!  Like - none!  Sucky!

Unfortunately, I am no VO artist (it's harder than you think), so I am unlikely to change this gender imbalance.

I might do it anyway.  For now, at least, I will use myself for timing and planning.  Then, we'll see.

I definitely feel more positive about things since making this choice, which feels like a mini-break-through. 

Trailer - Not

Nobody has commented on the trailer on Youtube (linked last post), yet I can tell that it has been viewed, so I can only assume this means that YOU TOO think it was awful.

My "second opinion" gave me a little feedback, and the third opinion never responded.

Trying to get feedback on this trailer has made me realize how out of touch I am with all the film people I used to know.  Hmph.

So I brought the trailer with me last night to my "Artists and Writers" monthly group (at the Quaker meeting, in fact, where we shot the worship scene) -- in which none of the other participants are the slightest bit narrative-film-oriented, but they like to be helpful, so what the heck?

In sum:  they thought is was too long and too confusing. They told me which clips they thought were most compelling. 

So there you go.

I am starting over.

Blah.

Oh, also, I mentioned a few updates ago that someone else was going to be helping out with a scene -- for which I splurged my $27 to get a 6-mo MediaFire account -- and now it seems as if that's not happening either.  D'oh!

IF I JUST HAD $5,000 I COULD PAY SOMEONE TO FINISH THIS FRICKING THING.

But -- onward we go.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Well, my film-teacher friend watched my rough cut of the trailer and she found it so cryptic as to be completely unintelligible.  Basically, without using this word, she said it was awful.

I am discouraged.

I have sought second & third opinions.

If you'd like to check it out -- and answer the questions for direction that I have come up with with -- you may do so at the link below.  If you do this, please watch the trailer once before reading the questions so that you can gauge your immediate reaction before being pointed at specific issues. 

Without further suggestion, I am basically at a standstill, trailer-wise, and will have to abandon it for a while.  I'll go back to doing scenes, which is productive, of course, but -- argh.

Here's the link to the trailer: 

http://youtu.be/hcmBZa1uKBI

Or You Can Click on These Words

Trailer - Stage 1

Hi -

I don't have anything clever or earth-shattering to say, I just wanted to record that the 1st rough cut of the trailer is DONE.  I will be getting some feedback from a film-teaching friend this weekend, and then will revise.

I'm finding that I am clueless about soundtrack music.  Honestly, I always thought I'd have someone else doing that for me, so I've never really paid a whole lot of attention to it.  The trailer needs music, though, and I Do Not Know what sort of music it should have.  I mean, I can cut a montage to music that already exists -- music video as trailer -- but this trailer has a lot of dialogue, so I... I'm just kind of.... clueless.  Hmmmm....

So that's the biggest challenge.

I'm wondering if I should take some of the dialogue out and replace it with Cool Images.  Do more "music video" within the trailer.  I thought I'd get the tire swing in there, but I didna.

One of the questions I haven't answered -- and admittedly would do well to answer before revising, I reluctantly admit -- is:  Who is the audience for this trailer?  Is it potential editors, or is it potential audience, or potential funders, festival judges, Kickstarter donors....

Would the trailer be the same for potential editors as it would be for Kickstarter donors?

I was originally thinking that I was making it for Kickstarter, seeking to raise some funds to get a real editor or two (two because one might be a sound specialist).  Does that mean I should try to make it look COOLER THAN IT REALLY IS?????  Hmmm....

Hmmmm.....

I'd love your two cents on the matter.  Whoever you are.

REA