What should the tone of the trailer be?
Whatever you prefer. It can be funny, scary, dramatic or simply weird.
How long should the trailer be?
Most trailers are between one and three minutes, but if you feel like cutting a 30-second spot, or a half hour masterpiece, go for it. I reserve the right to stop watching after four minutes, however.
How can I get Alex Wurman’s score?
The entire score isn’t available, but Alex has ample samples up at his website: alexwurman.com.
What program should I use to cut my trailer?
Whichever one you prefer and understand. Final Cut Pro (or its little sibling, Final Cut Express) are great choices for the Mac, but there’s also Premiere, Vegas, and many flavors of Avid. The new iMovie would seem like an ideal choice, since it handles MPEG-4 footage natively, but it’s pretty limiting in practice. The older iMovie (iMovie HD) is actually more capable for this purpose.
Why are some clips silent?
In some cases, there was no useful production sound. An example is when Ryan is running. The ATV carrying the camera was incredibly loud. Only in one or two clips did we deliberately drop out sound in order to avoid spoiling a plot detail.
I’m intimidated. What if my trailer isn’t that good?
Allow me to set the bar very low by showing my sample entry, which I hacked together in about an hour. It’s no masterpiece. I wanted to try for a vastly different tone, and show off a variety of the shots available in the footage:
Can I Digg this?
While I’m leery of the server getting overwhelmed, it seems only fair to share. And the torrents should scale. So if you want to, go for it. Best to digg the original article.
How do I ___?
There are a lot of smart people reading this site, so if you have a specific question, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments section.
Can I enter more than one trailer? More than one category?
Absolutely. Knock yourself out.