The Alamo Drafthouse is what you wish every movie theater could be: laid-back, but on its game, and run by people who genuinely give a shit about movies. Plus beer! My thanks to them for hosting The Nines last night. (And every night onward, as long as people keep coming to see it.)
Projects
Trailer Competition: The Winners
We had 57 official entries. That’s a lot, and it’s about the most I could handle without my eyeballs exploding.1 I’m happy to report that many of the entries were quite good, and it was genuinely a pleasure to watch them. Most of them.
I feel like I should pad this opening bit with a few more paragraphs explaining the organizational process (a shared Google spreadsheet), judging criteria (uniqueness > believability) and common elements (nearly every trailer had Hope Davis’s boobs getting groped). But all you really want to know is who won.
So without ado…
Best “Pure” Trailer
“City of Untamed Lust” by Michael Bell
Note that the “pure” category means trailers that use only the footage provided, not that they’re necessarily true to the spirit of the movie. The latter really deserves its own category, so I’m going to use executive privilege to create one.
Could Have Been The Actual Trailer Award
The Nines Trailer by Ed Jones
You can see a much higher-res version of the trailer here.
Best Mash-Up
The Nines (Holiday Version) by cmikes
While these are the award-winners, there are a lot of honorable mentions and notable efforts:
- Most Lynchian: DougJ
- Best Tone Poem: Jeff Campbell
- Best Music Video: Klaudio
- Notable Achievement in Cutting: chicago3j
- Most Merchant/Ivory: Andreas Climent
- The “Without A Trace” Award for Aggressive Color-Timing: gpschnyder
- Best Tic-Tac-Toe: joelarue
- Most Punk Rock: takahlah
- Props for the French New Wave: CostaBravler
- Feels Small But Good Award: joelnorn
- Best Sitcom: Marcelo Iglesias
- The KevanRCraft Award for Generosity in Commenting: KevanRCraft
There were at least another half-dozen that were solid, mostly ones that played it fairly straight. They didn’t stand out because, well, they didn’t stand out. As much as one tries to keep fresh eyes, after the first 20, it’s the novel ones that get noticed.
A general observation is that the successful trailers were the ones that picked a simple concept and stuck with it. Many trailers felt like they were driven by what footage was left in the bin.
Even though the official contest is over, I’ll keep seeding the footage, so if seeing these trailers has inspired any non-participants to try their mouse at it, by all means go ahead. There’s a new thread set up to keep track of post-competition entries. I’ll be checking in occasionally, and if one catches my eye I may post it here (and at lookforthenines.com).
Thanks and congrats to all who participated. It was really refreshing to see the movie cut to ribbons reinterpreted.
- Someone asked yesterday what I would have done if a thousand people entered. I would have curled into a fetal ball and rocked myself through tears. ↩
Trailer competition judging in progress
Wow, that’s a lot of entries. I’ll be announcing the winners tomorrow morning.
Erik Beeson, who so generously helped with the hosting and torrenting, sent along stats:
- total torrent file downloads for both torrents combined: 808 (includes search engine crawlers)
- dv torrent: 162 completed downloads
- mpeg4 torrent: 79 completed downloads
- mpeg4.zip: 242 (the direct download)
- total completed (torrents+direct): 483
Thanks to everyone who helped seed the footage.
Having now looked at dozens and dozens of clips on YouTube, I’m struck by the wide range of picture quality (talking pixels, not professionalism). Considering we all started with the same clips, one might not expect such a variation. My entry is near the middle of the pack in terms of blockiness.
If any readers/competitors have tips on how you kept YouTube from over-smushing your video, please share.
T-Minus one day
The trailer competition is nearing its end, and entries are starting to stream in. Some are quite good.
If I have one general observation, it’s that many of the trailers are trying to be respectful to the (supposed) tone of the movie. That’s fine, but it’s hard to distinguish yourself when aiming for the same it’s-a-thriller-but-not mood. I keep waiting for the grindhouse version, or the wacky comedy. Granted, I didn’t include a lot of punchline jokes in the footage bin, but many of the best fake trailers are comedies made from dramas.
Also, we’re highly lacking in the mash-up category, as many competitors have focused on making “pure” trailers using only the original footage.
The official deadline is tomorrow at 6 a.m. PDT. I won’t ding anybody who’s a few minutes late, but I’ll need to start judging ASAP.