John August

Projects

Trailer competition FAQ

Projects, The Nines, Video

**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](http://www.alexwurman.com/Music%20Clips/MusicClips.html).

**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](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjohnaugust.com%2Farchives%2F2007%2Ftrailer-competition-details&title=Trailer+competition+details).

**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.

Trailer competition details

Projects, The Nines, Video

editorsCall in sick, ignore your loved ones, and put on a pot of coffee: the [trailer competition](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/trailer-competition-update) for The Nines begins today.

The delay in staging the competition has probably led to some over-thinking: What about people who haven’t seen the movie? What about film school students? What about people who are actually video editors for a living — is it fair for them to compete?

Allow me to recontextualize a bit.

This is the video equivalent of one of the [scene challenges](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/make-your-introduction) I occasionally throw on the site. Given the same criteria — and in this case, the same clips — the goal is to see who can come up with the coolest, slickest, strangest and/or most awesome piece of digital video. You may be using Final Cut instead of Final Draft, but the instinct is the same. It doesn’t matter who you are, or whether you’ve seen The Nines yet. If you have a good idea (and/or mad editing skillz), you should compete.

Like the Scene Challenges, the prize here is bragging rights. In addition, I’ll be congratulating the winners at our big debut screening in Austin on September 28th.Ryan and I will be there for a Q&A. Tickets are on sale now at the Alamo Drafthouse. I’ll even play the trailers if we can get DVD’s in time.

There are two categories for the competition:

**1. Best Pure Trailer**

By “pure,” I mean that all of the footage used in creating the trailer comes from the clips provided. You can mangle them, run them backwards, or color-correct them to obscurity. You can throw in titles, motion graphics, and other user-created content. But you can’t mix in footage from Donnie Darko or The Magnificent Seven. Because that’s for the other category…

**2. Best Mash-Up Trailer**

All those things you couldn’t do in the other category? You can do them. If you want to grab the nuclear explosion from The Sum of All Fears, go for it. This isn’t an invitation for flagrant copyright violation, but rather an urge to explore the boundaries of creative fair use. There’s no commercial aspect to any part of this competition, and if YouTube (or whoever) lets you post it, that’s good enough for our purposes.

Speaking of YouTube, that’s a pretty obvious place to let the world (and the judgesThe judges being me and some other recruited folks from the movie.) see your work. Simply include “thenines” (one word) as a tag, to help us find it. But you’re also welcome to post wherever else you want — [MySpace](http://myspace.com), [Zannel](http://zannel.com), etc.

No matter where you post it, **be sure to leave a link to it in the forums at [lookforthenines.com](http://lookforthenines.com/forums).** That’s where we’ll making our list of trailers to check out.

I expect that most people will use music from their favorite films and bands. Again, the YouTubes of the world seem to be just fine with this. The one sad scenario I can imagine is if someone creates an absolutely amazing trailer that would be cool to include on the DVD — but can’t because of music licensing issues. Using Alex Wurman’s score — or your own original music — is a way around that, but is likely too limiting.

The official trailer for The Nines plays as a sort of thriller. Feel free to ignore this tone. Just as you can turn [The Shining into a comedy](http://www.thetrailermash.com/shining-romantic-comedy/), you can do pretty much anything with The Nines.

I’m sure there will be more questions in the comments, so keep checking back as I add updates to this article. And check the forums at lookforthenines for other suggestions from competitors. But for now, get downloading.

**Downloading**

There are 120 clips, with an average length of about four seconds each. The longest is 0:28, shortest is 0:01. It’s pretty raw footage — you’ll hear me yelling “Cut!” and shouting off-camera interview questions. Erik Beeson, who helped get the footage online, feels that the winners will be the ones who do the best job with audio editing. I disagree. I think the winner will be the one with the best original idea, and decent execution.

There are two versions of footage to choose from: DV and MPEG-4. The DV is big and beautiful. The MPEG-4 is small and nimble — and not as bad as you’d think. Both are available by torrent:Thanks to everyone who started downloading these yesterday, and has kept seeding.

* [The DV footage – 1.76GB torrent](http://yoursharade.com/thenines/thenines-dv.torrent)

* [The MPEG-4 footage – 525MB torrent](http://yoursharade.com/thenines/thenines-mpeg4.torrent)

Here’s the deal: If you’re using the torrents, you have to help seed. That means **keeping your client open after you finish downloading,** so others can share.

If all this talk of torrents scares you, there is also a directly-downloadable version of the MPEG-4 footage:

* [The MPEG-4 footage – 525MB download](http://yoursharade.com/thenines/thenines-mpeg4.zip)

* [Mirror (several options)](http://www.dankus.net/thenines/)

If anyone else wants to mirror for a day or two, I’d be much obliged. Leave a note in the comments.

**The Deadline**

All entries need to be online and viewable by 6:00 a.m. PDT Tuesday, September 25th.

**Keep checking back**

There will be refinements and clarifications, I’m sure. Leave questions in the comments section, and I’ll address them as soon as I can.

Good luck!

Trailer competition, teaser

Follow Up, Geek Alert, Projects, The Nines, Video

geek factorTomorrow, full details of the [long-gestating](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/hive-mind-trailer) [trailer](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/trailer-competition-update) [competition](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/trailer-competition-second-update) will be announced here (and at the [lookforthenines](http://lookforthenines.com) site). You’ll have two versions of footage to choose from: DV and MPEG-4. The DV is big and beautiful. The MPEG-4 is small and nimble — and not as bad as you’d think.

To get ready, Erik Beeson has helped seed two torrents of goodness, which you can start downloading **right now.**

[The DV footage – 1.76GB](http://yoursharade.com/thenines/thenines-dv.torrent)

[The MPEG-4 footage – 525MB](http://yoursharade.com/thenines/thenines-mpeg4.torrent)

Here’s the deal: If you’re using the torrents, help us seed. That means **keeping your client open after you finish downloading,** so others can share.

If all this talk of torrents and seeds makes you curl into a fetal ball, fear not: there will be a directly-downloadable version of the MPEG-4 footage tomorrow. (We’ll need mirrors, so if you have some bandwidth to spare, leave a comment to volunteer.)

Also tomorrow, you’ll get the quote-unquote rules, including the deadline (it’s one week) and details about how to post your work, promote it and rig things in your favor.

Quitting, and the age question

Film Industry, Go, Psych 101, QandA

questionmarkI know the ultimate answer to every quitting question tends to veer towards, “If you can quit it then it wasn’t meant to be.” But I think there are many people out there who have yet to find some singular passion. The best I’ve been able to muster is finding things I really enjoy doing and I’m 40.

Which brings me back to your opinion on quitting writing. Or should I say, quitting trying to become a paid writer. In my case I’ve been writing screenplays for about four years. None great. One almost optioned (the first, since then manager pretty much lamed out on me).

So it’s years later and I’m pretty much still at square one in terms of contacts. Age being an issue aren’t the chances seriously evaporating à la a woman over 35 trying to get pregnant? Isn’t it more a 20-something game? Am I asking too many questions?

Anyway, would love any thoughts you might have on the matter.

— marc

You should quit.

I know that’s pretty controversial advice, and I feel uncomfortable typing it. After all, this is a blog about the wonders and challenges of screenwriting, full of hope and sunshine except for off days when I rip on Parade magazine.

But there’s hope, and there’s false hope. And the latter is harmful. It keeps people locked in a cycle of unmet expectation, passing up other opportunities in pursuit of an elusive, often impossible dream. So I want to be honest with you, and explain how I came up with my answer.

Let’s start with the positives, and address your age concern. Apparently, the median age of a new WGA member is about 35, which means there are plenty of screenwriters just getting started in their late-30’s and early 40’s. You’re not too late by any means.

Also, you’ve only been doing this for four years — it took me longer than that to get Go made. Granted, they were a very different four years of my life. They were Ramen years, when I slept on the floor of a studio apartment and abused my student ID for discount movie tickets. Striving and struggling is exciting — romantic, even — in your 20’s. You hit 30, then 40, and the appeal fades. Particularly if what you’re striving and struggling for isn’t your singular passion.

That’s the heart of the age question: It’s not harder for an older writer to start. It’s just easier to quit.

I often fall back on my basketball analogy, but forgive me if I dust it off again. It’s relevant.

Let’s say you’re good at basketball. In fact, of all the people you play with, you’re the best. Should you pursue a career in it? Let’s assume you’re willing to do the hard work — you’ll train every day, work with coaches on specific skills, and do everything in your power to make it. What are the odds you’ll end up in the NBA?

The answer has a lot to do with where you’re at in your life. If you’re 18, maybe. If you’re 38, no. That’s not ageism. That’s just reflecting the fact that most basketball careers are established in their 20’s (or earlier). That’s when your natural talents are developed enough that it’s obvious whether you’re cut out for it. You may become a better basketball player in your 30’s, but you won’t suddenly become one when you weren’t before.

While there are limits to the analogy,Most notably, basketball has many purely quantitative measurements to let you compare yourself to your peers, while screenwriting is fundamentally qualitative. “Number of produced credits” reflects a combination of consensus opinion and good fortune. a good writer is like a good basketball player in that there’s some inherent and unobtainable aptitude required. Either you’re good at it, or you’re not, and no workshop is going to change that. Until my senior year of high school, I didn’t know screenwriting existed, but I always knew I would be a writer. It was the one thing I could consistently do better than my peers, and once I recognized that, I ran with it.

The weird thing with screenwriting is that many people try their hand at it without any prior background (or demonstrable skill) in writing. They see writing movies as being akin to watching movies. Here the basketball analogy holds up: being a fan of the Pistons doesn’t mean you can play for the Pistons.I chose that team at random. I don’t follow the game at all, which makes it awkward to use basketball in this analogy. But I’m sticking with it.

Coming back to you, Marc, if you’ve been trying for a couple of years, and have started to seriously question whether you’re cut out for it (“none great”), maybe it’s time to look for another field. I think you wrote in asking permission to quit considering yourself an aspiring screenwriter. You have my blessing.

But keep in mind: I may be completely wrong, and you may be deluded. Here are some signs that you should ignore my advice and keep at it:

1. Smart people genuinely love your scripts, and want to keep talking about them after the obligatory period has passed.
2. You can pull one of your older scripts off the shelf, reading it for the first time in years, and be more impressed than embarrassed.
3. At least once a week, you write something that sends you to bed happy.

None of these are guarantees that you’re going to make it as a screenwriter. But they’re indications that writing (of some form) is probably a net positive in your life, so don’t stop doing just because I told you to quit.