Going Over Past Triumphs and Mistakes

So, I've decided to go with the chick flick... luckily for me, the trailer project we did a few weeks ago was a chick flick romance. The first step to figuring out what kind of chick flick trailers I want to do in the future involves me looking at the one I made in the past and figuring out what I feel I did right and what I did wrong.

Full disclosure, I edited the audio after turning it in for the purposes of uploading it to this blog. The audio I got rid of was the dialogue between the two main characters. This is for a few reasons:

1. The voice actors were me and my brother. I simply could not get over the ick-factor that came with watching the romantic dialogue between us, time and time again, while analyzing what I did in this trailer.
2. I still have no idea what I'm doing with my microphone, so a lot of the audio was poorly recorded and as a result, had a lot of inconsistencies when I tried to edit out background noise and modify our voices to sound different.
3. I know for a fact that the dialogue audio is what I hate most about the project. I don't feel like I would be able to properly focus on the other elements I did if the dialogue audio was there, hindering my own criticism of my work.

Without any more fuss, the full-length trailer I made: 

So, let's go over what I liked.

• I really like the song choice. I think it fits the woodsy, romantic, artsy vibe I was aiming for, and I think my project partner and I made the right choice regarding it.
• The color grading in some clips is really bright, warm, and summery. I quite like it and I'm proud of myself in retrospect while watching it.
• Briana shot the footage, and I really like how much movement she was able to incorporate. I often fall into the trap of not moving the camera when filming, but the movement gives the footage a lot more life.
• The transition into the title card! It's not realistic because the flash doesn't come out of the camera, but do I care? No. Does the audience care? No. It looks super cool.

What I didn't like as much...

• I'm ashamed to admit it! I'm having second thoughts about my font choice for the title cards. I think the sans serif font is too devoid of character and personality in retrospect. While I still like it, I don't know if it was the right fit for the trailer.
• Some of the clips needed more stabilization, I should've run it through After Effects another time.
• The production company logo is super simple and doesn't feel as intentional as I would like.
• Shots are super repetitive. I definitely need to set up multiple shooting locations when I put together this trailer, it feels like it happens all in one day because it literally does. It's lacking full-length film vibes.
• The footage gets very warped at multiple points. Tripod for filming is a MUST!
• THE title card is very plain. Definitely need to add to it in the future.