A great script still can blast open doors in Hollywood, but for deep-pocketed studios pondering the potential of possible tent-pole movies, one moving picture can be worth several thousand words when it comes to sounding out the sizzle of a fantastical tale.
Case in point: A three-minute animated clip of The Goon, a movie based on Eric Powell’s comic book series, has been making the rounds in Hollywood in search of studio financing since its debut at Comic-Con International in San Diego last month. Created by Venice, California-based Blur Studio, the meticulously rendered sequence (embedded above) presents profanity-spouting characters Frankie and Goon (voiced by Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown), who’d be utterly out of place in family-friendly cartoons churned out by DreamWorks and Pixar.
Blur Studio creative director Tim Miller recognizes that even with David Fincher attached to produce, the PG 13-rated adaptation of Powell’s Dark Horse Comics series might be seen as a tough sell.
Enter the ass-kicking trailer.
“We believe that having a short teaser or trailer is key to communicating our vision for the film,” Miller told Wired.com. “Just by watching a few minutes of animation, so many questions are answered about the project: character, dialogue, tone, art direction, animation style and proof of the ability to execute all of the above at feature-film quality. It streamlines the discussion enormously.”
The trailer-first, movie-later phenomenon works both ways. Would-be directors get a chance to show off their chops by creating DIY clips made with inexpensive video software. On the other side of the equation, busy studio types get a quick and easy-to-digest peek at what a project might look like on the silver screen, without committing to a big budget.
“I can’t listen to story pitches,” Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro told a Comic-Con crowd this summer. “But if you’ve got a portfolio of drawings or a short film, fucking show it to me!”
Tron: Legacy ‘s Teaser Roots
TV commercial director Joseph Kosinski proved the point a few years ago when he crafted a two-minute Tron: Legacy proof-of-concept VFX piece with effects house Digital Domain. The clip, unveiled at 2008’s Comic-Con International, persuaded Disney to put Kosinski in charge of the sci-fi sequel slated for December release.
“With this kind of movie you want to know what the world you’re getting into is going to look like and feel like,” Tron: Legacy co-producer Justin Springer told Wired.com. “We pitched Disney, ‘Let us prove that we can get all these technologies working together to bring Joe’s vision to life.’ We built out this entirely new world, which takes a whole stew of cutting-edge technologies.”
Springer said he believes such test clips will become more common for big-budget projects.
“This two-minute visual enabled Disney to understand what the tone of the movie is going to be, what the action is going to feel like,” he said. “The reason people are increasingly taking this approach is that tent-pole movies are often about the creation and exploration of new worlds. If a studio spends a marginal amount of money up front [for a proof-of-concept clip], they can be much better informed about what they’re getting into once they have to put out significant cash outlays.”
Making Cheap Trailers Look Expensive
Sophisticated visual effects can make a cheaply produced DIY trailer look Hollywood-slick. To underscore the importance of computer-generated graphics, George Lucas’ alma mater, USC School of Cinematic Arts, is introducing visual effects as a required course in its core curriculum this fall. It’s not just high-end operators who understand the value of cutting to the chase with a trailer or spec reel. As visual-effects software becomes more affordable, DIY filmmakers can make impressive-looking videos without spending a fortune.
Venezuelan director Fede Alvarez, for example, shot the four-minute, 30-second Panic Attack video for $300. He’s now developing a $30 million feature-length version of the robot saga for Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures production company.
The notion of short films as appetizer for the main course gained traction after Neill Blomkamp transformed his six-minute Alive in Joburg into last summer’s District 9 hit. Much can be gleaned from a brief piece of work, says Sony executive Peter Schlessel.
“A good short tells you that a filmmaker can handle a story, that he has a vision, and the ability to convey emotion,” Schlessel told the Los Angeles Times.
Talent manager J.C. Spinks sees DIY trailers as valuable calling cards but warns that fan clips based on comic book characters or other corporate-controlled intellectual property face a development dead end.
“If you make a phenomenal Justice League fan trailer, guess what: You’ll never get the Justice League movie, just because there’s so much at risk,” he said in a telephone interview with Wired.com. “But you will get representation, and then you might get Expendables 2.”
Comedy writers are getting into the spec clip act as well. Spinks’ client, Jeremy Garelick, an uncredited co-writer of The Hangover, landed a directing gig with Universal Studios last month on the strength of a six-minute scene he shot for $25,000 from his own script for The Pretender.
Established directors also bang out spec trailers to offer fans and studio execs a glimpse of what’s to come.
J.J. Abrams sprang a surprise on YouTube when he posted a teaser for his yet-to-be-made Super 8 movie, while Robert Rodriquez blew up his 2007 Machete trailer into the feature-size gore that sliced into theaters this month.
Distantly orbiting Hollywood’s entertainment-industrial complex, crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter boost the trailer-first trend by giving filmmakers a platform to raise money for full-length movies on the strength of sample scenes. Zombie flick-in-progress Harvest, for example, pulled in $5,000 in seed cash from investors who responded to a few seconds of online footage.
While easy access to thousands of video shorts fuels a give-it-to-me-quick/give-it-to-me-now pop culture metabolism that shows no signs of slowing down, clever trailers for imaginary movies run the risk of industry burnout, Blur Studio’s Miller cautions.
“There has to be some substance to back it up,” he said.
In fact, Dark Horse Comics rejected several overtures from filmmakers eager to adapt Powell’s hyperviolent Goon. Bolstered by Fincher’s involvement and Powell’s own screenplay, the Blur Studio trailer finally got the Goon ball rolling in Hollywood.
“We’ve seen Hollywood get excited about tests and spec tests lately,” Miller says. “There are new ways to grab the attention of the studios and I have no doubt we’ll see more because it’s an effective means of gaining visibility for projects outside the mainstream.”
Here are some other notable recent examples of this burgeoning Hollywood trend.
Mortal Kombat
Fame director Kevin Tancharoen pitched his vision for a movie adaptation of the videogame Mortal Kombat by posting an eight-minute spec short on YouTube.
Tancharoen shot the trailer in two days using a pair of loaned digital RED cameras, then spent two months editing the post-production effects for a grand total of $7,500.
“This is just a prelude to what my movie version would be,” Tancharoen told Collider.com. “The technology is so accessible now there’s was no reason why I shouldn’t do it. Of course, when you’re working by yourself, you have a limited budget. I couldn’t go balls-to-the-wall on visual effects. I had to utilize what I could and make the best of it.”
Panic Attack
In 2006, Fede Alvarez shot his short about a robot invasion of Uruguay on a shoestring. The clip caught fire last fall after Kanye West featured it on his blog. The Panic Attack short attracted an offer from Mandate Pictures to make a $30 million feature-length version. In addition to his $1 million directing fee, Alvarez is being mentored by Sam “ Spider-Man ” Raimi.
Tron: Legacy
When director Joseph Kosinski wanted to graduate from TV commercial work for Saab, Nike and X-Box, he crafted a two-minute spec trailer re-imagining the original Tron‘s lightcycle sequence. The Tron: Legacy clip bowed to clamorous acclaim in San Diego at 2008’s Comic-Con International.
Iron Sky
Finnish CGI maestro Samuli Torssonen and his filmmaking partners relied heavily on DIY green-screen effects to create their first teaser for Nazi alien-invasion flick Iron Sky. The time-intensive clip pulled more 1.3 million YouTube views and harvested micro-investments from 52 fans. A follow-up trailer this summer attracted financing from institutional investors. The $8.5 million picture, set in 2018 when Nazis from the moon return to conquer Earth, begins filming in Australia and Germany this fall.
Technotise
Self-taught Texan film buff Jaron Pitts pulled footage from two dozen movies to craft a two-minute rip-o-matic teaser for Technotise after his Green Lantern fan trailer made a splash on YouTube. This summer, Pitt’s Technotise trailer attracted the attention of writer-producer Laeta Kalogridis ( Avatar, Shutter Island).
Kalogridis is now developing Technotise for Legendary Pictures ( The Dark Knight, 300). Producer Scott Glassgold, who acquired rights to the Serbian anime source material for English-language audiences, told Wired.com: “We went outside the box and used Jaron’s skills with ripped trailers to bring to life our vision for a live-action Technotise remake.”
The Gift
Shot by TV commercial director Carl Erik Rinsch on the streets of Moscow as part of a “branded” series of short clips sponsored by Phillips Cinema, slick robot thriller The Gift prompted intense interest from movie studios when it went viral earlier this summer. It remains to be seen if The Gift makes it to the big screen, since Rinsch already has his hands full with Creature From the Black Lagoon and a reboot of samurai saga 47 Ronin.
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