Sunday 24 April 2011

Cannes Promo

Over the last few weeks, alongside working on the edit, I have also been spending time trying to put together a short promo for Tom and Christine to take to Cannes. Distinctly not a trailer, the idea was to put together a short reel featuring several short extracts from the film (in case you're wondering: we want to concentrate on really getting the film right first, before cutting the trailer. Plus we felt that the extract-style promo reel might better serve our purposes here). The point, of course, is to try and raise awareness of, and interest in, the film among potential Sales Agents and Distributors. We're planning to get the promo put onto branded USB sticks which Tom and Christine will hand out during their festival trip (though we'll also be doing an online version to send to other contacts).

Putting the promo together has turned out to be much tougher than expected: our aim was to introduce all six of the main characters, convey something of the film's tone, its style, its themes and of course, its story - all in under five minutes, something which has been made even harder by the length of many of our scenes. Many of the clips we tried - which work brilliantly in the film - simply didn't work when divorced from context. However, Murat was able to step in and save the day, suggesting a great extract which works on its own merits and cutting down some of my choices, bringing us in at a punchy 3 minutes 20 seconds. It may not quite offer the all-encompassing setup that we had originally wanted, but I believe that it gives a good impression of the film and hopefully it will entice people to want to know more. We'll be doing a special launch for the promo, pre-Cannes, at our final Life's Just Networking event on May 10th, so why not come along and judge for yourself?

The full programme for our special finale will be announced on Tuesday, and features films made by and starring the cast and crew of Life Just Is.

- Alex

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