Dystopian Film Trailer

Assignment/Activity Title— Dystopian Trailers

Year— Sophomore

Skill— Creative, Media, Group Dynamics
Portfolio Category— Media & Comm.

           In this project, we had to script, film, and edit a two minute trailer for a movie. The movie had to be about a dystopian society and include certain elements.

            Our first problem occurred when we went to film. Everything was running smoothly until one of our group members decided she had to leave to meet up with a friend. She rushed a couple of our shots, and then took off back to Julian’s house to get her backpack. This made me realize that not everyone is as committed to projects and school as I am, and that everyone had different priorities. And although I respect that this may not have mattered as much to her, it was not cool for her to mess with the group because of her personal schedule.

            The other main issue came when we got all the film back to edit. Not to brag, of course – but film editing is kind of my area of expertise. I’ve used FinalCut as well as Adobe Premier at an internship with the Communications branch of Family Health International, and I’ve been editing since the beginning of sixth grade. So I was fairly confident that I knew what I was doing, and could do everything quicker and quite possibly faster than anyone else in my group.

            So, we took the footage back to our editing room to start working – and right away, we had issues. Everyone wanted to listen to a different song (our clips had no sound, we did all speaking we needed with voiceovers). So we took turns, which was a good solution, but it slowed down editing time when I had to change the song or someone took time to think of what they wanted.

            Additionally, we had contrasting ideas about what we wanted. I was doing most of the editing, but Julian, Sarah, and Neida were in the suite with me giving me ideas and helping me visualize parts of the trailer. Neida took a backseat with the editing, as she did her share of work pre-production. Sarah, when she was there, spent her time working on the film poster in another room, which was helpful. But Julian…I like Julian, as a friend and as a person, but he’s extremely stubborn and controlling. Every time he had an idea, it was automatically the best option, and every time I made an edit he had to adjust something. No matter what. It got so bad, I told him to back off – which caused him to apologize, and everything was fine. It made me realize that sometimes, direct confrontation is the best tactic.

            This project made me realize, yet again, how hard it is to find a group with chemistry that just clicks along. It also showed me that direct confrontation is usually the best way to deal with an issue.
            And somehow, we ended up with a great trailer on the way.