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March 25, 2010

SXSW Trailers

It's been a week now since most folks started heading home from SXSW, and a little less than that since the trailers we produced for the festival wrapped their big screen engagement. Aside from Joe Nicolosi's excellent midnight bumper, I directed all of spots that played before the feature films. Toby Halbrooks produced them; he is the very definition of an enabler, taking my sketches and random ideas and making them all come to fruition far better than I could have had I been left to my own devices. This was a true collaboration, between the two of us and also all the folks who pitched in and helped us pull these off on an insanely tight budget. A lot of the St. Nick crew helped out (we threw in lots of little references, from the posters at the miniature movie theater to the photos on the wall of the crumbling set) and, of course, that was the inimitable James M. Johnston striding away from wreckage in the last one.

As to the creative origin of these spots - they weren't written, but leaped into realization half-formed, and as with my projects only came into their own after they were already well into production. I remember the morning of the final soundstage shoot (which we conceived of a month earlier while riding around an empty soundstage on razor scooters), looking at this paltry, half-finished little set and wondering how it was actually going to happen. But happen it did, and in a single take. And then there was the music box spot, which was defined once by the fact that a blizzard fell on Dallas one day and I demanded that we go out and shoot something in it, and then again towards the end of the miniature photography when I walked into the other room and told Toby I was thinking of making it about the last movie in the world.

Here they are, in their finished form:

And here's a little behind-the-scenes video of that final spot, with cameos from Savanna Sears, Bryan Poyser and Clay Liford, as well as lots of other friends and collaborators.

My goal in making these was to produce four great short films, unto themselves, and also to keep audiences engaged over dozens of repeat viewings. I'm pretty proud of how they turned out.

Thanks also to Karina Longworth for highlighting them so pointedly in her SXSW article for the Village Voice.

Posted by David Lowery at March 25, 2010 2:51 PM

Comments

Posted by: Lance Gilstrap at March 25, 2010 4:31 PM

Posted by: Gamblour at March 26, 2010 8:04 AM

Posted by: Peet Gelderblom at March 29, 2010 6:42 AM