The Life of a Documentary Trailer

1. Get a bunch of raw footage. In my case this consisted of 4 interviews, 3 locations, and a bunch of B-roll which all came to almost 3 hours.
2. Spend hours with the raw footage and a laptop, watching the footage over and over and over again to massage and cull all those lines of dialogue into a fascinating script. Type those interesting lines of dialogue into your script. The first time I reviewed the footage I did so only while listening, for the best dialogue that jumped out at me.
   
3. After 2 weeknights of doing this (with one night off which I actually recommend b/c sometimes you will just need a break from the footage b/c you've been on top of it too much and need to come back to it a little fresh), now it is time to edit. Go pick up your dad and his computer w/Avid editing software, his monitor, his speakers, your new hard drive, etc. and set it all up in your dining room. Make sure there is plenty of Shiner Bock for him.
   
4. Begin editing, aiming for a 4-minute trailer. We did so in a linear style, going line by line down my script and setting up all the ducks (scenes) in a row. First we did the interviews. This was very tricky b/c you have to catch people mid-sentence sometimes and cut their lines in and out carefully. Fortunately my dad is a MASTER of Avid and Avid is sensitive down to the damn frame so though it was tricky it was mostly easy to do.
5. Toss in the music which really makes the trailer look and sound so much more professional!
   
6. After all the ducks were in a row we had an over 6-minute trailer. So now it's time to cut the fat, meaning we took out when people said things like "I know" and some dialogue that I thought was superfluous. HOWEVER--there was actually not that much fat to cut so we ended up with a final total running time (TRT) of 5:54.
7. Chop up the music a little bit, seeing as how it is a 4-minute 33-second song and so we needed more of it. So we extended it creatively. Easy and fun!
   
8. Find the good B-roll footage shots and insert those on top of the interviews where appropriate. Mostly we tried to hide jump cuts of people talking and mostly we were able to do that. However, I don't mind jump cuts! I think it just shows realism. (My dad hates them.)
   
9. Argue with your dad over a couple of creative differences. For example in my case, I like that shaky handheld camera work my brother did on a couple of shots--my dad hates it. Also some effects he suggested inserting. I thought some of them looked "too TV." I did accept one of them though, just to avoid fighting over it.
   
10. Now that the trailer is really starting to look good and like an actual real movie trailer, time to do the audio fix. Lower and raise dialogue/music where necessary.
    
11. Next it's time to do the color correction on everybody and the B-roll footage. #'s 10 and 11 are done shot by shot, scene by scene, BTW. That Avid is incredible! It can make grass look greener, people look suntanned and healthy, too-dark shots with no lighting look perfect, etc.!
    
12. Add your logo "2:10 Train Productions" to the beginning and you're done.
    
13. Make a copy from the computer to a DVD. Watch it on a real TV and be totally impressed!
    
14. Show it to the world, start collecting checks from rich folk who by God are now dying to see this damn fascinating film get made!!!

So I left out a few other steps, such as find out your dad forgot his universal power cord so run to the Radio Shack to buy one for too much $ (save the receipt, return it today!), run to the Walgreens to buy a DVD+RW since all you have in your house are DVD-R's, listen to your dad cuss up a storm when the computer won't cooperate, and also we will be totally re-recording all of Mudflap's dialogue b/c where we shot him in the lobby of the academy had too much echo so there is an annoying "hum" whenever he shows up on screen and my dad says we can fix that easily since Avid couldn't. So we're doing that tomorrow night.

So after 2 days of work and about 10 Shiner Bocks I now have this trailer. I have shown it to several people now and they all say they like it and maybe they do. But the important thing, and all my moviemaking books I've been reading lately say this, plus my dad told me a couple of times, is that I have to like it. And I do, though I'm sure I'll love it once we fix the remaining technical issues. I am hoping to show it to the Chief next week--he should love it and I think he will!

Now I have tons of paperwork to do: proposals to write, applications to fill out, and get my TFPF stuff in the mail (sent certified mail) out by Monday at the latest and of course everything has to be sent in quadruplet so Kinko's here I come. I was hoping to mail it on Friday just so I get it over with. My dad helped me on my budget a lot too so I am just going to say that's finished, finally! Total cost of the project: almost $23,000! Yow!