🔥Sizzles🔥
THE PITCH
When pitching to producers for funding, sizzles and fake trailers are a great way to get your story across “on a budget", so you can get that big Hollywood budget! They act as great visual mood boards and a great storytelling tool. I’ve worked closely with Directors over the years to make dozens. There are a few different types of sizzles: awards show compilations, hype reels, found footage, proof of concept, or work in progress trailers. An example of the WIP kind is when a Director films some interviews and B-Roll for a documentary and is looking for funding to film the rest. Those can be challenging and act as a trailer that says, “This is what we’ve got. We need money to make more!”
The following videos are a sample of the original concept, found footage, hype reel sizzle. Imagine you’re in a room with some studio executives. You can ask them to refer to the printout or PDF, talk their ear off, or show them this. It’s usually a collection of all three, but the sizzle helps!
THE DESIGN
These edits were completely created by me with light guidance from the project’s Director. I spend hours watching footage from films, shows, & music videos by scouring YouTube, visiting video stores (really!), torrenting (shhhhh… I used a VPN), or getting clips straight from the Director. Often times, I’m only given a pitch deck such as a one page PDF describing the main characters that includes 5 to 10 reference images from other films or artworks. But sometimes it’s just a quick phone call!
Most all of these clips come from films that have some sort of music or intrusive sound design that will overpower the music track, and so it needs to be removed. When that sound is dropped out, the piece as a whole loses energy. So what you hear in these short works is often a complete rebuild of sound design pulled from YouTube & SFX libraries.
THE JOY
Videos like this are a blast to make. I always have so much fun creating worlds and moods. I love music, so any chance I get to let it drive story is a real treat. It’s like a film school project where the teacher gives you a folder of media and says, “have at it.” These videos are a labor of love and it’s a great pleasure to collaborate with Directors on these projects. They have their vision and we work in tandem to see it to fruition, kicking ideas around as it takes shape, as we create something from nothing. I hope you enjoy watching as much as I did in making them.
To my knowledge, none of the following concepts ever made it out of development hell.
PLEASE DO NOT SHARE
Sentient Echo • Feature Film • The Director gave me this prompt: “A thriller with some aspects of horror about a robot running from his past, cloaked in cover as a member of a popular K-Pop band.” He pitched me some films and imagery to grab from to start and asked me to use the audio you hear underneath as a narration guideline. It’s a rare clip from a 1950s educational short film featuring a patient in a mental hospital. I chose the music, created sound design, and pulled the rest of the clips.
Doc Macabre • Television Series • Based off a comic book series of the same name. They gave me nothing to go off but a few images from the Comic and a couple film call outs. The quick description was, “scary with comedic elements.“ I went online and found PDFs of full issues of the comic to find more inspiration for some of the imagery. The music, sound design, and clip selection were curated by me.
Dance Dance Revolution • Feature Film • A production company purchased the rights to this popular game and brought in a Writer/Director to write a one page treatment for the concept. He wrote the voiceover, had it recorded, and sent that as narration. I chose the music, clips, and did all sound design. It’s basically The Matrix meets Footloose.
Infinite Kung Fu • Television Series • This is also based off of a comic series. This one was created from a previous sizzle that the Director had made. I used some of the same clips, but basically started from scratch. The written text, song choices, and loads of film references were from the Director. The sound design and rest of the clip picks was all me. This was one of the first sizzles I made and I was hooked. Robots, Samurai, Kung Fu…you get it.
Caught In The Art • Television Series • This docu-series sizzle utilizes found footage as well as a few clips from the Director’s short film that inspired her to make it a series. She sent me a few clips and music to use and I provided the rest by watching newscasts and art crime documentaries on Netflix, HBO, and elsewhere (those are a bit harder to rip 😉 ). The Director told me the subject of each episode and I found video and audio to support it. The archival audio is from other videos found on the internet and the bookended narration was provided by the Director.
The Wooden Boat Festival • Event Trailer • I wanted to include this trailer sizzle that is a little different than the others. This was created for the 2020 Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. Since the festival went virtual that year, they gathered multiple directors to make films about each featured boat. I was asked to Direct and Produce a film on The Western Flyer and they loved my film so much that they asked if I would edit the trailer! I combined the featured short films into a showcase.
THE DISCLAIMER
Really, please do not share. These were created for private viewing purposes only.
I do not own the rights to the images or music.