Written by : Stacie Higgins
Want to create an epic trailer?
Just like with any package, you need inspiration. For me that came in one of my favorite movie trailers. They didn’t give away the whole movie in 2 minutes but they also made you extremely intrigued. The Longest Ride Trailer. I wanted to do a video on grades, school, and the new semester and figured the best way to do that was in a fake movie trailer.
I started to plan the storyline and then looked at the trailer, mapping out each shot to match as best as popular. I don’t think I could have done any better at duping the trailer. I tried to match the dialogue and the framing to give it the most similarity as possible. Never has a shot list been so extensive, clearly stating all 65 shots.
After that I had to find actors and schedule the days. For me finding actors is always the biggest struggle but I am very happy with the ones I chose. I had to schedule all of the outfits and know exactly what I was filming and when. Overall it took 5 days of filming and took about 10 hours. Filming at three different locations, school, her house, and the HB library. 
Then came post production. It took about 4-5 days of editing and probably 7 or so hours. Piecing all of the clips together just the way I wanted them to, going with the original trailer pretty well. Fixing the audio, finding and cutting the music, and adding text. I never really see how long editing takes because it is my favorite part.
Now to the fun part where I show you side by side examples of how I duped a trailer. Since I made a trailer out of a nonexistent movie you either have to know exactly what shots to use and construct your trailer beforehand or like I did with the last drop, you film scenes that you think you might use but end up cutting out quite a few.
Starting towards the beginning of the trailer and working our way through:
“Let’s Go”
“Begin”
“Hey!”
“What?”
“I met a girl.”
“You meet girls all the time.”
“No not like this. This one’s different.”
“I’m in a hard class.”
“You say that about all your classes.”
“No not like this.”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“It wasn’t that basic.”
“I can’t be with someone if every time they walk out the door I don’t know if I’m going to see them again.”
“I can’t take all this pressure! I still have 17 more weeks to raise my grade.”
“Love requires sacrifice. But it’s worth it.”
“School requires sacrifice. But it’s worth it.”
These are just a few of the copied lines or dialogue. As you can tell I absolutely adore this trailer. And I hoped you enjoyed mine as well! A little secret bonus behind the scenes is I had to ADR (automated dialogue replacement) to the scene in the library since we had to be quiet and there was a water fountain in the background. Hopefully you didn’t notice the first time watching but you probably will the second time.
Those are the things that happen in film production. Faking a classroom scene, filming things on different days or times. Adjusting to the environment that you are filming in hence the adr. This production was the biggest one for me of all year and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help from my partner Laura and my main actor Claire.
To watch both trailers to compare them. The Longest Ride. The New Semester.
