Planning (the small additions)

Now that we knew we had some small tweaks to make, we were going to need to come up with a plan as to what we wanted those small tweaks to look like.

The first change was of course to re-record Silvia Brown's dialogue and as part of that we wanted (myself in particular) to shorten down her lines so that we could fit it more easily within the first part of the trailer. 

 

The lines were originally:

 

“Mya, we thought after the accident that we could get through this together, but me and your therapist have been talking, and with everything happening: (PAUSE – 1 seconds) the distancing yourself (PAUSE – 1 seconds) the breakdowns (PAUSE – 1 seconds) we think it would be best if you get further help.”

 

“You’ve been referred to The Trory Anwir Insitution For Mental Health. They have a great reputation (PAUSE – 2 seconds) I think they’ll really help you. (PAUSE – 3 seconds) But I’m worried about you. (PAUSE – 2 seconds) Everyone is.”

 

but that takes 30 seconds of the trailer (25% to be exact) which may not sound like a lot but in actual fact, when you want to show as much of the film as possible (without giving too much of the plot specifics away), taking up 25% of the trailer with exposition/setup for what the film is going to be about is very likely to kill the audience's sense of excitement and would more or less fail to fully whet their appetite for the upcoming release of the film. We also had to consider the fact that the second half of that dialogue can only really fit over one shot, and that was hardly desirable to make the trailer exciting given that the second half constitutes of 13 seconds - nobody wants to be watching one shot for that long in a trailer, it would be likely to bore them and we could not afford to have that.

After much discussion, regarding the nuances of what exactly we wanted the new dialogue to look like, we eventually came up with this:

 

“Mya, I thought we could get through this together, but me and your therapist have been talking, and with everything going on, you need further help. I’m worried about you. [PAUSE] Everyone is.”

 

“You’ve been referred to The Trory Anwir Insitution Of Mental Health. They have a great reputation. They can really help you there.”

As you can see, this new dialogue gets the same point across whilst at the same time it’s going to be significantly shorter than the original dialogue, allowing us to show more in the later parts of the trailer and thus, by doing so, be able to build anticipation and whet more appetites rather than kill them with the same thing for too long.

With that extra time, there were a couple of extra tid-bits that we were going to be able to add onto the trailer which would create a greater sense of mystery and ambiguity showing more of what is going on whilst at the same time not giving too much of the film's content away.

The first bit that we wanted to add would be a scene in which DR Goodwin would be seen in a science lab with some chemicals/ingredients (of which one of them would be red enough to suggest that it could be blood), the purpose of this being to give a hint as to what is going on behind the scenes at the Trory Anwir Institute of Mental Health. This scene would be injected between Mya opening the file and Mya dropping it in horror, both to break this moment up slightly and also to suggest that she has read something within that file which would lead her to having an idea of what is going on in that lab where DR Goodwin is experimenting.

The second bit that we wanted to add was one in which DR Goodwin (in the same science lab, but a little later on in the trailer) was seen with Mya's file (by which connecting DR Goodwin to the file and the file to the experiments). In this scene DR Goodwin would be stepping out of the lab and placing the file back into the file rack - thus establishing the connection. This scene would be injected after Mya Brown's session with DR Goodwin thus implying even just a loose connection between the therapy and the science giving rise to the fact that the therapy aspect is a mask over what is truly going on there.

And last, but not least, the final addition that we wanted to make to the trailer is one in which Christopher (my character) would be seen running down a corridor. This scene would follow on from the moment in which Mya says to Christopher that they need to escape from the Trory Anwir Institution of Mental Health. Because of this it serves the purpose of suggesting that Mya and Christopher do in fact go on with their escape plan to get out of the Trory Anwir Institution of Mental Health (though of course, in theory at least, it could be taken from a more random moment of the trailer and merely suggest this). This moment also serves to give Christopher's character a little more screen time than that which has presently been given to him.