You Are Your Body / You Are Not Your Body

[matt35mm]

Official Facebook Page

I'm starting to put some stuff out there about my upcoming feature, and I wanted to start sharing some stuff here, as well.

It's about a grieving family in Texas forced to come to terms with their history of violence, and a lonely woman in L.A. who attempts to fix what she thinks is wrong with herself through stand-up comedy and sexual dominance. As a cult begins to close in on the family and the woman, both stories collide and culminate in the second coming of Christ.

We're nearing the end of production, and starting up on post-production. It'll be a wee while before it's finished, I reckon, but we should be able to throw some updates out there from time to time, and having other people know about helps to keep me excited while I'm alone in my room editing.

[jenkins]

the production is almost over??? nice, matt35mm. auto-fan

[Cloudy]

Congrats on climbing that mountain man, waiting to see what you came back with.

[matt35mm]

Here's a trailer for the movie:

www.vimeo.com/72244505 (NOTE: this file has been replaced with the new cut, made after the consensus that the original cut was too long.)

I'm waiting a couple of weeks to really start publicly sharing it, but I thought I'd drop it here. Also, I'd like to get an idea of how it looks on different monitors. I've watched it on a few monitors, and there's so much variance in quality. Also, I've set this to 1080p playback, and want to know if that plays choppily for any of you (setting Vimeo to HTML5 instead of Flash aids in this, though).

My main concern is with visible compression artifacts. I'd like to know if it looks comparable to other Vimeo/YouTube videos on your monitor, or if it looks particularly bad, and also whether you prefer the Vimeo or YouTube version.

Basically, I boosted the blacks which looked good on 3 out of 4 monitors, but bad on that 4th monitor. I'm probably being overly fussy, but if it does look bad for some of you, I may try to re-grade it to see if I can do better.

[jenkins]

smooth and pretty. i watched it on my phone. no probs. excited for you!! i think it's so funny he punched the computer

[ono]

My knee-jerk reaction was to say the trailer is way too long.  But then I went to double-check.  The best trailer ever to the best movie ever is just as long as yours.  Still, that movie is 3 hours long.  CMBB and The Master have similarly long trailers, maybe a bit shorter.  I always thought a trailer shouldn't exceed 2 minutes.  My mistake.  Anyway, there *are* superfluous shots you might do well to cut.  Ask yourself what the questions are in the trailer, and leave the answers for the film.  The webcam bit goes for a bit too long, reveals a bit too much.  Same with the "seance" or whatever.  It could be trimmed.  Maybe of the shots at the end of the trailer can be lifted, too.

I'm not a fan of the title, but I'm sure you have your reasons for it.  I think, syntactically, a better title is simply "You Are (Not) Your Body."  Why make your audience struggle so much?

I am happy for you though.  Congrats on getting it done, and good luck.

[matt35mm]

Thanks for your thoughts!

It's a bit long, yes. Average trailer is 2 - 2:30 minutes; mine's 2:48. I watched a bunch of trailers to see how they function, but they were pulling a lot of voodoo tricks that I just don't know how to do. Also, this is a fundraising trailer, and not a theatrical trailer, so I leaned toward showing more rather than less, in terms of showing actual scenes. But, I would gladly cut it shorter after the fundraising period.

The blacks levels were raised a bit, so they're not very deep at all. That's just what I did for this trailer; the movie itself has not been edited or graded yet, so the look of the movie will change, I expect. That's part of why I wanted the chance to learn about how this looks on various monitors. Also, I hope someday that someone else will edit the trailer and grade the movie.

The tone of the trailer is probably a lot more palatable than it will be in the movie. It's a weird fucking movie. It's certainly not a calling card movie, as its intentions are too avant-garde. I'm really into movies that ride close to but don't entirely align with the expectations of what a movie is supposed to be.

I don't want to say too much more about the movie, but the title is housing two contradictory ideas simultaneously, which I felt was appropriate. I played around with variations on the title, including YOU ARE (NOT) YOUR BODY, but they don't do the same thing (I actually think YOU ARE (NOT) YOUR BODY is more complicated, because it would sound like YOU ARE NOT YOUR BODY, which would definitely be the wrong title for this movie). I expect that a lot of people won't like the title, which is fine. I get that it's not an advisable title, but I have no commercial pressure.

My hope for the movie is that it will feel deeply strange, unwieldy, handmade, consistently intriguing, fundamentally flawed, and somewhat unsatisfying, but also very hard to forget. Because that's the sort of shit that I like. And the title feels like those things. Am I doing a good job of selling it?

Also, I don't know if this particularly changes anything, but the title never appears as YOU ARE YOUR BODY / YOU ARE NOT YOUR BODY in the movie itself. It opens with YOU ARE YOUR BODY and closes with YOU ARE NOT YOUR BODY.

[Pubrick]

Also, I don't know if this particularly changes anything, but the title never appears as YOU ARE YOUR BODY / YOU ARE NOT YOUR BODY in the movie itself. It opens with YOU ARE YOUR BODY and closes with YOU ARE NOT YOUR BODY.

that changes everything. i was thinking the same as ono but that explanation justified the title for me, that's a cool gimmick, never really seen that before.

i also think it's very intriguing. at first i was put off by that dude who was about get a blowjob or whatever when he got a phone call, he was overacting everything. the chicks look like stronger performers.

good trailer, maybe a bit long but it actually drew me in. that last shot is killer, very tarsem.

in fact, the title as a recurring statement plus that last shot/poster would make a good obscure commercial for perfume or something. maybe use that as a calling card if you ever wanna make those Mr Plow type commercials.

[Just Withnail]

It looks very intriguing. The trailer really gets going from around 01.00. The throbbing score that starts around here is excellent. The general mood from here on out is really unnearving and enticing. There’s a great sense of mystery.

Woa! That last shot. Is amazing. But then the animation on the ”are you your body”-text at the very end looks a little cheap.

I think the start could be shorter, especially the skype-scene. Other than that, you really make me wanna see this.

[Sleepless]

Matt -

It looks great. Good cinematography. Good score. I watched the vimeo trailer on an old Dell at work and it looked fine. A little choppy near the alley fighting the last third, but that was it.

I do think it's a little long and could be trimmed for pacing sake. As funny as the laptop scene is, I think it can be trimmed slightly. Same for the "spiritual healer" scene, which although it already feels like you've compressed it significantly, I think can be done more so. I would like to see a hint more of the avant-garde style that you say the movie has.  As JW, said when the trailer really gets going it's excellent. Frank reminds me of Luke Wilson in Royal Tenenbaums most of the time he is on screen. Maybe it's because of that but when the family all got back to the house it reminded me of The Family Stone.

As you may/may not be aware, I'm working within the online marketing world at the moment and if you need any help to try and promote this either at this stage or later on, I would be interested is getting involved or at least talking about what your plans are. You have my email right?

[matt35mm]

Thanks, all!

Well, since there seems to be a consensus forming, and since I haven't really released this trailer yet, I'm gonna take a stab at shortening it.

Is the actual punching of the laptop worth keeping? I could cut out of the scene before then, or I can have him punch the laptop, but nix her saying, "You broke my laptop???"

I can only think of one way to shorten the "I'm what you might call a spiritual teacher" bit, which is to remove the other woman asking, "What exactly does that mean?" But then would it sound weird to have her say, "I'm what you might call a spiritual teacher, put your hands on the table." I can give it a shot, though. I'll also re-do the "are you your body" animation.

That only cuts about 4 or 5 seconds from the trailer, though. Perhaps that helps the pacing enough to not feel long, or should I make even more cuts??

And yes!!! I didn't really know that you were working in online marketing but I would like your help. It's also good to know that the trailer played fine on an old Dell... if that worked, then I'm not too worried.

[©brad]

I like the title, and the trailer didn't feel long for me, especially if you're using it for fundraising. Can't wait to see it!

[ono]

Is the actual punching of the laptop worth keeping? I could cut out of the scene before then, or I can have him punch the laptop, but nix her saying, "You broke my laptop???"

No, nix it, save it for the film.  That extreme type of behavior is the stuff that's best saved for the film itself.  All you need is the tease of him catching her webcamming with her boyfriend.

I can only think of one way to shorten the "I'm what you might call a spiritual teacher" bit, which is to remove the other woman asking, "What exactly does that mean?" But then would it sound weird to have her say, "I'm what you might call a spiritual teacher, put your hands on the table." I can give it a shot, though. I'll also re-do the "are you your body" animation.

Cut it at the question.  Leave it at that.  Let the audience ponder what that means, and leave it to the film itself to give your answer.

That only cuts about 4 or 5 seconds from the trailer, though. Perhaps that helps the pacing enough to not feel long, or should I make even more cuts??

See how it runs with those two cuts, and see if there are any more superfluous cuts that could be excised from the back end of the trailer.


And FWIW, it played okay on my computer.  Have a dual monitor setup with a flatscreen acting as my second screen.  Watched it there, and it looks okay, if a little dark.

[jenkins]

lol there's nothing extreme about punching a computer, unless you mean extreme ridiculousness. hell yeah save the punch. it made me laugh the most and people like laughing

[Reelist]

"you broke my laptop?" is definitely unnecessary, though. Maybe don't let the whole scene play out and show so much of your actress half naked right away, just give us a taste.


I also thought that the transition between the laughing and playful spanking to "my mother's dead" played really farcically. Since it seems like a major plot point, you should give it more dramatic weight.


Both versions look really good on my laptop. I'm interested. Congrats!