Superstition Mountain

[TerryJameson]

Brand new here. My name is Terry Jameson, and I'm the producer of the new horror movie Superstition Mountain. Check out the trailer and let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mpax8psQzk

[newb]

Nothing in the trailer made me want to see this.


sorry....you asked

[neverending]

It looks really derivitive and the sound is really overmodulated.

Really.

As a teaser all it really says is that it borrows from millions of other movies. If it told a little of the story and what makes it stand out from every other horror film of the past 20 years I might be more interested.

[TerryJameson]

What do you mean by derivitive?

Sorry, just me being dumb, but I don't understand. I'd like to make it better, and I do value your input.

[ChronoGrl]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v623/Chronogrl/derivative.gif

:p

It's a nicer way of saying "unoriginal."

But, honestly, there's nothing wrong with derivative per se as long as this particular derivation is done well (I think that Shutter the original is a great example - while it's a completely derivative JA ghost movie, I found the direction and acting clean with a lot of good jumps to it).

If your film is going to borrow from other films that came before, just make sure that it's a true derivation... Otherwise, see how you can make it stand out from its predecessors.

[urgeok2]

What do you mean by derivitive?

Sorry, just me being dumb, but I don't understand. I'd like to make it better, and I do value your input.


it's hard to say from the trailer which didnt really show anything ..

but all i could think of is a low budget blair witch..

Cloerfield upped that ante - it's tough to go backwards.


but who knows - my biggest impression was that - i really cant tell anything from the trailer.

(looked like there might be a couple of interesting characters though)

[TerryJameson]

Thanks for schooling me on my vocabulary. I feel dumb, but what can I say? I'm a filmmaker and it's been a long time since English 101...

What makes Superstition Mountain different from Cloverfield and Blair Witch is that it's real, but that's hard to get across in a trailer. The goal of every trailer, and every movie for that matter, is to make the audience feel like it's real, and with good SAG actors that's easily done. Both Cloverfield and Blair Witch had good actors (arguably :)

Any suggestions on how to get that across? We've been mulling this over ourselves...

Thanks for your time and input, btw!

[neverending]

You need to tell us something about the story....

[TerryJameson]

I actually cut this trailer and showed it to a hundred college kids, and they overwhelmingly said the same thing.

So then I cut another trailer that DID tell more and showed it to them, and then 87 of them flipped back and said they liked the mysterious nature of the first one better. Maybe I'll try to cut another one that's somewhere in the middle.

I hate these new six minute trailers that show you every good shot in the whole movie, you know? There's films where I honestly don't remember if I watched the whole thing, or if I just saw the trailer that showed me the entire movie, and I want to stay away from that.

[ChronoGrl]

Ok. So I actually finally watched it.


I think that you make your edits/cuts far too fast. I generally enjoy teasers that cut away quickly, but this did it too quickly at the beginning of the teaser.
I found myself saying, "Wolf Creek" meets "Touristas" meets "Blair Witch"... But not in a good way and, to be fair, I'm a sucker for those movies (Chrono loves the slasher), but I just didn't feel as though this does anything new for the genre (or that it makes a particularly compelling derivation).
To tell you the truth, I feel as though the hand held camera thing is starting to get over used (Blair Witch, Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead), so unless the movie itself is really clean, I'm not as turned on as I used to be (that's what she said). I think that you can make your movie distinguishable without going overkill on the teaser; choose a focal point instead of the babes jumping in the pool and the kids making out. It just SCREAMS derivative. I was more interested when you were "interviewing" the guys at the end.
Not that horror titles are anything to salivate to, but I am also not a fan of the movie title. To me it says, "This is cheesy." If that's your point, that's fine. If it's not, well...

[TerryJameson]

Thanks so much for the input! You've got some really good points.

1: I agree with you completely on this. Not only are the initial cuts too fast, but the youtube compression makes it darker, so it's harder to tell what's going on. I'll get on that. That being said, the fact that you're articulate enough to post this means you're probably not our target market. Teenage boys with HDAD spend the most money at the movies, and they like fast cuts. i just overdid it.

2&3: Superstition Mountain IS something new in the genre, actually, I'm just not getting it across right. Those "interviews" are real. Everything is real. The problem is BW and Cloverfield have jaded our audience to the point that they naturally assume that everything is fake. Not sure what to do about that. Hhmmm...

4: And as far as the title goes we weren't trying to be cheesy. Superstition Mountain is real, and it's what the movie is about, so we can't really change that.

Thanks again, ChronoGrl. As you can imagine I've seen this footage 8 billion times, and it helps to see it through someone else's eyes.

[Lord RawK]

just for the curiosity factor... what mountain does it take place at or deal with.

[TerryJameson]

Superstition Mountain, of course. It's in Arizona. If you go to our website - www.minor9media.com, we have a page full of links about it. It's a scary place.

Hey ChronoGrl (and others) - What if, at the end of the trailer, instead of saying Superstition Mountain - Coming Soon, it said Superstition Mountain <fade out> A Documentary <fade out> Coming Soon?

It is a documentary, after all.

Thoughts?

[neverending]

That's a nice touch- but I probably wouldn't believe it unless you made it look more like a documentary.

[Despare]

Alright, the movie combined with what you've told use has me under the impression that you made a movie BASED on this legend and used real interviews about "real" events and included them in the film right? So it's more like a horror flick with snippets of what could have been a documentary in it.

[neverending]

A "Docudrama" as they say.....

[Despare]

A "Docudrama" as they say.....

I wouldn't call this film that...


Maybe I just need to see a longer trailer. Or maybe watch it on Netflix, if it becomes a "watch it now" movie. Or maybe watch it for free on their website.

[TerryJameson]

It's not a docudrama, actually - it's a documentary. It's all real.

I just cut another copy of the trailer incorporating ChronoGrl's input. Gonna post it in a minute if Youtube's feeling cooperative.

I'll shoot you a link once it's up.

[Despare]

It's all real.


HAHAHAHAHAHA...












































WAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !

[TerryJameson]

Here's the new cut of the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67znbu7NdU

I slowed it down a bit at the beginning like ChronoGrl suggested, added the fact that it's a documentary at the end, and made a few other little changes.

Let me know what you think.

[ChronoGrl]

Ok. I didn't know that Superstition Mountain was actually part of a real mountain range; that makes me feel significantly better about the title.

I think that the newer teaser is a significant improvement, though I honestly think that the short cut of the teens making out honestly does not fit in with the rest of the teaser.

You make a good point that you're trying to reach the 15 - 25 year old male bracket, but a the same time, the fact that this is being set up as a documentary is going to reach out to other demographics. To tell you the truth, there is a part of that that will flag down the indie horror enthusiasts, and it is those demographics that are going to be wary of the teen partying bit.

If you are trying to target the 15 - 25 year old male bracket, how will you get them interested in actual interview snippets? I feel as though you might be splicing in the sex simply to keep that bracket interested, but maybe you should considering taking this film to a higher level (not trying to belittle going after that age bracket; they are definitely a demo that is targeted constantly in horror; I just feel that doing it with a documentary is a little risky).

As a viewer I am interested in the documentary aspect, but uninterested in the teenage boy aspect. It's very possible that the teenage boys would feel the same way; Sure, the sex is appealing, but what's with those old guys?

I know I'm being flip, but just something to consider.

[TerryJameson]

As that kid in The Ring would say - It's a conundrum.

Ideally we want to appeal to everyone, but at the end of the day teenage boys are the most important market, which is why the kissing shot is in there. But I'm still down for fine-tuning anything in any way. That's why I'm asking for advice here and tweaking it before we drop press releases at Fearnet and such.

Both versions of the trailer can be seen at our Youtube channel if anyone else has any ideas. The longer version is the new one incorporating CronoGrl's input. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Minor9media

ChronoGrl - your insight is great, and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to help me out. I am planning on adding you to the 'thanks to' list in the credits of the film. If you want me to put in your real name (or not put you in at all) let me know. You can reach me privately at terry@minor9media.com.

[neverending]

Hahahaha- I just watched the full 2:12 trailer- this is obviously not a documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZT_XsV1CeA&NR=1

[Despare]

Hahahaha- I just watched the full 2:12 trailer- this is obviously not a documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZT_XsV1CeA&NR=1


Oh but it's all real, the movie maker himself assured us. :rolleyes:

Comes here... insults our intelligence...

[neverending]

I think we were just caught by a smarter than average viral marketer.

[TerryJameson]

No! I knew this was going to be a problem eventually...

There is a British play coming out called Superstition Mountain. This has NOTHING to do with us. Really. It draws from the same history - the Lost Dutchman's Goldmine, but that's where we part ways. Basically, if you're watching some trailer that looks like a long-lost 3 Stooges episode and has some guy's naked ass hanging out, it has NOTHING to do with us.

We own all the rights and the URLs and such, and we've considered sending these guys a cease and desist, but we figured we'd let them do their thing and nobody would notice. I forgot that you kids is so smart and you can work search engines. Maybe we do need to figure out how to avoid this confusion.

Every single minute of our film is a documentary - it is 100% unscripted and real. I am NOT some viral marketer. You'll see, I swear. If I was a "smart" viral marketer would I be wasting this much time here, where I'm getting 20 new people to check out the trailer? Hell no. I'm here because I need to know about these issues before we drop press releases and I've worked on this thing for so long that I obviously can't see the forest for the trees.

Thanks for the cynicism, tho. You've opened my eyes to the fact that our audience really is this incredibly jaded. I don't blame you. After Look and Cloverfield and Blair Witch, et al, it's to be expected. I think we all just figured that somehow you'd magically know that it was real.

If you really want to check us out dig deeper. The three people you see interviewed in the trailer are Ron Feldman, the author of Crooked Mountain and owner of OK Corral, Inc., a company that's been guiding people into the Superstition Mountains to search for the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine for decades; Randy Wright, a young prospector, and Jack San Felice, author of When Silver Was King and co-owner of the legendary Silver King Mine. Their links are at our website - www.minor9media.com - and I'm sure you can probably find pictures of them somewhere online. Just Google them if you don't trust us. They've been around way longer than we have, and they are REAL.

So - what would make you believe? I can prove it to you here, at length, but I need a way to convey that to the masses in 59 seconds. Is there something else I could put in the trailer that would make you take it seriously?

[Despare]

No! I knew this was going to be a problem eventually...

There is a British play coming out called Superstition Mountain. This has NOTHING to do with us. Really. It draws from the same history - the Lost Dutchman's Goldmine, but that's where we part ways. Basically, if you're watching some trailer that looks like a long-lost 3 Stooges episode and has some guy's naked ass hanging out, it has NOTHING to do with us.

We own all the rights and the URLs and such, and we've considered sending these guys a cease and desist, but we figured we'd let them do their thing and nobody would notice. I forgot that you kids is so smart and you can work search engines. Maybe we do need to figure out how to avoid this confusion.

Every single minute of our film is a documentary - it is 100% unscripted and real. I am NOT some viral marketer. You'll see, I swear. If I was a "smart" viral marketer would I be wasting this much time here, where I'm getting 20 new people to check out the trailer? Hell no. I'm here because I need to know about these issues before we drop press releases and I've worked on this thing for so long that I obviously can't see the forest for the trees.

Thanks for the cynicism, tho. You've opened my eyes to the fact that our audience really is this incredibly jaded. I don't blame you. After Look and Cloverfield and Blair Witch, et al, it's to be expected. I think we all just figured that somehow you'd magically know that it was real.

If you really want to check us out dig deeper. The three people you see interviewed in the trailer are Ron Feldman, the author of Crooked Mountain and owner of OK Corral, Inc., a company that's been guiding people into the Superstition Mountains to search for the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine for decades; Randy Wright, a young prospector, and Jack San Felice, author of When Silver Was King and co-owner of the legendary Silver King Mine. Their links are at our website - www.minor9media.com - and I'm sure you can probably find pictures of them somewhere online. Just Google them if you don't trust us. They've been around way longer than we have, and they are REAL.

So - what would make you believe? I can prove it to you here, at length, but I need a way to convey that to the masses in 59 seconds. Is there something else I could put in the trailer that would make you take it seriously?

Your real trailer shows a guy falling down with his head covered in blood yes? So you "documented" that?

[TerryJameson]

Well, technically he's already on the ground in that shot, but yes.

[Despare]

Well, technically he's already on the ground in that shot, but yes.

You're stupid and insulting. Good day sir.

[urgeok2]

there is no such thing as a true story.

[illdojo]

Hello, TerryJameson....Your trailer sucks. :)
Would you like some....
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e107/illdojo/spam.gif
?

[TerryJameson]

Thanks for all the constructive advice, guys.

I may be stupid. I'll give you that. I certainly don't know all the big words you guys use to demean me and my film. But I've never been insulting to anyone here, even when I was being insulted.

Is there anyone who's actually interested in helping me or are all of you just mean and bored?

[spamman]

www.minor9media.com (http://www.minor9media.com)
Thanks for the link.

[ChronoGrl]

Your real trailer shows a guy falling down with his head covered in blood yes? So you "documented" that?

Well, technically he's already on the ground in that shot, but yes.

See, this is where you lose me. So it's a "documentary," then, with "documentary" in scarequotes?

As in, this may or may not be a real mountain range with real superstitions, but the action in the present is unreal?

At this point it seems silly to say that this murder is "documented." The interviews are one thing, but obviously as critics we wouldn't believe it... I went into Blair Witchin knowing that it wasn't true and it still scared the hell out of me, so there's nothing wrong with a little truth.

...

And since you're new and your first post revolves around selling your movie and your website, of course you're going to be labeled as SPAM. You have to be around a while to do that without disdain. :p

[TerryJameson]

Not sure what scarequotes are, to be honest, but I get what you're getting at.

Here's the deal - everything is real, unscripted, and merely documented. I never said that the kid on the ground was dead, tho. The doc is this - Superstition Mountain is real and a very nasty place. An indie film company went out there to shoot a horror movie. Bad things happened. We were taping them. That's all I can say without throwing out spoilers.

So obviously people aren't understanding this from watching the trailer. I want to know why they aren't getting it - what I'm doing wrong.

And to those of you who are accusing me of spam - why would I do it here? Wouldn't I be in the general forum, where's there's exponentially more viewers? I'd be on other sites, too, which I'm not. I picked this dark little corner of the internet because I wanted to hit LESS people, but the right people.

And to Spamman - I don't even understand your post. Are you saying I'm a spammer and you're trying to give me more sites to spam to? Or are you saying you're going to send spam to me? If so, please don't. Search around on the web and you'll see that I am not spamming anyone. Besides uploading the trailer to some online video sites I haven't posted anything about the movie anywhere but here and at our website.

I didn't mean to waste anyone's time here and I'm sorry if you feel that I did. If you think you know of a better site for me to ask for help at please let me know.

[neverending]

What you have said is a very sophisticated idea to try and get across in 60 seconds. IMO if you really want to get that concept across you have to spell it out. You have to say exactly this:

Superstition Mountain is real and a very nasty place. An indie film company went out there to shoot a horror movie. Bad things happened. We were taping them.

You have to put it on a title card- or a series of cards- and voice over- then take it from there.

It may seem uncreative, but it gets the message across, and you can make it suspensefull by cutting in a few seconds of scary stuff in between each phrase.

Keep at it and I'm still interested in seeing the finished product.

[Despare]

Here's the deal - everything is real, unscripted, and merely documented. I never said that the kid on the ground was dead, tho. The doc is this - Superstition Mountain is real and a very nasty place. An indie film company went out there to shoot a horror movie. Bad things happened. We were taping them. That's all I can say without throwing out spoilers.


Listen, your stuff looks real good and I enjoyed Brink... kudos. I personally feel like your insulting the intelligence of the people here by claiming your film is "all real" because from your trailer it looks like anything but. Also, you're getting a lot of "spam" talk because this part of the forum is simply for people to introduce themselves, not a place to hock your latest film. We do have a filmmakers part of the forum if you hadn't noticed.

[TerryJameson]

Ok, now we're talking. Sorry if I approached all this wrong, but thanks for staying with me. I didn't notice that there was a filmmaker's part of the site, but I don't think I'd want to post there yet, anyway. Like I said, I don't want a lot of people seeing it yet, just the people like you guys who can give me advice on how to make it better.

So - the reason I didn't use a VO or title cards in the trailer is because I figured that's exactly what a fake horror doc like Cloverfield would do, and I was purposely trying to be different from them. But obviously the way I was doing it wasn't working, either. Now I think you're probably right, Neverending. We do need to spell it out.

I'm going to make some changes to it today and I'll relaunch it as soon as it's done. If anyone has any ideas of anything else I can do to make people understand that it's real I'm all ears. Ideally I'd love to do something truly original, as I think even with the title cards people are going to be highly doubtful, but I've been so deep in this for so long I can't see the forest for the trees anymore.

Thanks again for the help!

[ferretchucker]

No, from watching your trailer, it made me think it was a bit like the mcpherson tape. Where it's scripted clips in with some people talking. Of cause, the mcpherson tape isn't entirely based on a true story, but I thought you were just kind of taking some creative license with a true story. What I suggest, you take out all the clips that lead people to believe it's fake i.e - the making out bit and do say exactly what happened. If what you're aying is true then it should be VERY interesting.

[TerryJameson]

I had never heard of the McPherson Tape. That's really interesting. Have you actually seen it? Was it any good?

Still working on the trailer here. Will repost soon.

[ferretchucker]

Yeh. It's a good watch. All alien stuff but they've made it look like a real documentary. I really recommend it.

[TerryJameson]

Sweet. I'll definitely try to find it.

So I added some title cards to the trailer and moved things around a little bit. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm most concerned with the copy and/or its placement within the trailer, but I'm open to suggestions about anything.

I know it's going to draw some comparisons to the way Blair Witch was presented as a trailer, and that's why I didn't do this earlier, but I don't want to go with a voice-over (I think they're cheesy), and we're going to get compared to BW anyway, so...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoH9Ca9GoaQ

Check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

[ChronoGrl]

Yeh. It's a good watch. All alien stuff but they've made it look like a real documentary. I really recommend it.

And there's your audience right there: Teenage boys. They don't need all the on-screen make-outs. :p

[TerryJameson]

But they like them.

I'm still on the fence on this one. On the one hand, I do see your point and fwiw I think you're right - it is over the top a bit and I certainly don't want to sacrifice our credibility by leaving it in there.

But on the other hand sex sells - especially to teenagers.

[ferretchucker]

So what kind of release are you expecting? television, Cinema? And if 5 people died whilst making and there's a video about it, why haven't I heard about it before?

[TerryJameson]

Well, for one thing it's all brand new. It really was shot last fall, and it's been in post ever since. And people actually disappear in the Superstitions with alarming regularity. It's a crazy rugged place - 300 square miles of cliffs, rattlesnakes, and scorpions, but lots of people go out there looking for the Lost Dutchman's goldmine.

And everything has been purposely kept very quiet. You are literally the first people to see anything about this who weren't physically there at the time, and I'd appreciate you NOT telling a lot of people about this. We have Fearnet and a bunch of other sites waiting for our first real press release, but I want to fine-tune everything before we do that, which is why I'm here. We've been so deep in this for so long it really helps to get someone with fresh eyes looking at it.

But there's also a bigger answer that I honestly can't tell you without giving away spoilers. Because I can't fully answer that maybe we need to take that out of the trailer altogether and imply only that 'bad things happened'. I've been struggling with this one.

We're interested in theatrical release, of course, but we'll see about that. We're not a huge company yet, so we would need a bigger company to step in to help with work prints and such. Otherwise the standard market - DVD, Netflix, et al.