Back in June 2019, VIFF's Marketing Coordinator Cecelia Cheung approached me with the idea of having this year's festival sizzle reel created in house. The festival sizzle reel is the video that plays before the press conference, reveals Galas and Special Presentations, and launches the festival. I still remember the previous year when my friends and I were eagerly waiting for the festival lineup announcements. Getting to be on the other side and work on the program announcements seemed to be a no-brainer for me. I have done several Year Round sizzle reels at that time. While I understood this won't be an easy task, I also knew that I was up for the challenge.
I always start my editing by finding the right pieces of music. The music I used come from Artlist.io, where you can access unlimited music licenses for any personal or commercial video production. Quite handy!
For a piece to kick off the media launch, I want something explosive and dramatic. I came across this song called "Ignition Sequence Start" that fits the mood quite well.
Ignition Sequence Start by Marvin Gunther
In the opening montage, I'd like to include some special presentations, but also want to save some surprises for later (well when Edward Norton's face appeared on the screen during the Motherless Brooklyn sequence, somebody gasped behind me. That's exactly what I go for). Instead of stacking all these recognizable movie stars close-up, I start looking for some similar elements appearing in the trailers: dance, fire and water. Dance sequence features: A Hidden Life, The Lighthouse, Pain and Glory, Marriage Story, and And Then We Danced. Fire sequence features: Children of the Sea, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Ash, and Stuffed. Water sequence features: And the Birds Rained Down, Vai, Children of the Sea, Yuli, and Varda by Agnès.
Next up: Galas and Special Presentations. One of the most important sections in the sizzle reel. It'll be the first time the media get to know the lineup. This is my favourite part of the sizzle reel and I had so much fun doing it. Just look at the list I got at that time:
A Hidden Life || Jojo Rabbit || Just Mercy || Motherless Brooklyn || The Lighthouse || Mr. Jones || No. 7 Cherry Lane || Pain and Glory || The Painted Bird || Parasite || Portrait of a Lady on Fire || The Song of Names || Sorry We Missed You || The Two Popes
What a terrific lineup! Definitely gave me extra motivation to work on it.
Back to the music choice. We have drama, comedy, crime, romance, horror/thriller all these genres. It is really hard to use one song to cover it all. With opening music's ambient, electronic style, I use a similar song to cover Guest of Honour, La Belle Époque, No. 7 Cherry Lane, Sorry We Missed You, and, a late addition, Marriage Story. Based on the trailers, these are all family dramas or romance stories that don't require an intense and moody music.
Decision Making by Itai Argaman
Kaleidoscope by ANBR
With this dramatic, tense and powerful music settled, how to fit the rest of the Special Presentation lineup in? It is very clear to me to use quotations and dialogues to construct a narrative. I use Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit to change the mood. It got quite a few laughs from the press conference. Waititi's satire comedy is naturally followed by Malick's A Hidden Life, a true story about an Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter who famously refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War II. "If our leaders, if they are evil, what does one do?" The film poses this question. Similarly, Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory explores the question about being, "If you don't write or film, what will you do?" In this film, Antonio Banderas plays a version of Almodóvar, an aging filmmaker frustrated by his inability to make films. Banderas has another film The Laundromat at VIFF this year. It is super fun to put these two films together, imagine an alternative universe where Banderas' character decides to live the life and becomes a lawyer in Panama exploiting the world’s financial system with Gary Oldman :D
So who's here with two films at VIFF? So far I found Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory & The Laundromat), Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story & Jojo Rabbit), William Dafoe (Motherless Brooklyn & The Lighthouse), Kiki Kirin (Cherry Blossoms & Demons & Everyday a Good Day), Ben Whishaw (Little Joe & O Holy Ghost) and Adèle Haenel (Portrait of a Lady on Fire & Deerskin). There must be more...
I'd say I don't randomly put a clip in just because it looks nice. Everything is associated. It has to fit the quotations, the narrative, the music beat, and the similar visual elements. For example, from Panorama to Sea to Sky, I use the images of ocean (Vai) and sky (Ash) to complete the transition.
If the film part is still within my comfort zone, then Films+ definitely pushes my limit. It feels so difficult to grab people's attention after a seven-minute film reel. I chose two songs for Films+: an uplifting piece for celebrating creators and a rock music kicking off VIFF Live section.
Costa degli Etruschi by Claudio Laucci
Laid Back by Dan Ayalon
Fun story: when I edited VIFF 2018 Immersed Highlight back in April, little did I know I would meet so many people on the video in the future. Now after a summer well spent at the Centre for Digital Media, I can easily recognize these amazing talents at last year's VIFF Immersed Exhibition. "Oh hey it's Bill wearing the headset. That's Topo and Ghazal in the corner!" I also want to add that without the experience working on CDM's visual story project, I couldn't have easily navigated around Photoshop and Illustrator to put together all the graphic elements in this sizzle reel. So, thank you CDM!
Last but not least, LOGOSssSSsSss! So many sponsors, partners and versions of logos to work with! I for sure dreamt of all these logos in my sleep during the most intense editing days.
After a week of super intense editing, I'm so glad eventually everything comes together. Super grateful for the VIFF marketing team trusting me with such a big task and always pushing my limits. Now, I'm having fun choosing all the films I wanna watch (after pouring over hundreds of movie trailers) at VIFF this year. I'll see you at the movies!!