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So what do you get when you have 2 perfectionists working on the same project ? Answer: A really great end result that took longer than expected. I had another long night in the editing room with Brandon working on the trailer. Brandon has been a pleasure to work with as he has been mostly patient with all the revisions I’ve asked for and has contributed a wealth of great ideas. His level of professional polish is really making the trailer an exceptional piece of work.
While the trailer is turning out really great, some recent feedback we’ve gotten has us scrambling to make some last minute adjustments before releasing it for fundraising purposes.
In order to drive home the point that susceptible populations are being exposed with great potential for harm, we added Sue Casteel from The Agency For Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Sue states that when pregnant women are exposed to mercury it passes the placenta barrier and accumulates in the unborn baby, thus increasing the potential for neurological issues. This new footage is quite powerful. We’ll have to make sure to add a graphic summing up the findings of an EPA study showing that 1 out of 6 babies is born susceptible to neurological disorders because of their high mercury levels.
Unfortunately in order to add the footage of ATSDR and the fetus we had to take out enogh footage to stay within out 3:30 time limit. The one clip that continually seemed to throw off our timing was of Amanda Just, talking about her symptoms of mercury toxicity. Amanda is a dear friend, who has always been very encouraging of our efforts, so it was no easy decision to make to remove her from the trailer.
We are also trying to find new cuts of music as what we have in the trailer currently, while functional, is too over the top. We spent a lot of time up front looking for the right cut of music, but never found anything we were 100% happy with. But in order to tart making some progress with editing we went with the current track. We always knew we’d have to revisit the music and that time has come.
After listening to many, many tracks of music we found one with enough variation and just the right tone to bring a more intimate feel to the “injured from mercury” section of the trailer. Brandon has been slicing the song up into sections and rearranging then so they flow with the edit and it has made a huge difference in bring a more personal feel to the second half of the trailer. Hopefully these efforts will allow the trailer to connect even more with viewers.
Here is the preliminary version of our trailer with the old “over the top” music, voice over narration and many other flaws. The final polished version is soon to come !
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