Edit 2017: TL;DR In 2008 my brother entered an online film making competition and I helped out. We didn’t win, but we had a bloody good laugh making comedy videos.
Some these 2008 videos and links are broken but I’ve left them here in the hope that one day they magically get fixed. You can find up-to-date videos and links on my brother Alec Chistie’s web site and my comedy website [beta].
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I edited this trailer for the Christie internet comedy series using Final Cut Pro. I think it stands up pretty well alongside the official trailer made by a professional trailer production house. At the time I had no idea that a professional trailer was being made and it is surprising to see the similarities.
The series was commissioned by Bend It Like Beckham producer Deepak Nayar and the former head of Fox Entertainment Sandy Grushow after the director won a filmaka.com. short film competition.
The series was shot low budget with a minimal crew so I did a variety of jobs in production, post-production and new media. Besides making the trailer I worked as a production assistant on set, made the behind the scenes documentary, worked on the bloopers & out-takes video and I make a couple of heavily disguised cameo appearances.
I also worked on a wryly internet marketing campaign including making the web page, writing e-mail newsletters and ‘pimping up’ a MySpace page.
You can watch the Christie series on YouTube, Facebook and with behind the scenes and bonus features at filmaka.com.
The trick for making the trailer was to write TV guide descriptions of each episode and from those establish the common story for the series and base it on that: “Mo, a toilet salesman, is slowly driven mad by Christie, his incompetent boss.”
The tune in the trailer is Lover Killer by The Foxes.
