"The Nightmare Before Closing" | How We Made a Parody Real Estate Movie Trailer

I have been working with Padula Media - a West Chester Pennsylvania Video company - for almost two years now. Typically, the content I help produce for them fall under the commercial category. These pieces range from Real Estate walkthroughs, Commercials for specific individuals, Commercial property highlight videos, etc. About two months ago, I was approached about filming this untitled project for a Loan Officer whom had a strong business relationship with Padula Media. This was what I was told regarding the project:

[paraphrasing] "Every year, Sean wants to make a commercial that promotes his business (NFM Lending). This year, he wants to have his commercial to be this idea he's been saving for a sometime now. It's basically going to play out as a parody thriller movie trailer about Sean dealing with the worst kind of client."

When I heard the gist of the project, I was immediately on board. I saw it as my prior experience of making short films coming full circle with the kind of video work I transitioned to. Little did I know, I wouldn't just be filming and editing this video - but I'd also be directing it.

I had a feeling I was going to be directing this project but I didn't know to the extent of which I was given full control. Sean had a rough outline of the different story beats he wanted to follow: him at the bar talking with his client off the clock, his client buying a new car on settlement day, and overall racking up tons of debt. Otherwise, it was up to me to set the mood of the video, make up the in-between story beats, make a filming schedule, find the music, find the voice actor, and reach out to everyone involved to make sure all the cast and crew were on the same page.

At times, the planning was extremely stressful. I always found the planning of my short films to be the least enjoyable aspect of filmmaking so I wasn't thrilled to find out I was doing the logistics for "The Nightmare Before Closing." But, I got through it and I believe the planning paid off.

Speaking of the title, there was no official title for this project until I was trying to come up with some play-on-words with movie titles everyone knows of along with something to tie it in with real estate. My one friend loves "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and when I swapped out "Christmas" for "Closing" I thought to myself, "Hey, this kind of works!"

After some scheduling delays, we finally got around to filming. After I finished my school day, I drove from New Jersey all the way to West Chester PA and filmed for about four hours straight. The filming was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had on set because we had access to such amazing passionate people alongside the cooperation of wonderful locations such as Saloon 151 and Align Space.

Some of the highlights of the film day were improvising how to film a specific scene that on paper wasn't going to work with the set we had or the props we had at our disposal. Sean really wanted a scene of him in the fetal position in some dark space to illustrate just how messed up his character is dealing with Jimmy, the idiot client. At a glance, Align Space didn't have a small room with dark lighting to fit the scene. We were all scrambling to think of something such as filming in a bathroom or shooting at the Padula Media studio. That was until I noticed a small marble looking workspace with no windows and easily accessible motion sensor lights. That's when we moved the tables in that room, unplugged the lights, and used cell phone flashlights to light the scene.

The edit was something else, however. In any normal movie trailer, it would take hours upon hours to sort through all the movie's footage and select certain segments to make for a compelling teaser. We had the power to solely make a trailer which led to me planning the video out to a T using a Trailer Script and a Shot List. The final product plays out just as I typed it out on the script (with one or two changes in the scene order). I managed to bang out this trailer in a relatively short amount of time because I was just so laser focused and invested in making this video as good as it can be.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4eddfa_98aa27c6f8d040a49bdc395131e3d650/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

All in all, it was a super fun project to make and it was just the creative outlet I was looking for. If you haven't watched it yet, you can click the video above to experience this Real Estate Thriller Movie Trailer.