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Author
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Topic: Who makes the studio previews?
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted December 28, 2012 06:24 PM
Went to see the new movie Hitchcock last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have no idea how accurate it is , but it is very entertaining.
But, once again, before the feature film, we had to sit through the audio and visual hell of a batch of action film trailers. It was literally like being in a war zone. My ears were assaulted by mind numbing thuds in 5 second increments as the sub-woofers got a real work out. Who makes this trash? Do the studios make their own trailers, or do they farm them out to some other company? The reason I ask is that they all look and sound exactly the same - uniformly offensive! ![[Mad]](mad.gif)
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted December 28, 2012 09:04 PM
It's not just the studios at fault either, it's the theaters too!
Example:
Here we are seven years ago taking our 3 year old kid out to his first movie in a real theater: Winnie the Poo the Heffalump Movie.
-nice, benevolent, gentle Winnie the Pooh! He who never said anything harsher than "Oh, bother!" and did nothing more violent than fall out of a "hunny" tree! -A good choice for an audience not too long out of diapers, don't want to risk accidents after all!
What trailers do they lead it off with?
-every explosion filled, car crash laden, creepy guy jumping out of the shadows with an axe at 150 decibel one they could find!
Half the theater was crying by the time we got to the feature, and it wasn't just the children either!
Which nimrod put that program together?!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Graham Ritchie
Film God
Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted December 29, 2012 01:15 AM
Jonathan comments are spot on, Steve I am surprised that the cinema would do this as its really pointless.
The cinema where I worked was basically a kids movie theatre, and the school holidays was when it made its money. The thing is with trailers, is to make sure you are targeting the right audience with them eg. If we were showing say "Winnie the Poo" as well as, Ice Age, Madagascar, Yogi Bear or any other kids movie, even one thats still months off, then those are the trailers we would use.
Cross advertising using trailers is a must during school holidays. I would put eg a "Poo" trl on "Ice Age" and an "Ice Age" trl on Poo...that type of thing. The idea with a trailer is to create an interest with that age group that its aimed at, so that will force the parents to take them to another film thats of interest to them...the kids. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) To place any trailer thats for teenagers on a film that aimed at young children is plain stupid, its wrong and it wont work.
I would even place a kids trl on films that are for the 50 plus age group...once again its to create a bit of interest to any grandparents out there, that might take their grandchildren to see it during the holidays.
I do remember screeing "Australia", that film did really well. The rating was low I think it was PG, and around that time we were also running "Gran Torino" starring Clint Eastwood. The Gran Torino trl was "M" rating, higher than Australia and by rights cant use it, however when I looked at the age of the audience for "Australia" I added Gran Torino which was a good one, even though the rating was higher....everyone likes Clint Eastwood ![[Cool]](cool.gif) ...so I sometimes did bend the rules.
A lot of thought has to go into placing trailers not just on a film but to put them in the right order, a good one might be the last before the feature and I tag it to bring the lights down to total darkness just at the begining of it, eg a Harry Potter trl for best effect.
Graham.
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Graham Ritchie
Film God
Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted December 29, 2012 02:21 PM
Jonathan
Quite often we would get a hard locked trailer on the front of a feature, sometimes printed with the film or spliced. They were suppose to stay on the film at all times, however if we were not going to screen that film that the trailer was all about I would remove it, as all we were doing is advertising for the nearby multi-plex, that more than likely would be running it, so off it would come, and something that we were going to screen would replace it. I would then place that hard locked trl in the "film box" and splice it back on the front once we were finished with it. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Over the years I have collected a number of 35mm adds some of them are very clever and entertaining. One such stunning colour add I did gave away, was a "Crunchie" add that featured the "Kingston Flyer" that had some really good shots of the train, Others like "Sony Bravia" I still have, I watched on TV a while ago a doco on how they made it, very interesting.
On Super8 a selection of "P.G. Tips" is classic stuff, with both colour and sound are excellent, another is on the front of the Derann release "Spirit Of America" which has a Mr Bean short on the Do's and Dont's of going to the cinema, very funny. That short can be removed and placed on any other film programme.
Over the years and in particular the 35mm kids films, would often have a Pixar/Disney short on the front, many of those would later make there way onto Super8 "For The Birds", "Gone Nutty", and many more. One Derann release that I missed was Geri's Game, they had that one but only for a very short time...pity ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Bouncing back to trailers, the 35mm Ice Age ones were often like a mini short in themselves featuring mainly "Scrat", his antics are so true to life. I still have all those trailers.
The film companys would also send us a number of "Phone Off" shorts, one of the best was from "Meet The Robinsons" where its a musical bouncing ball theme to the music of "I heard It Through The Grapevine" from the hit record Marvin Gaye did back in the 70s. The last scene of that add, was looking out from inside the boot of a car, and telling you to switch your phone off.....or else! They were fitted just before the start of any film, and I think it was a clever way to get the point across to switch your phone off.
Another 35mm add I like and still have is Blue Bird "potato crisps"- Jive Talking, the music is of course the Bee Gees from Saturday Night Fever.
Another funny one was an English add called "Nike Streaker" Its a live TV broacast of a fooball match in England when this person runs onto the pitch with nothing on except Nike running shoes. What happens is the police cant catch him running all over the pitch....as he is to quick after all he does have "Nike" on.
I must admit looking back ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) those 12 years of projecting film was fun.
Graham.
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Graham Ritchie
Film God
Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted December 29, 2012 07:07 PM
Although very few of us like sitting through a bunch of adds, advertising does bring in extra money. We dealt with Val Morgan Cinema Advertising and remember one of the past cinema owners telling me it was worth around $40.000 a year in extra income.
Val Morgan would send me a weekly fax with the list of adds that they wanted to be screened that had to be placed in a particular order on each film starting on Thursday morning through to the following Wednesday night. They would ask for adds, trl, adds, trl in that order, but I told them its adds, trls, then feature and thats it, less mucking around and they went along with that.
The problem we had was to get them done in time with only a 15 minute gap between sessions, during the school holidays finding the time was a problem, with up to 12 features floating around and adds being moved/replaced from one film to another and so on, you had to be careful you didn't get yourself in a pickle, plus a careful double check that you cut new ones on the frame line.......or else ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
I could, if push came to shove remove all the adds, fit the new ones, thread the projector and be back on the screen in time. In doing this I would tell the downstairs staff that I was changing the adds and will try to be back on the screen as quickly as possible and just in case I was running a few minutes late.....dont worry
The advertising people would sometimes arrive out of the blue and do a spot check in each screen ticking of that we were running them and the condition of the prints along with a report. There is a bit of money at stake so getting it right was important.
I never had a problem with the advertising folk, they were pretty good to deal with.
With digital cinema I guess its a lot easier these days.
Graham.
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Hugh Thompson Scott
Film God
Posts: 3063
From: Gt. Clifton,Cumbria,England
Registered: Jan 2012
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posted December 29, 2012 08:39 PM
I understand that advertising does have it's place, but it has now
got to the stage where it is infringing on the main entertainment
with product placement being the order of the day.For instance
in the latest Bond film "Skyfall", we have James Bond, sophisticate
and connoisseur swigging Heinneken beer,something the Bond
character would never have done,Daniel Craig was most
embarrassed when tackled over it in an interview, but the fact
remains that advertising is ruining films,another reason why I
really don't care for modern movies, they are made for an
undemanding audience that in general is more interested in
what they are consuming than what is happening on screen.
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