As the title states, I bloody love trailers. They can be entertaining, exhilarating, scary, sexy, cool and a million other things that sound good. If anyone has been to the cinema with me they will know my enthusiasm to catch the trailers. Like a giddy kid at the zoo I will be dragging my friends along by the hand screaming, "come onnnnn, we gotta see them, we gotta, gotta, gottaaaaa". And like a child there will be an appropriate tantrum if I miss even an iota of one. Of course I am not a child (well, physically anyway - I have chest hair) so the sight of a grown man with visible tears in his eyes means that the people with actual children stay well clear of me.
Anyway, I digress... Trailers are quickly becoming an art form in themselves. Alot of time and money is being invested into trailers, so much so that people have started to distrust them. Disappearing are the days when people will say "The trailer looks good, so I will go and see it no matter what". This finally dawned on me a month or so back when I was speaking to my friend Daniel Abel. The following conversation is a simplified version of basically what happened.
Daniel Abel: Hi Malin, you're so cool.
Me: Thanks a lot.
Daniel Abel: I mean really cool.
Me: Please stop Dan, if anyone were to read this conversation it would be embarrassing for both of us.
Daniel Abel: I'm sorry it's just...
Me: Focus Daniel.
Daniel Abel: Ok :( Looking forward to any movies of late?
Me: I'm quite looking forward to Bourne Legacy.
Daniel Abel: I'm not, I don't think it will be as good as the others.
Just to briefly stop the conversation here, and a slight criticism of my friend Daniel (although he is usually a very objective person), when approaching films you have to keep an open mind even reboots/remakes - he literally has no evidence to suggest the film will be bad except gut. Yes some films should maybe be left alone, but (and particularly in the case of reboots) if you have no evidence to suggest a film is going to be bad (solid cast, director, no negative reviews) or no evidence to suggest it's going to be good (ditto), then try and keep an open mind! You may get yourself so pissed of with a movie you won't give it a chance when you could of loved it.
Anyway, once again, I digress....
Me: Well I think you should give it a chance, plus the trailer looks good.
Daniel Abel: You can't judge that by anything they all look good these days days days days days days days...
Daniel's keyboard did not break, it's just that last sentence really resonated with me so I thought I'd put the echo on.
Not that typed words echo...
I digress...
But he was right! Ye gads man, have I been a fooled this long? Have trailers been dragging me to poor movies like a creepy man with sweets?
 |
| A creepy man with sweets |
Of course not my intrepid readers, but they had been teasing me and getting me very very excited when perhaps I should not be excited....
I admit that using "teasing" and "very very excited" in my previous sentence was probably not the wisest move given the above picture was probably still in eye shot and you probably now associate that picture with me. I am also aware my keyboard has a delete function and I could really remove it if I wanted to. But I won't. Go figure.
Digress anyone?
Before I talk about what gets me very very excited (trailer wise, don't worry) it's perhaps worth showing you what trailers once were like all the time. Here's a typical one from a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away....
Terminator 2: Judgement Day's trailer ladies and gentlemen. Now hopefully you've just watched that. Also you probably think, hey that was pretty cool Chris, stop hating. And yes it was pretty cool, but, only cause it's Terminator 2's trailer with Brad Fiedel's (not Brad Friedel) music playing over it. The trailer was always going to be good! It's Terminator 2's trailer for fricks sake (I'm trying to watch my language after my opening blog) - but if you actually analyse the trailer it's fucking shit! Cheesy voice over: Check. Cheesy catch line: Check. At one point I think cheesy voice over man says, "This time there is two Terminator 2".... that doesn't even make any sense!! Arnie is not named Terminator 2 like he is the second coming of a beloved pet, neither are there two of him. You just sound like you're doing some shit rap about some robots. The trailer is just a show reel for some of the (many) cool shots of the film with cheesy voice over, and that's pretty much what they were all like at that time. But you see, this is the point - if a movie was shit, you wouldn't have a good trailer. If you had a good movie, you'd have a good trailer. You could trust trailers, and seeing as the majority of people didn't read reviews, that was your yardstick. It was simple, you were happy, they were happy. And then, around about 1999 things changed.... Exhibit B
The Blair Witch Project got people thinking: "How the fuck did a film that cost $60,000 make $248,000,000 world wide at the cinemas alone". The answer was, class and ground breaking marketing. It had a trailer that was perfectly intone with the film, added enough intrigue, and was mega creepy. The trailer had become an extension of the film, not just some American guy telling you to go and see it. The audience were no longer being treated like morons. It also introduced viral marketing for films, because, why should the studio just stop at trailers when it comes to marketing? They can create websites that will make you think the fucking thing actually happened! Now we have viral marketing everywhere. The Dark Knight had 100's of people running round London on a treasure hunt as clues were revealed on a website. Prometheus created adverts for the technology it was using in the film. Cloverfield even had a website for a drink you could spot in the trailer. It's gone mental. And it all started with the Blair Witch. Also around that time a couple of little films called "The Phantom Menace" and "The Matrix" came out, which both had excellent trailers. Phantom Menance nearly shut down the internet with the amount of hits it got.
All this started to show that films good and bad, big and small could, with the right care and attention, create an entity that could double, triple etc your profits. A film as small as Blair Witch earned a quarter of a billions dollars world wide. Yes it was a good film, but would it of done as good with a lazy show reel trailer, with some old American dude telling you "it's the scariest movie ever"? Nah, it would of completely ruined it.
I'm not saying there were no good trailers before this, they were just dismissed as something fancy, that never really caught on. My favourite trailer of all time is the trailer for Alien (1979) and is still seen by many as the best. The best trailer of all time according to many had about as much influence on the industry as I do on girls. Fuck all. (I'm sure you are intrigued about the trailer, but be patient and there is a link at the end for it - it's not quite appropriate to put here).
Of course the knock on effect from the trailers of 1999 took a while, and needed the spread of the internet for it's effect to really take hold. Only recently has the general public started to become smart to their ways. A new cynical view point is taking over. And when you have trailers as good as this for a film as bad as this, you start to understand.
Some could argue that with CG like it is these days, there is enough money shots to fill any trailer with enough stuff to make most films look good. But I would say that Max Payne's trailer is better than Terminator 2's, and that's one of the greatest action movies of all time.
"So what do I do, hey?" I hear you splutter. "What films should I watch now?" I hear you question. Well firstly, you gotta chill out, it isn't so bad! Times they are a changing. One of the reasons that the trailer industry is a booming is due to the internet which I mentioned but a few seconds ago. Trailers have exposure these days which is unparelled to what they had before when all they relied on was the cinema. Some films even have countdowns for trailers being released - it's big business. So any studio worth their salt knows there is a good opportunity to drum up some profitable early hype, and nothing does that better than a mega class trailer. But the internet is a double edged sword for production companies. Yes it can bring good exposure, but if your film's shit, then news of that will spread even quicker that the best trailer ever fucking made....
The internet has made it so that even the laziest of people should be able to find out what the latest films like. The best thing you can do is find a film reviewer(s) you trust and listen to word of mouth... If you find me painfully annoying, then check out www.empireonline.com or www.totalfilm.com and use them to help guide you to what to watch. It may seem a bit wrong that that I'm telling you to be objective by trusting a subjective opinion - but these reviewers no there shit, and they will tell you more about how good a movie objectively then any trailer. When you are able to branch out more, then the more reviews you read/watch/listen will give you a more complete picture The more informed you are then the less likely you are to waste your cash. Just try and keep an open mind as possible. Judging films solely on their trailer, their cast, their director, it's theme etc is not, because you could possibly limit yourself in a way that could prevent you from seeing awesome films. How many times have you watched a film with a class cast and it's been wank? Yeah, thought so.
Basically this whole article has been used to try and convince you to take a more open mind approach when deciding what films to watch. I just used one of my favourite topics of trailers to make the point. Cool, huh?
So what does this mean for trailers then? Should we totally disregard them? Hellllll no! I still love them! I see trailers as an art form their selves now a days and the ones I enjoy the most are the ones that evoke most emotion - which isn't really easy to do in two minutes or so. Trailers tease you with a utopian version of the film and let your imagination run wild. The trailer for Prometheus literally had me crying with happiness at how good it was, but the film was a major let down. But nothing can take away how happy I felt when my imagination took flight because of that trailer. If a trailer is great and the film is great then excellent. And if the trailer is great and the film is bad, well....
There's nothing wrong with a little digression.
See what I did there?! Planted the seeds throughout... Oh I don't have to spell it out to you, I'm sure you go it. Anyway, thank you for reading and for added enjoyment (cause I'm nice like that), if you are intrigued to know what my favourite trailers of all time are after all that, I have compiled a list of my Top 10. The top 3 trailers I have probably watched over a 100 times each. Sad. It's also worth noting that of course I will be biased towards some trailers because of the film, but only two of these films listed appear in my top 10 films of all time.
10) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) -
As you will see with a number of my entries, music is very important in trailers (for myself anyway). Getting the track right is key to a successful trailer as it sets the tone just as much as the images you are seeing do - you want to be totally immersed by the experience so nailing the track is essential. This trailer is no exception, using Trent Reznor and Karen O's version of Led Zepplin's Immigrant song, they create an exhilarating trailer which gets the pulse pounding.
9) Inception (2010) -
Christopher Nolan knows the importance of a good trailer. So much so that he created one that would influence many that came after. This trailer introduced us to the Inception Horn or the "BRAGHHHH%&%" you can hear playing through out. Soooooo many trailers have now copied this because it's a sound that evokes the thought "oh shit, something is about to go down". Masterfully cut with enough money shots to get the saliva flowing.
8) The Shining (1980) -
If trailers can provoke emotion, then this is one of pure fear. Simple concept, the tension is racketed up to unbearable levels thanks to a score so unnerving that prolonged exposure would probably make you about as friendly as Jack is in the film.
7) Watchmen (2009) -
Wow this was cool when it came out. With help from Smashing Pumpkin's "The beginning is the end is the beginning" this trailer was to become every geek boy's wet dream. I mentioned earlier that trailers can be a utopian vision of the film... and this was certainly the case with this. While the film divided many, this trailer was universally loved as it nailed the tone of the graphic novel perfectly.
6) Cloverfield (2008) -
Man oh man did this trailer start something. Taking the idea of viral marketing started by Blair Witch, this took to it completely different level. J.J. Abrams loves to keep his films underwraps, and no had a fucking clue what was going on when this trailer came out. Nothing, no idea of the monster, what the plot was etc And when you've got a money shot like the Statue of Liberty's head being ripped off, people are going to be intrigued to say the least. People started noticing that the trailer provided more clues then was originally understood; websites for drinks shown in the trailer, if you took the licence plate number of the car in the trailer there was a missing website set up for it, the company where the main character was moving to was created. Geeks (myself included) spent hours trying to decipher what was being shown to get some idea of what was about to come our way. Great trailer that provides you just enough to not know what is going on, but you know you want to see it.
5) The Dark Knight (2008) -
As a lot of you probably know, The Dark Knight is a very special film for me, and is number two in my all time list. The Dark Knight team out did themselves with the viral marketing they put into this. They had fans all over the world working together to solve puzzles in order to see new footage or pictures from the film. They created websites for the banks, the hospital, the newspaper etc and it was all designed to suck you right into the world of Batman. This trailer is edited perfectly, teasing you, building up the tension and then gives you a flurry of money shots to get every fanboy screaming. Another teaser which has induced tears of happiness for me, and also of sadness because of Heath's tragic demise (I took it really bad!), this film and trailer will always be apart of my sad little geek heart. Awww.
4) Prometheus (2012) -
I've said plenty about this trailer over the last year or so, so I'll try and keep it brief. It starts off like a traditional trailer with action heavy music, people going off into space yadada but at 1.12 the tone changes, into one that is completely in sync with film. Perfect example of a trailer being an extension of the film, it gives a nod to the Alien (1979) trailer by using the same screech to drive up the tension to unbearable levels. This is another trailer where (I'm ashamed to say) it had me in tears at the end because my geek levels had gone into over load. I had been waiting 18+ years for this film, and the trailer did not disappoint. Now about the film...
3) Social Network (2010) -
This trailer is beautiful - mainly part to the use of Radiohead's Creep as perfomed by the choir Scala. Like most awesome trailers this builds up to a fantastic end and teases throughout. Brilliant. Nothing much more to say really. Just watch it. Now.
2) Dead Island - Videogame - (2011)
Controversial choice this for several reasons. One, it's a trailer for a video game. Two, the tone of the trailer is nothing like the game. Seriously, the game is wacky and messy (still good), but this trailer is some bastard child of Memento, Lost and Night of the Living dead (yeah three parents - it's that good). Probably the trailer on this list which has got me most emotional, it's just such a beautiful trailer despite what is happening on screen, and at the end you want to slit your wrists. This trailer teased about a game that didn't exist (effectively), but I still wanted to play it - and hopefully I will one day. This trailer put the video game and film industry into melt down - so much so a film company signed the rights to make the film despite the game not even being out. And rightly so - it's a fucking amazing trailer and I think it should possibly be higher in the list....You know what? Sorry Fincher you've been bumped to number three
1) Alien (1979)
The best. Bar none. Director Ridley Scott took an active interest in creating this trailer and you can tell because it captures the tone of the movie perfectly. This trailer shows you nothing of the film's title character yet you are terrified anyway. Amazing. Scary. Captivating. Put simply - it's a master class.
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