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Rants >> Rant 272

::Today's soundtrack: Tony Newman "Coming Attractions" ::


As a fan of the moving picture, I also like to watch film trailers. I have seen quite a number of them, as I am sure many people out there have also done. But, like I often do, I find myself noticing certain recurring themes. Yeah, I could make a trailer.

Let's start by selecting our music:

If you have a movie involving martial arts, especially a comedy, then you MUST feature the song "Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting" in at least one (if not all) of the trailers.

Got a spy movie spoof? Then make a montage to "Secret Agent Man"!

Is your movie about a dog or dogs? Yeah, we got your "Who Let the Dogs Out" for that!

Premiering a family friendly slap-sticky comedy in December? Then you got to use "The Russian Dance" from The Nutcracker OR the music from Home Alone which sounds strikingly similar.

That's all well and good for comedies, but we have a daring epic piece with swords and sorcery! How about "O Fortuna" then?

But what about this comic book super hero action adventure? Relax! Just find some song somebody made about them. If the hero is popular enough, someone will have recorded a song about them at some point. No? Then use the theme song or score from one of the other old movies or television shows they were featured in a couple decades or so ago. That'll work.

If you just want something to come across as badass or cool, never under estimate the power of using "Battle Without Honor or Humanity." Works every time!

Okay, now we need to know what footage to use! Are there any attractive women in this film? Yeah? Does she at any point show partial nudity, walk around in underwear, or exit a swimming pool? No, but she does wear a bath towel, and there's only about twenty seconds in the final cut of the film. Okay so we grab some celluloid off the cutting room floor and play up that hot chick in a bath towel like nobody's business! But in this other movie the hottest girl in it is some unnamed background person being helped out of a car in a low cut dress... yes, we can work with that.... just slow-mo that slightly and make sure it's in the first twenty seconds of the ad! Yes, we must make sure our trailer has hot and sexy lady parts in it no matter how irrelevant it is to the actual plot! (okay, maybe we can work in a few seconds of a rippley muscled man without a shirt on... I said maybe!)

We got our cleavage footage, now then.... explosions? Check. Must use every explosion in the film in the commercial! Maybe even the same explosion from different angles! No explosions? Then gunfire will do fine! Nice shots of shiny guns! Ooooh, shiny! No firearms because it's a period piece? Well, sword fights then! Swords are shiny, too! No explosions, guns, or swords? Insert car chase.

Okay so we're dealing with a family comedy.... got any gross and disgusting humour? Any belches or farts or babies spitting up? Use it. Use it all. And people falling down or being hit in the head or nuts. Kids love that stuff. You can't whack people in the head with paint cans enough!

Is Samuel L. Jackson in the movie? Then use his footage like it's going out of style! Everybody loves to see that Sam Jackson guy!

Onto the voice over work. What do we want the potential audience to hear? Well, if the movie revolves around one central character, then using their dialogue or internal monologue would be perfect, especially if at one point they say or think something which nails who their character is down to a "T". A comedy? Then sample 2 out of the 5 best jokes in the film. A period or location film? Then we need the voice of one of the characters who has a good accent with dialogue typical of the time. If none of the dialogue from the film itself will properly set the stage, then we need to hire a voice over guy. Got something gritty and/or filled with action, get Miguel Ferrer into a recording booth. I bet he'll know what to say without a script, he's done so many. Failing that, we get that other guy (Ashton Smith) to say "in a world..." something something "where corruption has taken control and true heroes are no more, one man will...." blah blah something. Unless of course we're talking about a comedy then somebody a bit more lighthearted in the voice area. And if the voice over can culminate nicely into a segue to the title of the film so much the better! (Yanno, it just occurred to me that you really don't hear women do voice over adverts for films unless its a character in the film. You never hear a woman say "in a world..." do you?)

Badda-bing, we've got ourselves a trailer! Unfortunately, I've also seemed to have uncovered the recipe for making a movie which panders to the lowest common denominator so long as you add about 45 minutes worth of padding. I could make millions if I didn't mind selling out. Hmmmmmm.....

William the Bloody (cinemagician)