The Great American Preview

I have a confession to make.

I love previews. In fact, I like them better than the actual movies themselves. I could easily sit through 90 minutes of trailers - and have - and remain totally absorbed, in awe really. Why is that?

Trailers are the lost American art form, the sad forgotten cousin the more famous TV commercial (which at least now gets worshiped during Super Bowl halftime). It comes from a long line of short features, newsreels and movie cartoons that have largely gone the way of the dinosaur. Now, some theaters have pre-movie programming - but it is just TV in disguise, isn't it?

The Trailer is the one 'short' that can trace its lineage all the back to the Silent era - continuously.  In fact, if we go back far enough, all "movies" were shorts, most of them no longer than a trailer, so the entire realm of film making in some degree owes its existence to the ability of early directors to create visually stunning scenes that had to convey a lot of meaning very, very quickly.

examples of early trailers are hard to find...

When Edison wasn't busy stealing other people's inventions, he was helping to create the foundations of american cinema - or the guys who were working for him were anyway

So, what makes a great movie Trailer anyway? And why is the act of watching them possibly the most satisfying part of any visit to the theater?

Sometimes great Trailers predict great movies, sometimes...

Top 5 Elements of a Great Movie Trailer:

• The mini-soundtrack - only the best of the best gets used - for Jaws, we get the da-da, da-da - well you know. In the actual movie you have to wait 30 minutes to hear it.
• The plot goes out the window; which in some cases is a good thing - but what we're referring to here is an artistic "meta-license." It's the little story that might be related to the movie's story - but it really doesn't have to be.
• The "rapi-cut" - and no that's not the x-ray machine at the airports. This refers to the super quick cutting between scenes which is necessary to jam all the good stuff into 90 seconds or so. 
• The most stunning images. Often in a movie there is great cinematography that's not very important to the story - sort of like window dressing. Well, this is the place to highlight the window dressing... 
• Showing off the talent. So, say you hired Brad Pitt but could only afford 5 minutes of airtime for him? In the trailer you can give him 45 seconds, thus increasing your investment tenfold. False advertising, nonsense - the trailer is its own thing you know - and in that Brad really is the full-time star. Think of it like a music video, but less annoying.

So, how can watching trailers possibly compete with the "Feature." You know most people don't even probably recognize the difference between 'Shorts' and 'Features' anymore. But even though the Shorts have been losing ground, the war isn't over quite yet.

A lot of times the Trailers are way better than the movie

5 Reasons why Trailers Rule and Features Flop

1. In the battle between expectation and experience, expectation invariably loses. I'd say the ratio is about 10 to 1 against any Feature movie living up to its hype and your expectations walking in (unless of course you have really low standards). Now, the Trailers don't play fair in this game - they do one hell of a good job peaking your interest because that's what they're designed to do. But don't be surprised if every good second in the Feature can fit in a two minute trailer - it happens, a lot.
2. Trailers just keep coming, the more the better. Forget Speed Dating - Previews are the ultimate sensory overload experience - a virtual smorgasbord of rapid fire entertainment. And by the way, Trailers have gotten longer in recent decades - they're beginning to turn into Shorts...
3. Trailers are the mini-movies that the Features should have been. The guys who did the trailers ought to be making most of the movies - unfortunately they only get brought in at the end of process.
4. Trailers never disappoint; even if the Feature is a dud, you can be sure that one or more of the previews will be excellent. 
5. Trailers are designed to push our buttons, elicit responses, to interest us into our next impulse buy - the ticket for that Feature that will probably let us down - but we've got to go... 

You don't have to feed your addiction for trailers at the theater anymore - there's youtube and cable on demand services which provide the trailers an enticement to buy. But of course, who needs to buy when one can watch the trailers?

One can only wonder why this movie didn't propel Carrot Top to Super stardom, 

I mean the Trailer is great isn't it?

Copyright 2014, Raving Reviews

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