Sunset Boulevard: Trailer editing

 This week I wanted to talk about trailer editing - one of the most underappreciated and crucial parts to a movie's success. Sure, the movie is made - but isn't the whole goal of making a movie to have it reach an audience? A good trailer directed at the right demographic can make all the difference in whether a great movie gets an oscar bid or not - or even makes it past the first weekend in the theaters. Similarly, a bad trailer, or a trailer aimed at the wrong demographic, might rob a masterpiece of it's entire audience.

So what makes a good trailer? Ask that question and you’ll get a million answers: you need to know the story, but it cant give the story away…it needs to tell you what genre it is, without making it seem like you’ve seen it before….it needs to be exciting or funny, but can’t give away the most exciting or funny scenes…

The thing is, a good trailer is all of these things and more, which is why the key to trailer editing is balance. A friend of mine told me a story about a movie her husband worked on (her husband edits trailers), and he said every day the producers/marketing people from the studio would ask him to recut it another genre: “Make it a thriller!” then “No, make it a comedy!” and “No, make it a heist movie!” and then “No, no, make it a romantic comedy!” In an effort to keep people out of trouble, I’ll keep the movie’s title a secret – but I promise you it’s a real movie. It also happens to be ranked #2 on my worst movies I’ve ever seen in theaters list. 

In fact what I came to realize with that story was 1. if the studio is asking to recut a trailer as a completely different genre, it’s probably an awful film because even they don’t know what it is about the film that people will respond to. 2. the trailer is immensely important to the movie’s success – so much so that even if a movie is a bad heist movie, the studio can rely on a trailer that depicts it as a romantic comedy just to get people into theaters – and it can work!

What would happen if trailer editors decided to be unfaithful to the themes and tone of their movies all the time? If you’ve ever seen a trailer “mash-up,” you know. If not, it’s definitely worth a glance at my personal favorite, The Shining as a family drama which you can watch here.

A recent favorite trailer of mine is 300 trailer for its incredible power as a viral video and it’s success in getting so many people into theaters on its opening and subsequent weekends. 

My recent most hated trailer is Number 23. Come on people – who did you think you were kidding.  

So I open the forum to you – what is your favorite trailer? What is your least favorite trailer?

____________________________________________________________________

Alex M., Movie Correspondent

Alex's column, Sunset Boulevard, published every Friday to Gather Essentials: Movies, is a weekly summary of the movie industry's biggest stories.

Alex is a film school grad working at a production company in Hollywood. She's been passionate about movies since she knew what they were and always has an opinion (for better or worse).

You can find all of Alex's Sunset Boulevard columns at gather.com/SunsetBoulevard

Keep up with Alex's other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network -- just click here and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page

You’ll find Alex and other Movie Correspondents, plus celebrity content and plenty of other movie buffs at Movies.gather.com