“Battle: Los Angeles. It’s a generic alien invasion pop-corn flick, but the trailer was different. Instead of three minutes of explosions and witty one-liners, it featured dramatic scenes of UFOs scored to a calm and eerie song.” –From
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Inside one of LA’s Biggest Movie Trailer Houses
Recently, reporter Sanden Totten of the Brand and Martinez show (KPCC, 89.7, weekdays, 9-11, am) aired two segments about the movie trailer business, mostly rehashing materials that will be familiar to readers of this blog, but also highlighting the work of one of the biggest, full-servie movie marketing (and more) boutiques in the industry: Cimarron. READ THE STORY HERE!
The next day (Sept. 12th), Totten reported a piece on the history and evolution of movie trailers. It includes an interview with Evelyn Watters, who along with her sister founded and operates the Golden Trailer Awards, now entering their 14th year of celebrating coming attractions, movie posters and movie marketing generally.
The report also highlights a scene from the 1915 drama, The Red Circle, which it calls the “earliest known surviving movie trailer.” In the documentary that I researched and wrote, we argued that a filmed card from the 1912 serial, What Happened to Mary, represents the oldest known surviving trailer, and described the preview for the Red Circle as the first trailer that was recognizable as a trailer in the sense we use the word today. Either way, I’m thrilled that our subject continues to provide compelling stories for local journalists and arts and cultural entertainment for local audiences.
movietrailers101 by Fred Greene is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
