THE ARTIST TRAILER: Contemporary Marketing for the Silent Era

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Frederick Greene

Having enjoyed The Artist, whose ingenious reclamation of silent film for 21st century audiences was so nuanced and joyful, I wondered whether its trailer attempted anything as ambitious with 1920’s film marketing. Alas, it didn’t. No great surprise, here, since while film art is expected and encouraged to take creative chances, the commercial imperatives and economic constraints of film marketing make it a much more conservative enterprise. Trailer conventions, though evolving, are designed to ensure that audiences understand and assimilate the information that marketers want them to receive. While homage to familiar formulae may be tolerated, experimentation (whether too far forward or too far back) risks alienating an audience.

The Artist trailer, while silent, is very much a contemporary a/v marketing piece. It delivers copious amounts of story information visually, while distilling the plot into a memorably simple and clear stanza of graphic copy: An Encounter/ The Fall/ The Fame/ The Artist.

Unlike its feature, the trailer hasn’t the time to present story through a slow accretion of detail. Instead, with jazz-age music cues and shot-a-second (and sometimes faster) quick cutting, it delivers a surfeit of visual pleasures and plot points with a light-hearted attitude, promising a happy ending despite the intervening and contrasting melodrama.

But then, trailers of the 20’s, during what film scholars call the “classic” era, consistently and determinedly divorced narrative content from promotional rhetoric. That is, the story was considered too valuable to give away. It was that which one went to the movies to discover. 1920’s trailers marketed the stars, the “event” quality of the release, the spectacle to be anticipated and the relevant genre, all couched in the grandiloquent verbiage of the circus ringmaster and the vaudeville impresario.

In The Artist (2011), by contrast, story information is explicitly and generously delivered through copy and excerpted scenes. Indeed, we are shown the happy ending, in which George Valentine’s plummet into obscurity is end-stopped by Peppy Miller’s strong arms and redemptive love. Facial gestures (all the more critical in the absence of words) convey emotional content, a means of representation that may constitute the one persistent and indispensable technique linking trailers then and trailers today!

Beyond story, genre and spectacle –Hollywood magic onscreen and back-stage drama offscreen—the trailer shows us recognizable American character actors—Penolope Ann Miller, John Goodman and James Cromwell—interspersed with the appealing, albeit Foreign (French!) stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo who aren’t credited, and the director, Michel Hazanavicius, who is.

Whereas a major release of the 20’s with unknown “stars,” would have been well nigh inconceivable, the trailer for this 2011 release not only doesn’t introduce them by name, it offers only visual identification of its strong, but hardly “show opening” cast of supporting actors. The Weinstein Brothers and the Cannes Palm D’Or for Best Actor are the only recognizable marks of provenance and promises of quality, since American audiences can hardly be expected to recognize the Director’s name.

With respect to music, regrettably the gorgeous soundtrack by Ludovic Bource is replaced by well known melodies from the era, as well as a lugubrious cue for George’s fall from stardom that’s frankly contemporary. But, given the black and white and silent “otherness” of this feature, the trailermakers can be forgiven for choosing more familiar, nostalgia-laden and “legible” music.

The marketing team appreciates that appetite for yet another “Star is Born” remake remains strong. And while The Artist is more than that, its inexpressible difference and artistry is not the sort of thing that a trailermaking artist is ideally situated to capture. This trailer recognizes its challenges and responds intelligently and effectively. Whereas the film is taking the risks; the marketing has bought the insurance.

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movietrailers101 by Fred Greene is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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Trailers for Box Office Bombs: Hindsight Speculation About What Went Wrong (Part I)

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Frederick Greene

First, let me emphasize the anecdotal and subjective quality of the analysis to follow. The marketing campaign for a feature film is built of too many elements (print, teasers, trailers, press, tie-ins, promotions, reviews, release strategy, clips, website, standees, etc.) to distinguish which in particular missed the mark or let down the side. Add to that such uncontrollable considerations like marketplace competition, current events, weather, and zeitgeist, and you see that quantifying damage (or assigning credit) becomes an thankless and probably impossible undertaking.

That said, it is certainly possible and probably useful to consider, in hindsight, why a particular element of the campaign didn’t deliver as anticipated. I haven’t read the market research nor the screening evaluations, but the YouTube comments were illuminating. In this post, I’m looking at the official first trailers from five significant and financially underperforming releases of 2011 and offering informed speculation about how the choices made may not have been optimum. (In other words, what went wrong and what other approaches might have been preferable.)

Green Lantern

The source material for this film is less well known than that of other DC/Marvel graphic novels. The trailer sought (and succeeded in so doing) to tell the story of how Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) joins the intergalactic superheroes known as the Green Lanterns. Unfortunately, it’s an unfamiliar and relatively corny (silly? hokey?) story the trailer has to tell, anchored by unconvincing lead performances. (A green lantern? really? It was always a tough sell.) Had the trailer focused instead on the “wow” factor of the expensive special effects and sci-fi visuals, it might have attracted core fans to experience the “realization” of a cherished comic book, while appealing to other quadrants interested in spectacular, albeit light and predictable Summer blockbuster fare. While $219M in ticket sales is not insignificant, relative to its print and marketing cost of $375M this was a poor return for a full saturation campaign.

Conan the Barbarian

(Nota bene: I wrote copy for TV spots for this feature, so I had the opportunity to watch a not fully rendered version of the film. The first round or two of materials had not satisfied the distributors so an open invitation for spec submissions went out. It was understood that the project was “troubled.”) I enjoyed the film. It was epic in scale, mythic in story, and impressively produced in terms of visualization of the ancient world and the monsters/villains confronted by the comely and eponymous hero. I suspect, however, that the long interval between the last Conan (starring Governor Schwarzenegger) and the present one (starring Jason Momoa) meant that potential audiences were either indifferent to the material, unfamiliar with it, or resistant to yet another remake (what I call the “groan” factor.) Instead of acknowledging such challenges, the trailer sought to overwhelm potential audiences with spectacle and attitude, crammed into a 2:00, action-packed preview. I say “crammed” because I think the signal “mistake” of the trailer is that it is cut too quickly. The landscape, the fights, the monsters, the villains—even the romance—can not be assimilated or appreciated because of the speed with which they appear and are succeeded by other flickering images. The visual excellence (CGI, fight-choreography, cinematography) of the film is lost, although it’s precisely those qualities that distinguish it from its lower-production-value predecessors.

Mars Needs Moms

Gorgeous motion capture, monster budget, high-concept premise, and dismal box office. The trailer for this film seems to have forgotten what it is that the Disney “brand” means in the marketplace: emotion and character. The story as presented in the trailer is complicated, unclear, filled with action and characters about whom we know little and care less. Milo’s relationship with his mother occupies the first 25 seconds and thereafter, she disappears, leaving Milo in the hands of, well, some incompetent, overweight, trying-to-hard-to-be-cool dude in outer space who’s going to help him get her back. I’ve watched it a few times and I’m not sure which creatures are hostile Martians and which friendly aliens. I don’t know what happens to Mom (although I suspect she and Milo are reunited) and I don’t know where the action takes place, besides Earth and Mars. It’s frenetically cut and maybe just a little too adult in its tone, stakes, and attitude for the kids and families who would normally flock to this film, and then buy the DVD for the home library.

Trespass

I don’t remember seeing, reading or hearing anything about this film. Blame the media buyers or the media spend. Perhaps the premise (a wealthy family living in a spectacular home in a gated neighborhood are subject to a brutal home invasion, against which they ultimately fight back) lacked resonance for American audiences enduring year four of recession amidst foreclosure, austerity and joblessness. If only the P.O.V. of the home invaders been chosen, some tickets might have been sold!?! Honestly, I thought the trailer perfectly adequate, although the tenor/tone of the voice over struck me as very “movie of the week.” But given the A-list stars (Kidman, Cage) and the important (if not necessarily acclaimed) director (Schumacher) I have to wonder how the film came and went with barely a ripple. Did someone need a significant tax loss or an investment vehicle for ill-gotten gains?

The Big Year

Let’s begin with the unusual and inexplicable opening sequence in which Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson appear as themselves, with Martin introducing the film and his co-stars with a lame and off-putting “gag” whereby he appears not to know who Wilson is. Then the MPAA green screen appears and the trailer officially begins. The premise is that these three men, each experiencing a different “life” crisis, are embarking together on a life-affirming adventure. (Think “Bucket List,” but without any authentic emotion.) It’s tough material, certainly: “mid-life,” “work-life” and “no-life” crises are inherently depressing and “negative” topics. The trailer (and perhaps the film, too) then neglects to establish the relationships among these men that might provide some emotional support to the action, or a point of identification with and entry into their journey(s). Add to that some generic and cliché’d copy (“when it comes to comedy, go big or go home”) and a scene of goofy dancing for a finale, and you’ve got the unmistakable signs of a lousy film. I feel bad for the trailermakers who were probably overruled in all their creative and marketing choices by a producer/filmmaker/distributor who presumed to know better and got the trailer he/she/they wanted much to the detriment of box office results.

Comments? Rebuttals? Nominations for other trailers advertising box-office disappointments?

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TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES TO OCCUPY AMERICA

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Frederick Greene

FIRST OF ALL, HAPPY NEW YEARS! AFTER 2 WEEKS OF GUEST POSTS, I’M BACK.

I recently saw the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises at the cinema and knew I had to write about it. Now that I’ve watched it a dozen times at home, I see that my initial confusion was justified. Not only is the trailer incoherent in terms of story presentation (which is probably intentional), its ideology is reactionary and its emotional sensibility is fearful and paranoid. While only naïve viewers believe movie marketing to be truthful, there is, at least, an expectation it be conducted in good faith. That isn’t the case here.

The trailer advertises the concluding episode of Christopher Nolan’s franchise re-invention, wherein Batman defends Gotham against masked terrorist Bane (played by Tom Hardy) and an armed insurrection. As usual, Batman must first overcome public repudiation en route to his confrontation with evil. In the trailer, however, the “story” of insurrection borrows the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but exchanges democratic principles and non-violent practice for fascist and murderous ones.

“The Dark Knight Rises” is both title, plot summary and, as a homophone, a prediction of coming evil. 8 years since he was blamed for Harvey Dent’s crimes, Batman emerges from obloquy to confront the latest menace to city, nation and love interest. Images of falling bodies and rappelling attackers (defenders?) anticipate the final visual of rising through the thicket of skyscrapers (and falling glass, metal and concrete) toward the bat-shaped opening in the sky above. It’s a nice piece of CGI and graphic design.

But “rise” is also the term to describe popular revolt, the awakening from political slumber and quiescence. Beautiful Selina Kyle, (aka, Batwoman, played by Ann Hathaway) warns Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) as they slow-dance at a glamorous party: “You think this is going to last? There’s a storm coming Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”

Bruce Wayne, an industrialist with a butler, mansions, fleets of luxury cars, and silver serving dishes (a lovely, albeit insignificant image to receive such prime position in the trailer) represents the 1% or more precisely, the .0001%. Though we know him to be a wise and good billionaire (honest and charitable, financing his high-tech vigilantism on behalf of all Gothamites, rich or poor), his class membership makes him a target of populist outrage over unjust distributions of wealth and political power.

But in the trailer, as in the movie, the people of Gotham—not just our noble billionaire– are under attack by a chanting “mob” of armed, violent and sociopathic felons. The menacing chant of the escaping convicts begins at the end of Hathaway’s warning and continues beneath scenes of terrorist atrocity during a football game (there’s a sporting cadence to the chant as well as a street protest one) until the final reveal of title and release date, when it is resolved into a stirring, major key chord and percussive coda that concludes the trailer. The chant—unintelligible as words but composed of four beats: two short, two long—signifies “rise” according to an inmate who responds to Bruce Wayne’s query. (Online synopses are infuriatingly vague, but the mise-en-scene, lighting, and wardrobe suggest that he too is imprisoned.)

Through its manipulative use of The Star Spangled Banner (hauntingly sung by a boy soprano before a packed stadium) as the music cue for its first half, this trailer establishes an American “us” threatened by a felonious, nihilistic and monstrous “them” (led by foreign-accented Bane) ready to commit spectacular acts of terrorism. (A football field is dynamited as a play is in progress; only the touch-down scoring running back outruns the televised slaughter at the stadium.) Yet contrary to Selina’s warning, Bane expressly desires only the reduction of Gotham “to ashes” rather than access to the wealth monopolized by the few. Apparently, these villains lack rational objectives—perhaps they “hate our freedom?” Regrettably, most viewers are unlikely to consciously note and reject the rhetorical bait and switch that has been perpetrated.

What seems apparent is that whether you agree with the socio-cultural and politico-economic frustrations of the OWS movement (or its Tea Party antecedents), no fair-minded observer could confuse their actions with the (per)version of protest and class-based critique presented in this trailer.

Yes, of course, the Batman story is notoriously laden with contradiction: Just vigilantism; billionaire populism; play-boy asceticism, etc. etc. But this trailer (regardless of what the film portrays) is a paranoid fantasy, a work of propaganda designed to exploit current events in the most cynical and fraudulent manner for the purpose of selling movie tickets.

But perhaps there is a darker purpose afoot: given the recent, well-documented and brutal attacks by hyper-militarized local and state police forces on OWS encampments nationwide, it seems clear that that the “counter-insurgency” of a sclerotic empire has begun. Is it my own paranoid delusion to think that a work of popular entertainment might be used to justify and reify violent state suppression of political grievance by conflating protest with mob terrorism, legitimate grievance with nihilistic destruction, and the interests of the 99% with the plutocrats who scorn them. It’s been done before.

I hadn’t intended to write about politics, per se, in this blog, but certain trailers leave me no choice. There will be no Gotham Spring when the Koch Brother’s have final approval on movie marketing.

ANALYSIS

Length: 2:05
Music Cues:
1) The Star Spangled Banner, sung by a boy soprano (app 58 seconds). While the choice of this cue is a matter of artistic freedom, I cannot but find it objectionable on the grounds of taste, decorum and decency.
2) Protest chant – four beats, two short, two long (app. 53 seconds). The chant evokes both public protest marches as well as the rallying cries vocalized by fans at sporting events. The analogy between the mob of fans and mob of felons makes seems not entirely accidental and is to be deplored.
3) Major chord—resolution of the chant. Followed by several percussive beats.

Editing:
1) 68 or approximately 2 seconds per shot.
2) A slow paced trailer for the genre.
3) Cuts to black between sections;
4) Panning left to right.
5) This is unspectacular, non-virtuoso editing, which may be an indication of its quality.

Marketing Approaches:
1) Provenance – Warner Bros, DC Comics, Legendary
2) Provenance – from Director Christopher Nolan
3) Provenance –the conclusion of a blockbuster franchise
4) Stars – Christian Bale, Ann Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
5) Source Material – Batman is a cultural icon
6) Spectacle: an exploding and collapsing football field beneath, into which two teams worth of players fall to their deaths. 9 seconds CGI
7) Spectacle: Gadgets
8) Phenomenon: Occupy Wall Street/ Arab Spring protest movements against elite interests.

Graphic Elements:
Undistinguished. Same blue/black palette as earlier Batman films. White text on black background for copy. Black letters on white background for titles. Final image of batman-shape (logo) framed by sky-scrapers is iconic and clever.

Copy: Graphic (text on cards)
WB
Legendary
DC
Syncopy
Christopher Nolan
Next Summer
The Epic Conclusion
To the Dark Knight Legend
THE DARK KNIGHT
RISES
The legend
Ends
Experience it in Imax / Summer 2012
Credit Block / Credit Block / Credit Block

Comment: This trailer is not a tell-all. In fact, despite being called the “official” trailer, it reads much more like a teaser. Given the awareness of the film and its status as a blockbuster sequel to a blockbuster sequel– based on source materials that are nearly universally known—the clear presentation of story information is not critical. Atmosphere, spectacle and stars—including not only Hathaway as Batwoman, but Cotillard as a likely love interest and attraction for audiences beyond young and middle-aged males—are the emphases. Hathaway’s Batwoman is an ambiguous character. Batwoman has her own complicated relationship with Batman and vigilantism, and her potentially antagonistic agenda is in evidence. Audiences expect to see Michael Caine as Alfred the Butler, Gary Oldman as Commisioner Gordon, as well as a new and appalling villain (Tom Hardy as Bane) and a sidekick or ally (Gordon Levitt). The trailer offers glimpses of each, with only Bane and Alfred receiving development.

To a politically disengaged audience, this trailer is unexceptionable, which may be the most compelling evidence of how important it was deemed to be by the distributors. The danger of a trailer for this kind of entertainment event is that audiences might be turned off by too much story information and character development. Audiences already know what they want from Batman so the best trailer for the trilogy-concluding trailer is one that doesn’t disappoint them or challenge their own desires. This trailer effectively achieves just that quality of indistinctness and generic formulaic-ness.

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