BAD TEACHER: Teaching Moment

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Frederick Greene

I suppose my work as an educator attracted me to this film and its trailer—that and the obscenely clever and cleverly obscene print tagline, “She Doesn’t Give an F,” which incidentally, is the punch line of the trailer copy as well.  Teachers are a perennial subject of Hollywood earnestness, so the film’s unredeeming portrait of a cynical, self-serving educator was refreshing.  To Columbia (the distributor), the recent vogue of teacher-bashing and teacher-blaming in political discourse, must have been sweet vindication of its decision to release “Bad Teacher” this Summer.

As with any movie, there are objectives its trailer must attain and challenges with which it must contend.  The objectives, beyond the general obligations to announce the film, tell its story and sell tickets, include the appealing presentation of Cameron Diaz in an unsympathetic, albeit, comic role.  Coincidentally, that objective is identical with the primary challenge of the trailer and its film:  to make her appeal against type.

The story, as presented in the trailer– a dissatisfied and selfish woman, scheming after ignoble ends– is not obvious big-budget, 4 quadrant-appealing, studio fare. It’s dark, cynical and innuendo laden humor rather than broad, coarse or slapstick comedy.  But, to its advantage, it stars one of Hollywood’s biggest female stars and the material enjoys universal familiarity and evokes strong emotions. The female audience is the most reliable demographic target, but there’s serious cross-over appeal to anyone who has ever had a bad teacher or has been one—which, well, is everybody.

Reading through blog posts, I confirmed my suspicion that Cameron Diaz’ hotness bonafides are under attack; nonetheless the trailer leverages her still impressive physical assets, offering something “sexy” for that negligible percentage of viewers who lack access to more explicitly gratifying materials online.

Co-Stars, Justin Timberlake, whose Q factor has risen via well-tweeted SNL appearances and well-reviewed work in “The Social Network,” and Jason Segal (who can forget “Forgetting Sarah Marshall?”) should incrementally enhance the tween and older female audience, although neither is likely to move the B.O. independently.

TRAILER LAYOUT

0:00 – :06 – MPAA Green Screen

:07 – :19 – establishing Cameron as the bad teacher in conversation with side-kick.

:19 – Graphic card – chalkboard dust- ‘THIS SUMMER’

:20 – :27 – More establishing scenes of Cameron and her rival, Judy Punch (aka Ms. Squirrel).

:28 – Graphic Card ‘ONE TEACHER’

:29- :34 – Continue establishing Cameron as a bad teacher.

:35 – Graphic Card – ‘DOESN’T GIVE AN F”

:36 – :40  Cameron hit on by hapless coach; she’s rudely dismissive.

:41- :49  Cameron looking for a rich husband.

:50- :59  Cameron meets rich substitute teacher Justin.

1:00  Card ‘THIS SUMMER’  (Black font on white background)

1:01  Cameron learn that Justin has family money and likes big-breasted women.

1:10  Cameron decides she needs a boob job

1:15   Cameron learns about the bonus for high-performing teachers.

1:25   Graphic Card:  “FROM COLUMBIA PICTURES”

1:26   Cameron competing for the bonus with her rival

130 – Montage:  “Things are gonna change around here” – Cameron starts teaching.

1:31 – New music cue – (To End)  – Catchy Urban dance tune.

1:35 – Montage:  Car Wash Fundraising, Cameron sexy in wet clothes.

1:50 – Cast Run – Cameron approaching camera, perky. Justin, performing signature dance move; Jason Segal arguing inappropriately with student.

2:02 – Title: white chalk dust on green blackboard. – Red BAD and blue TEACHER lettering.

2:03 – Cameron in gym, posing questions to students. Throwing ball at fat kid who can’t answer.

2:09 – Jason urging student to throw ball back at her; she’s hit in the face.

2:17 – Card – White lettering on blue-green chalk board with dust: “THERE’S MORE BAD @ ARE YOU A BAD TEACHER.COM.”

2:19 – Final scene – risqué joke

2:23 – Credit Block

2:25 RELEASE DATE

EDITING – Very fast for a non-action adventure. Nearly 100 shots in a 2:29 trailer, all straight transitions from one to the next, none that call attention to themselves or slow the rhythm. The editing propels the action, keeping the focus on the questions and answers, the double entendres and the punch lines.

COMMENT

Using dialogue from the film rather than V.O. or copy narration, the official theatrical “Bad Teacher” trailer does what it is designed to do:  introduce characters in interesting or entertaining situations, encountering conflicts or challenges whose likely or probably resolution the film itself will disclose.  Rhetorically, however, as if inspired by its pedagogical subject matter, the “Bad Teacher” trailer deploys questions and answers as its device to convey plot information and educate the audience about character, motivation and tone. The answers, conveyed in dialogue and scenes, are funny, odd or unexpected underscoring the film’s comedy and tone.

(Perhaps the least funny or most cliché’d “payoff” in the trailer is the montage (with intercut reactions) of Cameron’s sexually suggestive behavior at the car wash/fundraiser.)

With respect to copy (Cards, Titles, Copy, etc.), the trailer uses a chalkboard graphic (an obvious, but appropriate visual pun) to deliver the letter-perfect, smugly vulgar tagline (“AT THIS SCHOOL/ONE TEACHER/DOESN’T GIVE AN F”)  as well as release date, cast run, and title, followed by a “homework” question cunningly concealed in the URL for the official website:  www.areyouabadteacher.com.” It’s a compelling “call to action” and clever invitation to identify with our anti-heroine.

Does Cameron still have “it”? Will audiences want to see her as not just a bad teacher but as a bad person?  Oh relax, it’s comedy after all; she’s a selfish, lazy, gold-digging scoundrel, not Casey Anthony. For its part, the trailer makes a convincing case (on the 100th view as well as the first) that Ms. Diaz delivers,  that the material is good and the supporting cast is great.  Whatever the risk, it appears to have been rewarded ($90M domestic currently on a $20M budget).    As “Bad Santa” showed, a mean satire of a sacred subject can sell tickets when the star and the material are right.

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Never Say Never: The Medium Is the Message (Post 2 of 2)

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Frederick Greene

(See my first post on “Never Say Never,” for introductory remarks and further consideration.]

This trailer affirms that “Never Say Never” is more than the cliché’d title of a teen anthem and a concert tour. It is the message, the exhortation, and the mantra of our preternaturally poised and ambitious and self-disciplined young heartthrob.  The supreme accomplishment of this trailer is that it has made film title, storyline, personal motto, call to action, trailer copy and concert event all mutually referencing.  “Never Say Never” is a powerful nexus of message, meaning and brand identification.

This is a skillful, layered marketing piece. The name of the song is the name of the tour, is the name of the documentary, is the motto of our hero, is the story of his life, is the call to action of the trailer.   I’d wager the trailer brief insisted on two key ingredients: Justin AND Justin’s fans.  That decision was a no-brainer.  What reveals intelligence and craft is the trailermakers response to that direction.

With it’s mix of “reality,” music video and documentary, this trailer is itself a hybrid, multi-media object, an a/v analogue of its subject, whose multiple aspects –Justin, shall I say, in 3D–, our first social media superstar, and a real kid, just like you, is also a fit subject for a serious film, just as he is the barely sublimated object of adolescent erotic fantasy.

Mr. Bieber is shown playing drums or guitar, dancing or singing in most of the trailer. The exceptions are when he is offering rote, passionless encouragement to fans, hanging with his childhood friends (to show he hasn’t lost touch with his roots) or officially “relaxing” and “goofing” off.  Insofar as Mr. Bieber is widely (albeit erroneously, apparently) derided as a product of Usher & Co, the footage and the interviews tell a story of sui-generis talent that could not be held back and would not be gainsaid. As an entertainment package then, Mr. Bieber is “the real thing,” a lifelong musician, singer and performer. The only change is that his venues have gotten larger and his fans more numerous.

His story is also one of facing and triumphing over adversity: a Canadian from a small town, Justin overcame a lack of access by resorting to the internet and riding the wave of user-produced content to international attention. His life is a tale of hard work, persistence and destiny.  An immigrant, he believed in the American dream and never said never even to the most far-fetched ambition.  How true it is, is a matter or irrelevance.  We like this story; we know what to do with the story, a story that also, happily, neutralizes whatever resentment a less “star struck” audience member might feel toward the vocal song stylings of Mr. B.

It’s beautifully packaged to appear real, raw and unpackaged.  Ironically, “packaging” is the accusation against which Never Say Never is an eloquent defiance. This trailer sells the story of the documentary: to wit, Bieber was a musician, singer, performer, go-getter from his childhood.  His homemade youtube videos brought him to the attention of the industry. He is not a product of the Disney talent pipeline. He worked in relative obscurity to build his career. He is an ambassador of self-empowerment to his friends and fans alike.

But today, Justin in more than an individual talent: he is a brand, a package, that must be tended and positioned and promoted with all the care and expertise that a billion dollar product demands.  The trailer navigates this distinction with agility and finesse.  Justin INC requires that Justin the g-rated, approachable, just-like-you-only-famous young man be the subject of the film and the story that it tells.

Justin’s brand is defined, burnished and extended in the trailer under discussion, and presumably in the film as well, which debuted to only fractionally less in Box Office receipts than Miley Cyrus’ recent, record setting concert tour documentary and star-vehicle.

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Never Say Never: The Medium Is the Message (Post 1 of 2)

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Frederick Greene

   (Part 1 of 2)

He’s sold five million albums. Had 10 millions singles downloaded. He’s just completed one of the highest grossing tours of the year, guest hosted SNL and is the untarnished idol of many millions of adolescent girls and probably not a few boys. He is Justin Bieber and his recently released (Feb. 14, 2011) documentary/concert film Never Say Never promises intimate access to the boy, his music and his phenomenon.

I chose to write about this trailer, not because I have much interest in seeing the movie, but because I was curious how the trailermakers and the marketing department were going to “sell” this hybrid, but by no means unprecedented film.  (See “Stop Making Sense” “Gimme Shelter,” “Truth or Dare,” or “Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds,” for other examples.) The challenge for a project like this—even, or especially with a young star– is how to integrate the flash and spectacle of highly produced performance footage with the workaday “reality” the documentary presents, both in its taping, lighting and editing.

It’s an appealing trailer and an effective piece of marketing/spin, at least to the extent that it is unlikely to prevent any interested fan from wanting to buy a ticket, whether a ticket to Mr. Bieber’s next concert or a ticket to the Justin Bieber documentary.  It’s release date of Valentine’s Day, 2011, (mentioned in the copy) is an ideal slot.  You (assuming you are a tween girl) and your 20 best friends might have spent a romantic evening with Justin, who would have shared his heart, his real life and his dreams, all for the price of admission.

I begin by trying to say what it is as a piece of a/v movie marketing.  Like the movie it advertises, it too is hybrid, composed of two differently edited, differently intended parts.  The first 85 seconds is a standard feature trailer with copy, story, footage, titles and stars; the remaining 25 second section, which follows immediately upon the final title and credit block, features the documentary’s director showing Bieber how the 3D cameras work that are being used for his concert performance.  Graphic cards drop over the footage, calling the viewer to action (“Be the first to see Never Say Never”), while Justin’s banal, unscripted astonishment at the  “sick”-ness of the effect, delivers the most compelling testimonial conceivable.   This two part trailer sells star, spectacle, story and technology explicitly, earnestly, and appealingly.

Filmmaker John Chu secured Bieber’s permission to document his experience during his Never Say Never tour in summer of 2010. In that capacity he had access to a wealth of visual resources to use for the film, resources which are then deployed in the trailer:  Justin “off stage,” Justin “On stage,” fans talking of Bieber, fans talking with Bieber, talking heads (all unidentified and not necessarily shown with their words) opining about Bieber, Bieber’s handlers, family albums, home video, news footage, etc., etc.

With respect to story structure, the trailer opens –counter to expectation—with a familiar, albeit sedate piece of concert music (J. S. Bach’s Air on the G-string, from his 3rd orchestral suite in D major) against whose adagio tempo, Justin appears in slo-motion spraying silly string and throwing popcorn at the screen.  Three cards punctuate this 15 second introduction:  “THIS VALENTINE’S DAY/ SEE BIEBER/ LIKE NEVER BEFORE.”

No, Bieber will not be performing the classics.  On the word “Never,” the screen flickers/strobes and we pause as a deep bass note reverberates and Justin’s eponymous hit ‘NEVER SAY NEVER’ begins to play.  We then see images of Justin as a boy making music. Notably, and per the promise of the copy, we see Bieber from various angles – sideways, diagonally, extreme closeup—and in physical contact with friends and colleagues.  Cards for Paramount and Surge Productions appear before the last words of copy, “In 3 D,” over-delivering on the promise of the “like never before.”

Thereafter, unintroduced, uncredited, uncaptioned, and often off-screen interviewees tell the story of Justin Bieber, his precocious talent, passion for performance and defiance of the odds against him. Indeed, there are manifestly two stories this trailer integrates:  the home movies and Polaroids tell the story of Justin the persistent, talented, precocious child;  the contemporary footage, whether captured in concert or offstage, shows JB as an accomplished performer and a strikingly normal teenager, whether he’s offering bland encouragement to adoring fans or hanging out with his friends.

But latently, and possibly more importantly, there is a third story, one no less interesting and central to the sell:  it’s the story of the fan—whether shrieking, sobbing and rioting tween fan or wannabe teen idol, who identifies with JB and whose efforts and ambitions the trailer validates.   The point of this, to underline the obvious, is that Bieber’s  social media stardom is ours; it demands our participation; it represents our homage and our importance.    (See the “Never Say Never” Official Trailer #1, which makes the case explicitly.)

(Consideration of this trailer continues in my next post.)

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