I hate previews

Matuso

New member
Am I the only one who feels this way about trailers? I hate them, and I avoid them at all costs. An example: I happen to be a massive fan of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love". I saw this at a local art theater only three months ago, and of course loved it. Last night I went out and blew a bunch of money on about 200 DVD's I'd always meant to buy (many of them were films I'd rented from Netflix and wanted to keep), and bought Punch-Drunk Love with them. Tonight I watched it, and decided to take a look at the trailer. I was somewhat horrified; if I had watched it before I'd seen the movie, it would have ruined it for me. It contained pretty much the entire movie.

What preview atrocities have you witnessed? If you had directed a film and had control over the previews, what techniques would you use, and what would you specifically avoid?
 
I can relate

I can relate

I can relate. I too have strong e-motions about previews at times. There must be a better way to advertise to the masses without showing clips that will ruin the story later. My mind will fill in the clips when I am watching the movie. What kills me is when I get a DVD that has clips of the movie I am watching in the beginning of it. Or the menu has clips!! I don’t’ want to know before hand what is going to happen in a scene!!
 
The great thing about recent trailers is that so many of them have all the good bits of the movie and most of the plot, so there's no reason to pay money to see the movie after you've seen the trailer :).

I was watching a couple of Hitchcock's trailers on youtube recently and they were really well done.
 
Afraid I don't have the link, though I'd guess a search would turn them up easily enough. I remember 'The Birds' and 'Psycho' being on there at least.
 
Not yet, I'll have to take a look.
 
The best trailers are "teasers", that show almost no footage from the movie- also, they only give you the barest minimum of what the movie is about- getting your curiosity going! :)

Anyone remember the teaser for Wolf? (The Jack Nicholson movie) - A shot of the moon turns into Jack Nicholson's eye; the audio is a narration regarding the "other side" of a man.

How about the teaser for The Game? (The Michael Douglas movie)- A CGI marionette is being manipulated, while the audio is sound bites from the film. Only one shot from the movie is included at the very end of the teaser.

In the Line of Fire (The Clint Eastwood thriller) had a GREAT teaser- the number 1963 is onscreen, and the "6" slowly rotates into a "9", while the audio is soundbites from the Kennedy assassination.
 
personally i love previews. i'm one of those people who gets to the theatre 10 minutes early just so i wont miss them.
 
astrofish said:
personally i love previews. i'm one of those people who gets to the theatre 10 minutes early just so i wont miss them.

Same here. I love previews. I get upset when I go to the theater and I miss them. I don't care if they reveal plot, because I have this uncanny ability to willingly suspend my disbelief, and just get lost in the movie. It's taken many years of training, but I pulled it off. ;-)

What I absolutely cannot stand are COMMERCIALS at the movies! When did that become something we accept? I go to the movies to get away from real life where commercials interrupt a show every 10 minutes. I like that i can go to the movies and get away from reality. Commercials just bring me right back to that. What happened to the magic of the movie?

More importantly: Can we get it back?
 
What I absolutely cannot stand are COMMERCIALS at the movies!

IMHO the worst thing is the 'anti-piracy' ads.

Um, hello? I've just _paid_ to watch this movie, and you're preaching to _me_ about piracy? Maybe you'd do better to be preaching to those who are busy downloading it off the Internet, not those who are actually paying to watch it.

They're almost as bad as the two-minute long unskippable anti-piracy ads on DVDs... DVDs I've, again, _paid_ to watch, not to sit there for two minutes while some moron tells me not to download them. Again, the people who do download ripped copies of the DVDs don't have to sit through the stupid ads.

Those ads have reduced my perception of the people working for the MPAA by about 80 IQ points. Talk about insulting your customers... it's as though Ford made everyone who was purchasing one of their cars sit through an hour-long polemic against stealing cars before they were allowed to drive it away from the showroom.
 
MarkG said:
What I absolutely cannot stand are COMMERCIALS at the movies!

IMHO the worst thing is the 'anti-piracy' ads.

Um, hello? I've just _paid_ to watch this movie, and you're preaching to _me_ about piracy? Maybe you'd do better to be preaching to those who are busy downloading it off the Internet, not those who are actually paying to watch it.

They're almost as bad as the two-minute long unskippable anti-piracy ads on DVDs... DVDs I've, again, _paid_ to watch, not to sit there for two minutes while some moron tells me not to download them. Again, the people who do download ripped copies of the DVDs don't have to sit through the stupid ads.

Those ads have reduced my perception of the people working for the MPAA by about 80 IQ points. Talk about insulting your customers... it's as though Ford made everyone who was purchasing one of their cars sit through an hour-long polemic against stealing cars before they were allowed to drive it away from the showroom.

Not to get into a convo about ripping the MPAA and RIAA, but this is a good portion of why they are on the losing end of the piracy war. And they refuse to grow and adapt or even - God forbid - innovate according to times! They're attacking the wrong people! Suing kids and grandmas over a couple of downloaded tracks (which they've yet to prove weren't obtained legally) only serves to make enemies of their customers, not to kill piracy.

Ok, sorry i went off on a tangent. But I agree with you, those ads are annoying. Preaching to the choir here guys!
 

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