Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How Trailer scenes change in final cuts.

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Posted by Rob Brooks (Member # 186) on 03-02-2000, 12:37 PM:

Ever run a trailer for a long time so you can practically recite dialoge in your sleep. Then when the movie comes out there are changes in the scenes that were in the trailers you remember most. Sometimes it's the emphasis in the acting and not so much the words. In "Girl Interruped" Trailer Angeline Jolie calls another patient "gay". In the movie she uses the word "Dyke". Someone figured out that the word gay was not used for homosexuals in 1969. I'm sure more will come back to me if someone wants to start the ball rolling with differences you've noticed.

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Rob

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-02-2000, 01:19 PM:

That doesn't surprise me. Many times production on a trailer starts with some of the first footage shot, well before the post production of the feature is done. So the scenes and dialog that end up in the feature may be quite different than the trailers.

It's not unusual for the "final cut" negative to arrive at the lab a couple weeks before over 3000 prints need to be in theatres. The first and last reels are notoriously late, since the opening titles and end credits are often not decided until the last possible moment --- this is one factor that has held back 6000-foot Extended Length Reels (ELR). At least with 2000-foot reels, the lab can begin printing the middle reels, even if the titles and credits haven't been decided.

I just purchased a DVD of GWTW. The 1938 trailer included on the DVD did not have a single scene from the final movie --- it was a series of pre-production sketches in a "book" as the pages were turned.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Professional Motion Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

Posted by Joshua Lott (Member # 240) on 03-02-2000, 01:24 PM:

The one scene from a trailer that sticks out in my mind is the water melon scene from Can't Hardly Wait. I know that there are many others, but can't think of any right now.

Posted by Colin Wiseley (Member # 247) on 03-02-2000, 02:27 PM:

We ran the trailer for Cradle Will Rock for about a month and there's a part in it where a character says, "When the storm breaks..." (cut to another scene with different characters) "...the cradle will rock." In the actual movie the first character says, "When the storm breaks, the cradle will FALL." There's always a murmor from the audience when he says fall because they expected rock.

One trailer we ran forever that I can always remember lines from is PI:

12:45, restate my assumptions
This is insanity, Max! - Or what if it's genius?
There will be no order, only chaos.

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Colin Wiseley
Lyric Theatre
Blacksburg, VA www.thelyric.com

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-02-2000, 04:04 PM:

I have DVD and I simply cannot get past the HORRIBLE MPEG2 artifacts onscreen. MPEG2 is highly unprofessional. Nothing like seeing blocks of data in every hazy, smokey, or foggy scene. And I don't know if it is my player or what but every time I put a DVD in for the very first time, it wants to play with Spanish subtitles.

LaserDisc is better.

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 03-02-2000, 05:43 PM:

One of my faves is the BladeRunner trailer that has "If I Didn't Care" by the Ink Spots as incidental background music to set a bluesy film noir tone. But when it came to putting it in the feature, the copywrite owner said the cost was $40K so the producers put a Vangelis track in its place.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-03-2000, 11:54 AM:

Joe:
I agree, I'd much rather watch film on a big screen than a DVD on my 48-inch Sony projection set. Before the DVD, I only had VHS, so it is a step up for me. It's going to be interesting to see how many compression artifacts will be tolerated in the name of efficient transmission of digital cinema data. SMPTE has quite a few good people working on the committee, including some from Kodak. They have quite a challenge!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-03-2000, 12:52 PM:

Joe:

You must have bought your Spanish language DVD on one of your many visits to to Tijuana.

Seriously, isn't there a setup menu to set the start-up preferences?

Posted by Dan Riddle on 03-03-2000, 02:11 PM:

Joe,

What kind of DVD player do you have? A lot of the older cheaper versions of the players have crappy artifacts mostly in the scenes you talked about, rain, fog, dark greys, and any gradient. But the newer ones have gotten a lot better. I think it'll be awhile until film is beat, if ever. But, you have to admit DVD is a heck of a step up from VHS.

Dan

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 03-03-2000, 08:52 PM:

Joe: DVDs are mastered in component 4:2:0 format, whereas LaserDisc is composite only. Also, DVDs are often anamorphically enhanced so that letterboxed material is displayed using much higher resolution (same concept as matted 1.85:1 versus the higher resolution of using the full four-perf area for scope). There is also the possibility of progressive scan output.

If you are using YUV or RGB (or even s-video) to connect your DVD player to a monitor or TV, then all the dot crawl artifacts of VHS and LaserDisc will be very noticably absent. If you are using a 16:9 display or 'squeezing' a 4:3 display for anamorphic DVDs then there is no contest with LaserDisc. Also, DVDs have far less video noise and virtually (my favourite!) NO chroma tearing. Gotta love those 'hot' colors on VHS and Laser!

Regarding compression artifacts - sure, compared to watching uncompressed D1 or even DigiBeta there is a difference. But considering the aggresive ratio of compression, DVD is quite miraculous. Some of the early discs did have some visible artifacts, but it's been a steep learning curve for authors/compressionists and by now, the vast majority of modern discs have virtually invisible compression artifacts.

Look at 'Blade' or 'Lost in Space' for two outstanding examples. Of course, they don't quite compare to their D1 masters, but outside of film prints, neither does anything else.

Posted by Erika Hellgren (Member # 22) on 03-04-2000, 05:57 PM:

Michael,

I have found that all that compression gobbilty-gook means nothing to me. If I look at an image on a TV and I don't like it, that's what really matters in the end. I have never seen a DVD image that I liked. I've also been incredibly unimpressed with how DVD's handle dust or scratches. Dust can cause blockiness or a complete loss of image. Scratches can cause the DVD to stop playing completely. I'm also not a fan of having to set up a menu before I can watch a movie. I want to put in the disc, press play and watch. I also find that the "hot" colors you refer to depend on the TV you have. I honestly have seen the same LaserDisc look like shit on a bad TV, and astonishing on a good one.

But the main reason I hate DVD's is because they are taking over. Consumers should have a choice. Personally, for me, it's LaserDisc or nothing. (Film would be nice, but I have no space and no money )

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-04-2000, 07:48 PM:

Oh, come on, Erika! You need a 35mm setup in your living room!

Sure, DVD/laserdisc/tape is _easier_ and sure 35mm at home is like throwing cash and storage space into a big black hole, but it's so much more FUN!

Posted by Erika Hellgren (Member # 22) on 03-04-2000, 08:22 PM:

Scott, my living room is also my bedroom, dining room and office. Yes, I live in a studio apartment. I could bring in a 35mm projector and lamphouse, but then where would I sleep? Perhaps I could get a platter system in here and sleep on the top deck

Posted by Robb Johnston (Member # 239) on 03-05-2000, 03:04 AM:

John, The first Time I saw "Dogma" was the digital projection presentaion at ShowEast. I was impressed with the quality. I did not notice any artifacts from the middle of the auditorium which had a sizable throw to a fairly large screen. The color was matched through the entire film (much better than the print I got at one of my theatres) and the only reason I would have known it was digital without previous knowledge was the lack of "Cigarette Burns" before the changeovers. There was a sound sync problem for "reel 2" though. It was decompressed at a slightly different rate than the picture so after 18 minutes the sound was off by nearly 3 quarters of a second. All was well when "reel 3" began.

Posted by Robb Johnston (Member # 239) on 03-05-2000, 03:08 AM:

Also changed in Can't Hardly Wait was William soing a shot. I forget which was the trailer and which was the film, but in one he jumps up repeating I can't feel my legs, and the other he only says it once then states that he has no legs.

Of course there also was the "Major League" quotes. The preview for the first one had the line to the effect of: That wouldn't be out some parks. Name one. Yellowstone.

It was cut from the film , then they made a point of using it in the sequel. Of course they again deleted a line from the trailer of that film, but . . .

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 03-06-2000, 08:49 AM:

Has anyone seen both the trailer and the feature for, "What Planet Are You From?" There's a scene where John Goodman is trying to convince his wife that he is tracking an alien ("I'm not making this up, Nadine!")

I'm not 100% sure, but I thought I saw that scene is shown one way in the trailer, but then the image is reversed ("mirrored") in the feature.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-06-2000, 11:40 AM:

I thought trailers for movies were made up from the "dailes" and they were made up by people hired especially for the purpose of advertising the movie. That means (to me) that a trailer won't necessarily be anything like the movie because the "director" for the trailer doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the director of the movie.

It's kind of a hobby of mine to watch the trailer and then to watch the movie and see how close they are. One thing I notice is that they do a lot of "censoring" of the trailers to make them "green band". 9 times out of 10 MOST scenes make it to the movie but not all.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-07-2000, 01:12 AM:

Robb:

I also saw the digital screening of "Dogma" at ShowEast. AFAIK, it was presented from HD D-5 tape, so the compression was only about 5:1. Also, they had to use TWO of the top-of-the-line Digital Projection DLP projectors ganged together to get enough light. So the pixel artifacts that were so visible on the "Star Wars Episode 1" digital screenings I saw in Secaucus NJ using the prototype TI "cinema grade" projector were less visible due to misregistration with two projectors. IMHO, needing two projectors and not having the rare prototype "cinema grade" DLP also hurt the contrast in the ShowEast "Dogma" screening. I recall that they publicly apologized for the less than optimum quality before the show.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 10-21-2001, 07:42 PM:

Best example I know of is EDtv. The trailer has the best line in the whole movie:

"It's my breast, Ed . . . It's on the Internet!"

Got snipped out of the release version.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 10-21-2001, 11:31 PM:

"The reflex is an only child, who's waiting at the mall...." I THINK that's how it goes. Anyone know what trailer that song is from but not in the movie? I'll give you a hint: I posted about the movie last week in Yak.

This one has pissed me off the most. Men In Black. In reference to the hug guns, there is a dialog between Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith that goes something like "Any idea how these things work? -- None whatsoever." This was not in the movie.