This is topic SW:EP2 Trailer shipped with a false name in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 09-20-2002, 08:27 AM:
Just got my copy of the SW:EP2 trailer from National Screen. And It's shipped under a false name. Didn't half confuse me when I opewn the box. I'm assuming its just not a mix up of the identifying band since the only film with the false name is from 1939.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-20-2002, 08:37 AM:
Thanks for the info, Michael. Now I know what to look for the next time I hijack a Securicor lorry, and can flog the trailers on eBay to whatever anorak-clad saddos are prepared to give me $150 apiece! 
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 09-20-2002, 08:46 AM:
But I'm not giving away what the false name is! 
Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 09-20-2002, 10:01 AM:
Your not talking about "Black Eyes" are you?
Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 09-20-2002, 11:11 AM:
Can I assume that you are talking about the IMAX version of the trailer? How does it look?
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 09-20-2002, 11:30 AM:
No. I'm a second run student cinema.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-20-2002, 12:46 PM:
OK, you win. Tell me what the title is and we'll split the proceeds!
Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 09-20-2002, 01:42 PM:
The Episode I trailers were titled Box Lunch and She Stood Alone. The movie itself was labeled Perfect Timing on the box it shipped in.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-21-2002, 08:53 PM:
This practice of marking feature and trailer prints with other titles is a product of Mr. Lucas's inflated ego and paranoia the size of a Mack truck, thinking his films are the culminating work of the 20 and 21st centuries that everyone in the world is hell-bent on stealing his trailers. Perfect example of the delusional mind that some good, long term therapy wouldn't help. Imagine if every studio decided to take up this practice. Everyone get your title translation sheets out.
Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 09-22-2002, 12:51 AM:
SW EP 2 shipped here as "Daddy"
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-22-2002, 02:32 AM:
Idiotic. This is a subrun picture. It's already been bootleged; no one wants to bootleg it at this point in time except in George's head.
Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 09-22-2002, 12:27 PM:
All our trailers and prints of Episode 1 were labeled with the correct titles when they came. The shipping lables had the false name (i.e. "She Stood Alone" for the one-sheets which were wrapped in a bunch of Anna & The King ones.) but everything else was labled right.Shipping boxes (those grey quassi-plastic ones with the huge FOX logo on them) were just labled "SW EP 1"
=TMP=
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-22-2002, 12:34 PM:
I guess Fox had had enough of George's BS.
Posted by Brian Tristam Williams (Member # 1235) on 09-22-2002, 07:47 PM:
"Daddy Longlegs" over here - Even the SDDS title ID was renamed.
Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 09-23-2002, 12:00 AM:
Decoy titles are very common for early previews, especially with Sony.
Posted by Les Brock (Member # 1041) on 09-23-2002, 02:16 AM:
The first prints of Godzilla to be shiped to the UK were titled IGUANA. How original 
------------------
Les Brock
Principal Engineer
SDDS Systems.
Priestley Road Basingstoke,Hants
United Kingdom, RG24 9JP
Phone +44 1256 484924
Les.Brock@sonybpe.com
Website www.sdds.com
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-23-2002, 06:19 AM:
Imagine if every theatre that got a decoy title called the distributor to complain that they got the wrong print. Bet that practice would stop fast enough."Hello, we are supposed to play ATTACK OF THE BONES, I mean CLONES tomorrow and we didn't get the print.
"Are you sure, the tracking record shows it was delivered yesterday."
"No. It isn't here. I checked every can in the booth and down in the manager's office and it isn't here. You have to send another one right away."
"Do you have a set of cans marked, HEY THERE, GEORGIE GIRL?"
"Wait let me check...." Ten minutes later: "....hello?... nope, we don't have that one."
"Do you have a title, "SOFT FOCUS?"
"Do you have cans marked, I HATE FILM; I HATE MYSELF?
"Nope,don't have that one either." And on and on.
But seriously, what's the point? Do the studios think that the trailers are being stolen by the carrier? In other words, do they think that it's the TES workers that are stealing these preview prints right at the depot? Once the decoy labeled print gets to the theatre, the projectionists and every kid who they send to the booth (not exactly professionals with an outstanding sense professional "keeping your mouth shut" ethics) knows what the dummy name really is....it's not exactly a secret any longer. So where in the chain do they think they are stopping a potential threat of theft by mislabeling prints? And do they think that someone with the savvy to actually steal a print (usually someone connected with the industry or at least has inside information about print movement) wouldn't be able to figure out what decoy titles go with what real titles?
It's a stupid idea from the get-go. Obviously if it has even the slightest hope of working there can't just be a single dummy title per feature -- there have to be lots of them. Can you imagine what chaos this must be for the distributor who has to track which dummy titles go with which features and to which theatres? I rephrase that: it's an IDIOTIC idea from the get-go.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-23-2002, 06:36 AM:
I agree. I once actually sent a print back in error because of a decoy title. It was Godzilla, which came in cans labelled The Big Fin. The same title was printed on the head leaders, so I concluded that this had to be the wrong film. I stuck it back in the dump and the next day it was collected by Securicor.So the day before Godzilla is supposed to open, I'm on the 'phone to anyone who'll listen asking where my film is. Someone at Columbia-Tristar said 'You didn't return a print called The Big Fin recently, by any chance?'. Obviously a lot of people had done this, and the result was chaos.