Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Do you remove the attached trailer?

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Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-18-2004, 11:55 PM:

I was just curious if anyone here removes the attached trailer in order to keep all of the preview trailers together when putting together a movie? The options are:

1. Two trailers, Dolby/THX, attached trailer, feature.

2. Three trailers (attached trailer removed and re spliced), Dolby/THX, feature.

The 2nd option seems to give a better presentation overall, but I was just curious what other theaters do.

Also, anyone remove the green bands from previews? I've seen it done both ways.

Thanks for your input.

Posted by Nicole Halper (Member # 2299) on 05-19-2004, 12:00 AM:

We definately remove the green band from the previews every time! I know not all theatres do ~ but I've heard some funny tales about people who have left them on at our place-- and they don't live that one down. [Razz]

Personally I like it better without the bands. I think it just flows nicer, and gives an overall better presentation.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2004, 12:27 AM:

Removing green bands from trailers is a great way to hide how dirty your films really are. It also helps to give the trailer presentation more of a "tv commercial" feeling to it.

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 12:33 AM:

So are you saying that it cheapens the presentation? I actaully prefer to leave them on myself, I've always done it that way, but more and more theaters are starting to remove them and I don't really know why. It saves maybe 15 seconds off the entire movie.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 05-19-2004, 12:55 AM:

we take the attached trailer off and we ALWAYS take off the ratings band. I think the ratings band looks horrible, plus it's looks professional to have all your trailers together and then additional snipes after/before the trailers...

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 05-19-2004, 01:07 AM:

Well, there are other threads dedicated to green band removal that discusion can continue in those till we all turn green. [Smile]

When I used to use the sound snipes I made sure all trailers came before the snipe then the feature.

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 01:24 AM:

Yeah, I think I've seen the discussions, or at least part of them. My main question was regarding the removal of the attached trailer. I kind of thought that if the trailer was meant to be removed, it would have been loose in the can like the rest of the trailers.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2004, 01:32 AM:

Give the man a prize. This whole thing has been discussed to death before. Try a search. [Wink]

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 05-19-2004, 02:42 AM:

When I put on a sound snipe, I ALWAYS splice the attached trailer to the other trailers and then throw the sound snipe right before the feature. In fact, I have the full dim cue at the end of the attatched trailer so that by the time the sound snipe starts, the lights are all the way down and the audience knows the show is about to start. If you visit our theatre, you know I built the print if that happens because I'm the only one to put the full dim cue there! Everyone else puts it at the beginning of the attached trailer, or (worse) at the beginning of the film if there is no attached trailer. I just like that dramatic lowering of lights and a few seconds of black and darkness before that disc flies across the screen or that thunderbolt claps before we see that chopper! It says to your audience: this is it, the thing you've been waiting for is about to begin. Even if we had policy trailers (which we don't), I'd still want to put the sound snipe after that. I know this is how it was done when I first started seeing films at our place (well before I began working there).

AJG

Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 05-19-2004, 04:33 AM:

Oh well, we beat the cyan tracks thread to death here so here goes on the green bands......
I understand all AMC theatres remove the green bands on trailers for some dumb reason or other. Why? What the hell difference does it make.
What if the sound starts in that green band? Sounds choppy to me.
I cannot for the life of me fiqure out why you would want to lop the green band off?????
Don't they advise the audience what the feature rating is and why?
This is creepy. Too much time on certain people's hands.
Nuff said.
Good night all.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-19-2004, 08:08 AM:

I don't know if we are obliged to play the entire trailer, green band included, or not. I suspect there is such an obligation but, like many things in the movie business, people look the other way.

Now, MOST theaters don't play anything but green banded trailers. Being a small non-commercial venue, we occasionally DO play red banded trailers. I think, if you play a red band trailer, you are obliged to inform the viewing public what they are about to see. If you play a red band trailer you NEED to leave the band on.

Therefore, if you play even one red trailer you need to leave the green bands on all the other trailers too. I say if you play even an occasional red trailer you should play all your green bands.

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 05-19-2004, 09:03 AM:

I leave the green bands on because of the LACK of dirt on them. I mean, we're paying for the Film Guard so show it off!

If we gave the trailers a "TV commercial feel," we'd have some of our patrons more confused (than they already are) over the fact that our LCD projectors for the on-screen advertising are not where the movie will be shown from. Call it sense of security that I'm doing my job right.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-19-2004, 11:00 AM:

We remove ALL green bands; we collect them for about a month or so, then splice them together and then run a full reel of them to get it out of everyone's system. [Big Grin]

Hey, I hate being crewl to animals, but let me beat this poor dead horse just one last time --

Why would anyone lop off green rating bands you ask?

1) because most of them look like 6th generation garbage, 2) if you are playing 3 or 4 or 5 trailers, the rating bands are ridiculously repetitious -- one at the head of all your trailers will do what it needs to do -- inform the patrons that the FOLLOWING attractions are OK for their tender eyes. No need to say it over and over before EACH trailer.

As for the trailer(s) that come attached to the film, it all depends on your presentation format and where you are in the food chain. We are second run. Any trailer that manages to survive still attached to the body of the print is probably out of date. And in addition, we keep all coming attractions on our cartoon/attraction reel.

Our feature always opens with a curtain and curtain warmer cue, so we must move any trailer off the head of R1 and splice it into the attraction reel, otherwise the thing makes no sense. If your theatre plays everything straight -- without a curtain and curtain warmer cue, just trailers running right into the feature, then it won't matter; you can leave them attached.

On the other hand, if you have a policy like we do -- which is that we DO NOT play any trailer if we are not going to play that feature in our theatre -- then off it comes. If we are not going to play that feature, then its trailer just becomes confusing to the audience. And to take a mercenary moment, it also becomes promotion NOT for OUR theatre but it's an ad for the film company. I say, if the studio wants to advertise on my screen, it will jolly-well have to pay CASH for screen time, just like any other merchant. But, oh wait.... I forgot; we never, EVER play merchant ads or commercials....so gee, I guess they are just plumb out of luck. And sticking their commercial on the front of the print doesn't get them a free ride. They sure would scream like banshees if I decided to splice a commercial for my theatre at the head of their print before I sent it back.

And, PS, I asked this question in the other thread and never got an answer: when did running coming attractions become, not a promotion for the theatre's up-coming engagements, as it did originally -- you only played a trailer for what was going to appear on your screen -- to the situation which we seem to have now, where theatres play all kinds of trailer for titles that may never play in their house?

Posted by Alexander Smith (Member # 1769) on 05-19-2004, 11:02 AM:

This is probably UK specific but...

My employer is a Cinema Exhibitor's Association member, the
policy of CEA cinemas is not to show pre-attached trailers.

Ever.

This is probably related to an on-going advertising campaign
by Orange and BVHE.

I think it makes a neater presentation if there are no
trailers after the policy title anyway. Our audiences know
that when the policy title starts, they have ~90 seconds to
get those last minute purchases at the kiosk.

Alex.

Posted by Craig Kocher (Member # 2432) on 05-19-2004, 12:08 PM:

Unfortunately, My Company gives us a set List of what trailers can go on what and why. so removing the Green Band is not even a Option. Oh well..

Craig

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 2038) on 05-19-2004, 12:09 PM:

We always take off attached trailers as we never seem to run those movies later. We run an "Our Next" trailer always, and occasionally a "Coming Soon" but we never run more than two trailers. We are second-run and we always pull daters out of the trailers. Silly, and confusing, to run something that says "Coming April 10th" when we're running the trailer in May.

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 05-19-2004, 12:10 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
where theatres play all kinds of trailer for titles that may never play in their house?

So what happens if we decide not to run a trailer for a movie, because we are not getting it, but a last minute decision sends the print our way, now we have a movie that we have not advertised for, and attendance will be down. That's why I run all different kinds of trailers.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-19-2004, 01:35 PM:

We cut off the attached and put the DTS logo after it, with the lites-down cue just ahead of the DTS.

Personally I liked it better when the rating was at the END of the trailer. (I'm sure dating myself here!) If the movie appealed to the kids in the crowd, they would just be anxiously waiting and you could just feel the excitement when it turned out to be rated PG or G (or GP).

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 07:05 PM:

Thanks for all your input. I was just curious if other theaters were doing things the same way we were. I was never sure who made up the order of trailers/sound bytes etc..but it seems like a monkey see monkey do thing. Anyway, thanks again.

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 05-19-2004, 07:26 PM:

What is an attached trailer? I am a second run house and have never seen one. Every print we get has them removed.

------------------------------------------------------------
Where you stand on an issue depends upon where you sit!

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 07:44 PM:

I guess that answers my question too [Smile]

Posted by Roy Martinez (Member # 2343) on 05-22-2004, 02:15 AM:

An attached trailer is a trailer that has been added to the beginning of the first reel of a movie.The trailer is almost always (except for Lucas films [sex]

) specific to the company that releases the film its attached to. Oh yea, let us not forget the surprise chasers (I hate those)!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-22-2004, 07:27 AM:

In most cases, the attached trailer is printed as part of the printing negative for reel 1, so there is no splice in the print. But a trailer can also be attached in "positive assembly" or at the exchange, which would entail a print splice where it was attached.

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-22-2004, 03:56 PM:

I haven't put a movie together for a month or so, so I don't remember, but is there a marked place to cut the trailer? Or is it more guess work. Before anyone says it, YES I saw the "cutting trailers properly" in the tip section, but I didn't know if that also pertains to trailers attached to films as well.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-22-2004, 04:59 PM:

It depends on the film. Usually there is an obvious negative splice, although I've seen some that aren't on the framelines.

The important thing is to not cut into the soundtrack for the start of the feature.

Posted by Peter Castle (Member # 1997) on 05-23-2004, 07:48 AM:

Normally if there is an attached trailer, I'll see if there's any chance we'd show it before I decide to leave it on or not.
I will place the format tag before the attachec trailer and our regular trailers before that.

Last week we had a screening of "50 First Dates" and decided that I'd leave on the attached trailer of "13 Going on 30". (OK we might not show it but the audience seemed to like it.) The previous cinema must have done it differently as the splice between attached trailer and feature was half-a-frame out. Yes, I know I should have double checked, but when making up a film for a one-off screening, we've got to sometimes assume the sensibility of other cinemas. Oh well.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 05-23-2004, 10:51 AM:

I thought this thread was going to be about whether people re-attach the atttached trailer when shipping the print back. We don't. That is, if we ever get a print with the attatched trailer still on.

We're sub-run, so by the time we get the prints, the attatched trailer's film has already played or is playing at our location. So it comes off.

Although occasionally, we wll get a Reel 1 that's full all the way to the edge because the nice theater before us decided to include THEIR trailer pack! Thanks for the policy trailer, Carmike! [eyes]

When I worked first-run, we'd always cut the attatched trailer to insert the policy between it and the feature. This was irritating when people who didn't know how to cut film did it. You'd either get the sound for the studio logo at the end of the last trailer, or vice-versa. BAD!

And Yeah, the green band saga has been sequeled and spun-off and
beaten to death. We leave them on. I like them. Because:

1. It gives the presentation a "theatrical" feel instead of the rushed, in-your-face, no-pause-between-the-ads TV feeling. Its bad when people combine "Highway Men" and "The Passion" in their heads as one movie just because they saw Jim Cavizel in them both.

2. It separates the trailers. Most trailers these days borrow each other's soundtracks, making it hard to tell if it's still the same one you've been watching. Also, it allows for that 7-10 seconds of silence to hear people's reaction to them or those people who HAVE to make a comment about it. Funny.

3. Chopping into the sound. I've been at an AMC where the soundtracks to two trailers litterally went right into one another like a reel. No pause, no skip, no nothing. It almost seemed like a combo trailer, except it happened often.

Besides, most green bands have been reprinted recently to add the FilmRatings website or some other teh ghey ratings reason. So quality shouldn't be an issue as long as they're clean.

IMHO, theaters should play 2 trailers, an cheezy retro ad for the concession or "no smoking in this theater" and then two more. Would ease the tension a bit.

=TMP=

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-24-2004, 11:44 AM:

I just ran SILENT RUNNING (Univ) -- the Blue Band rating was printed BEFORE film. Stupid, stupid. Stupid because 1) it is NEGATIVE showmanship. Curtains should open at the start of the feature, not on some MPAA ad. And stupid 2) because unless all the patrons have had lobotomies, they already know the rating of the film that they are about to see. If they haven't seen the rating in every ad and on all the 1-sheets or next to the title in the box office where they just paid for their ticket, what's the point of putting in front of the feature opening? Does the MPAA think people are going to jump up and say, "Oh dear, I can't watch this picture....it's rated R, and run out"? SILENT RUNNING, btw, is rated G, so it's not even a matter of making sure the audence is aware of a more severe restrictive rating....it is G; ANYONE can see it.

Oh yeah, to add insult to injury or to add icing on a pile-o-sh*t, it also was ANAMORPHIC --on a flat picture. How stupid is THAT?!

Off it came and spliced AFTER the film, between the end of the credits and the leader.....where it's guaranteed that no one will see the ugly thing.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-24-2004, 12:09 PM:

Frank--did you get the archive print of Silent Running that I ran back in January? At the time, it was new/uncut and basically mint. I hope that you didn't make physical cuts in it (unless it has been trashed since then).

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 05-24-2004, 04:10 PM:

hmm, don't remember if that was the case when i saw it. but, why not just leave it on and open the douser & curtains right after?

carl

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-25-2004, 12:42 PM:

Evidently I am not the only one who thought the placement of this rating snipe was foolish, because it had already been cut. The print number was OAP (was that yours Scott?). Luckily, so far, it is the only splice in the print -- it had not been plattered or LPed so there were no other joint splices. More than likely someone needed to splice on their logo. I have seen even mint archive prints that have a single splice at reel one to get that logo snipe inserted.

The mint print I ran of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON had not a splice in it, not even on R1 when I ran it in July, but only 3 months later when I got it back again, it had been plattered despite the fact that there were stickers on each leader and on the cans that said, NO PLATTERS - NO LONG PLAY REELS - DO NOT SPLICE.

Once the deed is done and the splice exists, then I don't feel there is anything wrong with using the same splice joint. I wonder how long before the inevitable happens, warning stickers not withstanding. Seems like the studio doesn't have much choice but to let new prints out to platter & long play houses else they cut into their potential earning power. I guess they at least have to recoup the cost they layed out to strike the print.

But then again, if Brad is right, plattering mint prints is BETTER for them than running them reel-to-reel. Funny thing, I've never seen archive prints come in with stickers saying, DO NOT RUN CHANGE-OVER -- PLATTERS ONLY -- SPLICE HERE. [Wink]

(Sorry, Brad, I couldn't resist).

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-25-2004, 09:23 PM:

Frank--that sounds right, but it was uncut when I got it in January (and when I sent it back, too!). New-ish acetate-base print from Foto-Kem, shipped in blue plastic shipping containers on good black plastic reels. Head leaders were labelled with artist tape by someone else, and tails were labelled with artist tape by me (blue Sharpie, not-too-neat handwriting). Print was excellent, with light base scratches in one reel.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-26-2004, 12:27 AM:

Frank, this may seem odd to you, but that stupid joke you continuously keep posting got old about 200 times ago. If you would bother to pay attention to what has been written over the last few years you would understand when it is better to run changeover and when it is better to run platter...archival print or not.

Since most people are too stupid and lazy to pay attention, I shall say this one last time:

If the print is going to be run many times, IT IS BETTER TO PLATTER IT!!!

If the print is to be ran only a few times, IT IS BETTER TO RUN IT CHANGEOVER!!!

The biggest problem with both kinds of film transports are OPERATOR ERROR! I guarantee you that if I put a popcorn kid in a changeover booth without proper training, the prints would get just as trashed as they would in a platter booth without proper training.

Yes there are the occasional exceptions due to the specific operator, but for the typical projectionist this guideline holds true. Still, this isn't rocket science! The only people who don't get this are those who have no real experience with a platter who are speaking out of pure ignorance on the subject. It's hard enough trying to get newbies to understand why they cannot break prints down with masking tape. Nobody needs you cracking the same old tired changeover jokes and confusing the newbies further.

Properly trained changeover people are not better than properly trained platter people. This constant ego from changeover guys is astonishing.

****************************************

All further replies to this thread need to be on topic about attached trailers or the posts will be deleted. The changeover argument has been done to death and there is no need for that nonsense to continue.
A professional operator can run film on virtually any form of transport and put on a first class show. It does not require reel to reel.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-26-2004, 11:02 AM:

"Film Done Right" depends more on the PROJECTIONIST than it does on the EQUIPMENT. It's that simple. [Cool]

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 05-26-2004, 08:09 PM:

We are first run, so we always play the attached trailer. We drop in a policy trailer and feature presentation snipe between it and the start of the feature. At the end of the run, we remove our policy & FP and reattach the "attached trailer", or, if we have an extra, we place it in the can before shipping out the print.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-26-2004, 10:45 PM:

I always cut off the attached trailer (Making damn sure that the sound has ended and there is a few feet of black at the end) and then put it with the rest of the trailers on the print. The way I like to do it is: PSA's (if any), TV commercials (if any), trailers (last one being the one that was attached), Policy/feature presentation snipe, the "no masturbating" snipe, Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS logo, THX logo, 10 minute porn, feature presentation (aka "the movie"). [av=c]

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 05-27-2004, 01:26 PM:

Where can I get a No Masturbating snipe? [Razz]

added: do they go on G-rated movies too?

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 05-27-2004, 01:32 PM:

I'd hate to clean up at yalls theaters, if the problem is that big. [puke]

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 06-07-2004, 01:38 AM:

I always play.

Corporate Ads such Sprite, Toyota trailer first.
Coming Soon snipe.
Trailers with attached trailer removed.
Feature Presentation.
Dolby Digital or DTS on the very rare occasion.