Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Dumb trailer names

This is topic Dumb trailer names in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-12-2018, 08:43 PM:

I just got an email from Deluxe telling me that the trailer for "Sorry To Bother You" is shown on the trailmix as "STBY" (etc.)

Obviously this is being sent out because the trailer isn't getting played because nobody knows what the hell "STBY" is.

Why don't they just name trailers smartly in the first place? I know they have to keep the names short but even "Sorry To" would be better than STBY.

Rant over.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-12-2018, 09:13 PM:

Keeping the names short? What trailers have you been looking at? The only part of the filename that they shorten is what's actually the most important part: the title. Past that point they have room for another yard of letters and numbers.

EXT2 and EXT3 filesystems allow 255 bytes in a filename, so there should be room to spell out the titles clearly.

I do wish they would add the actual filenames to the paper that they send along with the trailer drive along with the movie titles. Movie title is The Blah. Is that under BLAH, THEBLAH, TheBLAH, THE_BLAH.... [Confused]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-12-2018, 11:25 PM:

Obviously, I know about the long file name....I was only talking about the movie title SEGMENT of the name, which I think they are supposed to keep to some short amount of characters so server screens will display the whole thing...but shaving it down to three or four letters is dumb.

I don't have a problem with them leaving "The" off, but just about anything else they should just write the damn thing out.

Problems surface with franchise movies because you have multiple movies that start with the same words, things like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and then Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and so on. I wouldn't mind if they abbreviate the main title, such as SW-TheLastJedi, rather than something like SWTLJ or whatever.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 04-14-2018, 05:16 AM:

If you're ever intensely curious:

Digital Cinema Naming Convention

The "Film Title" field is described as:

14 Characters MAX.
Do not note "3D" unless "3D" is part of the film's title.
Words should be separated by initial caps: MovieTitle.
If film is a sequel with a numeral, add the number without a hyphen: MovieTitle2.
Do not use acronyms (LOTR - Lord of the Rings - is NOT OK, abbreviations are OK.)

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 04-14-2018, 06:20 PM:

First world problems huh Mike. [Smile]

Posted by Brian DeCiancio (Member # 1422) on 04-16-2018, 11:48 PM:

I saw "Sorry To Bother You" on the trailmix as "STBY". I assumed it was Sgt. Stubby!

Years ago I saw AHHT2 and had no idea -- A Haunted House 2

CMBYN was also a mystery -- Call Me By Your Name

Can they not put even a single useful word of the title to give us a clue???

Posted by Michael Putlack (Member # 6523) on 04-17-2018, 10:30 AM:

Everyone knows Sorry to Bother You should have just been Sorry2BU!

CMBYN was especially annoying though.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-17-2018, 12:33 PM:

STBY reads like Standby to me...

SorryToBotherY would've fit within 14 characters and not read like switching off the lights.