Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 10 TRAILERS

This is topic 10 TRAILERS in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 07-24-2001, 12:56 PM:

With movies coming with so many trailers (scary movie 2 and americas sweethearts came with 10), many theatres will not be able to play all these trailers since they only put 6 trailers in front of the movie.
The solution to playing all these trailers is simple.
Scary Movie 2 is 5 reels, so that means 4 splices in the movie (unless you count the lab splices you removed).
What you do is you put the 4 remaining trailers inbetween the reels.
that way your customers can watch a movie on the big screen and still have that coveted "at home" feeling.
Also what you need to do is have someone in the auditorium and display your theatres logo aty the bottom right hand of the screen.
Some tv stations still do this rather than leaving it up the whole time.
What they have to do is go in 30 seconds before the reel change, bring up the sign, when the trailer hits, bring it down and when the next reel starts, bring it up again for another 30 seconds.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-24-2001, 03:40 PM:

LOL

Trouble is, it might just happen sooner than we think.

Another way of handing the "glut" of trailers and rolling stock ads would be to actually SHOWCASE them as pre-show entertainment. Advertised times should specifically say something like trailers and ads start at 7:15 pm, and the feature starts at 8:00 pm sharp. Those people who like to see the trailers and ads (and some do) would come early. Those who just want to see the feature would know the time it actually starts. I would suggest a 10-minute "intermission" between trailers and feature. The downside is that 45 minutes of ads and trailers and "intermission" would probably require showing the feature one less time per day.

Instead of making ads and trailers an ordeal forced upon the entire audience, this plan would show them to the people who really WANT to see them, and not burden those who just want to see the feature.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 07-24-2001, 03:50 PM:

I don't think they actually expect you to play all of those trailers, they're just getting smart and saving on shipping costs.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-24-2001, 04:11 PM:

Dustin said: "I don't think they actually expect you to play all of those trailers."

But distributors hope (and sometimes demand) that you play THEIR trailers. My plan would show many more trailers to audiences that really WANT to see them on a big screen (think trailers for Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars Episode II), and not burden those who just want to see the feature.

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 07-24-2001, 04:58 PM:

Alot of the chains are now cutting deals with the distributors to play trailers on particular movies. It is now being tied into the booking process.
A possible scenario would be...
"We will give you 2 prints of Movie A if you play Trailer X on Movie B".
I have even heard the distributors have paid the exhibitors or reduced the rental on film to run trailers. It is a well known fact that all of the major chains are having or have had major money problems in the past couple of years. It just sounds like Hollywood is just exploiting the weakness like Kryptonite on Superman...

Of course this is all just conjecture and hear-say but it seams the most plausible.

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Chris Duvall
General Manager
Regal Cinemas Colonnade14
Las Vegas, NV

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 07-24-2001, 11:59 PM:

What's the deal with enclosed trailers being from different studios? Films used to come with just 1 or 2 trailers from the same studio that did the movie; the first time I got a different studio's trailer with a movie I thought someone had made a mistake, but they seem to do that a lot now. They're even listed on the sheet coming with the movie saying what the enclosed and attached trailers are, running times, etc.
What's the average limit on trailers? Most theaters I know of have a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 per show.

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 07-25-2001, 01:27 AM:

As far as a personal opinion, I think only 5 or less trailers should be on a print. Customers tend to get antsy and probably annoyed after 20 minutes of trailer programming. I really don't want to even get into commercials on prints. The first time I saw that, I was at UA in Virginia Beach sometime about 10 years ago and they ran a Sprite commercial. I remember saying something like..."What the f...!?"

Anyhoo, due to the financial strife in this business, I know where my bread is buttered, so I will run the commercials and rolling stock ads.

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Chris Duvall
General Manager
Regal Cinemas Colonnade14
Las Vegas, NV

Posted by Steven Pickles (Member # 785) on 07-25-2001, 08:10 AM:

Christopher Duvall said: "Anyhoo, due to the financial strife in this business, I know where my bread is buttered, so I will run the commercials and rolling stock ads."

I don't think it could have been said any better...

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-25-2001, 01:53 PM:

John P.: Your idea is great, except if we advertised the trailers starting at 7 and the feature at 7:45, we'd have annoying, latecoming buffoons showing up at 8:10 saying "Are the previews still on?" At least the way it is now, these fools at least have a SLIGHT chance of seeing the beginning of the movie.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-25-2001, 04:51 PM:

Then there are those memos that come in the cans which say, "These trailers have been cleared with your booking department..." What a crock of

! It's nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to get you to play these trailers on the movie.

It's all about some "suit" sitting in an office trying to use demographics, or something to push their movie to a certain age group, etc. I think I'm pretty good at programming trailers, IMHO. You know the tricks:
[list]

Put an Action movie preview on a "Chick Flick" for the benefit of the guys who get dragged in by their girlfriends.

Put a "Chick Flick" preview on an Action movie for the benefit of the girls who get dragged in by their boyfriends.

Put the new Disney preview on the Adult Drama movie so the parents and grandparents know what movies they can take the kids to see.

...and all the other tricks, to numerous to mention...

I certainly appreciate the help but 1) Our booking department's requests come first... and 2) Some of those requests are just plain unacceptible. Some of their "requests" have even generated complaints from customers... After which, we will almost always remove the trailer in question. (As long as it's a reasonable request.) I think I know what the people who come to see "my" movies want to see. Since when did these requests become requirements?

Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 07-25-2001, 08:01 PM:

Excuse me for this,but I'm in a desparate situation.
Is there anyone who could give me some EXY type bulbs for free through
the mail?

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-26-2001, 01:36 AM:

...and BAM! Matthew strikes again!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-26-2001, 04:40 AM:

Matthew, you need to put a bit more thought into your posts. Your request is COMPLETELY out of place on this thread. If you want to beg for someone to spend their money to ship you an item of which you want them to provide to you for free, then start a new thread for it...but don't count on getting anything.

Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 07-28-2001, 03:11 PM:

ummmmmmm.....getting back to trailers here, I rented (hate to admit I didn't see it on the big screen but honestly, I didn't have the time) a copy of "13 Days" the other night. (Mind you, the ability to go back and repeat, really helped to decode those New-England accents didn't hurt either). I didn't keep accurate count but there were maybe 6 trailers on the head of the movie.

At first I was tempted to fast-forward through them, (wondering if this was a natural reaction to fast-forwarding through commercials on a recorded program), but then thought, why not watch them? Trailers, after all, are a sort of art-form onto themselves.

I actually found it quite intersting, not only from a sales point of view (did those trailers really make me WANT to see the movie?) as well as an art form (didn't they already tell me pretty much the whole story anyways?).

I must say one thing for these as opposed to some of the ones I see assembled by the ametuer projectionists who assemble so many of our trailer packages these days. It was very well edited.

No extremely long fades (causing the time-impatient audiences of today to wonder "what the hell is going on up there?). No inclusion of the white blocks of sound track often at the end of the trailers that cause this extremely loud "BOOM " in the sound.

I honestly think that the people who make up the trailer (even the feature) package should be made to sit and watch their work in the theatre, along with an audience. Perhaps then, they would learn. Also, perhaps not.

BTW, I just gotta ask, Matthew, what do you need those lamps for?

Posted by Mervyn Collard (Member # 916) on 08-12-2001, 06:15 PM:

In the united Kingdon the company I work for normally runs about 10 to 15 minutes of trailers after the advertisement reel which in total take about 25 minutes before the feature starts.
The majority of trailers are the ones we want to show for forthcoming product and normally on the feature there is only one trailer supplied. Of course the majority of trailer in Britain have to be paid for - hired, whic I have always found amazing that the theatre should pay for the distribuors advertising. The same applies to posters.

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