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THX Trailer Contest

THX cinema trailers have wowed movie audiences for decades. Some of Hollywood’s greatest sound and visual effects artists have collaborated to produce them. Now, it’s your turn. Put your directing skills to the test with the first ever THX trailer contest.

We’ll provide access to the THX logo and THX Deep Note™ audio effect; you design and produce your own THX trailer. Then, send it to us before May 23, 2006.

The top 10 submissions will debut on THX.com and receive an exclusive THX Director’s Chair.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-31-2006, 03:15 PM:
 
I can't wait for Joe's. It will undoubtedly start with him wearing a ratty old undershirt, with his hair messed up from not washing it for days, sitting at the kitchen table eating the more incredibly sized bowl of beans you have ever seen. It's just him eating beans for about 10 seconds, then he pauses with a disturbed look on his face, leans to one side and as you see his face tighten up, a loud blast of gas is heard which turns into the THX deep note.

I would run it in my theater.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-31-2006, 05:04 PM:
 
Wait, hasn't that already been done?

We have the THX WOW SPL JBL SRS trailer on here!
Scroll Down to Randy's Link
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-31-2006, 06:20 PM:
 
They want me to spend my time and money to produce a trailer for them, and all they're offering in return is the opportunity to win a chair? Screw that. They could at least offer a prize that would represent more than a fraction of the production cost of a decent trailer.
 

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Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 03-31-2006, 10:29 PM:
 
I can hear Andy Summers's shrieks of glee ... from across the pond.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-01-2006, 01:30 AM:
 

quote: Scott Norwood

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They want me to spend my time and money to produce a trailer for them, and all they're offering in return is the opportunity to win a chair?

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That's the new American business method of graphic design.

Instead of hiring a professional graphics person armed with talent, qualifications (perhaps even a degree), just come up with a "contest." Post the details of it in any public forum, with the top prize usually less than what a real designer would have charged. Have a lot of regular people take stabs at it. Maybe you'll luck out and have a few professionals unable to get past their egos and develop some cool stuff gratis.

In the end, the approach is "throw enough shit at the wall and eventually one log is going to stick."
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-01-2006, 02:25 PM:
 
You guys don't think they're doing this to get something created for them for nothing, to use for real exhibition purposes, do you? It's just a promotional gimmick to get people thinking about THX, talking about it, and showing their "creation" off to others.

There's a huge THX "product placement" in the trailer for Over the Hedge that came with Ice Age 2.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-01-2006, 03:14 PM:
 
Well, hehe, with the tiny, low-rez JPEG logo they're providing to contest entrants there's little way how anyone is going to come up with something truly professional looking which THX can use in theaters.

For such a thing, you'll have to download some PDF manuals from Pioneer, Onkyo, Denon or others. You can use Adobe Illustrator to extract vector-based THX logos from there. Then you can take the vector object into a 3D app, bevel it, apply textures, lights, etc. and animate.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 04-01-2006, 06:46 PM:
 
At first glance, I thought this had me written all over it; having produced 2D and 3D-animated trailers in 35mm already.

Then, I read Scott's response.

A chair. A stinkin' chair.
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-01-2006, 07:59 PM:
 
If I had the time to do one, I'd put in some deliberate technical errors to show how far THX's standards have declined over the years. If I produced it on film I'd make sure to scratch the negative, and make it impossible to frame properly.
 

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Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 04-06-2006, 11:07 PM:
 
I think Bobby is onto something here. I have seen several companies now running contests to see who can make the best commercial on their website.

*RANT*

If I see one more commercial that ends with "check out our website to see what happens" I am going to scream. If they honestly think I am going to waste my time going to their website and download the rest of their commercial so they can try to sell me something the must be nuts. Especially given that I have dial-up.

[ 04-07-2006, 07:42 AM: Message edited by: Joshua Waaland ]
 

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-07-2006, 02:35 AM:
 
Well, it says a director's chair for all 10 finalists. Does it say anywhere what the chosen one gets for them to acquire the rights to use the chosen trailer? No? Did anybody write and ask?
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-07-2006, 03:14 AM:
 
I started on one, but keep forgetting to work on it. I certainly don't want to put any or much effort into it. As funny as Brad's idea may be, I think setting up the camera would require too much work when I can instead just sit here, punch a few keys on my keyboard, click my mouse a few times, export and be done with it.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 04-07-2006, 09:54 AM:
 
I would try but every time I go near the THX (Copyright THX. No do not look, stop that or we will tell .) Web site I feel the $'s Leaching out of me.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-07-2006, 01:35 PM:
 

quote: Joe Redifer

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I certainly don't want to put any or much effort into it.

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Between this and the "website is going away" message at Joe's website, I fear he's going to self destruct or implode or return to his home planet or something. Somebody do an intervention, quick!
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-07-2006, 02:50 PM:
 
It's just for fun, but you can insert five of your own images into the new Kodak Gallery Commercial, and share it with family and friends:

http://createyourown.kodak.com/cgi-bin/create.pl?app=commercial&laf=gallery
 

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Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-07-2006, 09:57 PM:
 
Chevy lets you make your own "commercial" online, they might be regretting it though...

OMG Could this link be any longer?

[ 04-08-2006, 01:18 PM: Message edited by: Adam Martin ]
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-08-2006, 02:18 AM:
 
OK here is my OFFICIAL entry for the THX trailer contest. I didn't want to put much time and effort into it, and I didn't. Bite me.

Click here to watch 3.9MB (no compressed header on this, so don't let it play automatically when the download starts... and it WILL try).

I wish I could e-mail it to THX or something like that. I don't want to actually waste packaging materials and the such plus my time to actually send it on disc.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-08-2006, 03:17 AM:
 
I like it, but you left out "low resolution DVDs". Be sure and add that in before you send it to THX for approval.
 

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Posted by Cory Isemann (Member # 2517) on 04-10-2006, 11:13 AM:
 
Joe, that's a modern masterpiece. You'll win for sure.
 

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 04-10-2006, 06:26 PM:
 
Joe,

Wonderful work...and unfortunately, true.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 04-11-2006, 04:16 AM:
 
Joe

Do you work in the backroom for THX.

A Masterpiece
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-11-2006, 03:32 PM:
 
Hahaha That's awesome!
 

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Posted by Cody Martin (Member # 2523) on 04-11-2006, 08:28 PM:
 
That is great(Y)
 

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Posted by Jason M Miller (Member # 2597) on 04-12-2006, 10:03 AM:
 
that is so cool
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-02-2006, 12:32 AM:
 
The winners

I use the term "winners" very loosely!
 

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Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 07-02-2006, 02:20 AM:
 
"We'll certify anything" I love it I love it I love it. So nice I had to say it..... three times. I will make one correction tho. should add" for a price" and show dollar signs. I may have to get that printed to 35mm as a prank on the manager. Anyone know where I can get it done, and how much?

Grr, I'm not getting any vid on the winners, just sound.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-02-2006, 02:53 AM:
 
If you're not getting any video from the THX site, try upgrading to Quicktime 7.
 

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Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 07-02-2006, 03:43 AM:
 
Oooh, good point. :Runs off. Faint banging, cursing, chainsaw noises, and a shrill scream: Hmm, you're right. I have 6.3. I'll got get the new stuff now.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-02-2006, 05:02 AM:
 
What a pain. I'm curious as to what won, but not necessarily enough to screw with upgrading.
 

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Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 07-02-2006, 05:21 AM:
 
Yeah, I was able to update to 6.5 via the internal update function, but that's not enough. I went to quicktime's site and downloaded 7.1. The installer crashes everytime. No help on the quicktime site, but found some on Installsheild's site, but still won't install. And I can't rip them off of the site, and convert them to another format, becase they're protected.
 

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 07-02-2006, 08:38 AM:
 
I don't like most of them. Too much filler.

The power of the THX trailer is Deep Note. Nothing else matters...just hit that and hit it hard.

I did really like BEYOND IMAGINATION. The visual seemed to capture the spirit of Deep Note. THAT looks like a THX trailer, and is certainly better than the new one.

Still like Grandpa yelling "TURN IT UP" the best!
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-02-2006, 12:15 PM:
 
Charles, I can download them from the site easily. Not that I'd want to, but I had to in order to check the codec which is H.264 which is a version of MPEG 4. Of course maybe you need QT Pro in order to allow the SAVE function to unlock. I'm not sure where, but I know you can get an H.264 codec for QT 6. I had it on my machine I think. But then again my machine is a Mac.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-02-2006, 01:12 PM:
 
Just about all the winning trailer entries were cheezy. Too cheezy for THX to use. The only one I liked at all was "Luminous" by Michael Swindler. Pretty simple and tasteful concept.

I think its also funny how many of the contest entrants had to create their own vector-based THX logos to animate in 3D.
 

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Posted by Jennifer Pan (Member # 2035) on 07-02-2006, 06:48 PM:
 
I liked the one where the guy's shirt get's ripped off. Hot...
 

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Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 07-04-2006, 03:44 AM:
 
I think Jennifer needs to spend some time in the walk in cooler, to cool off. :-) I have a huuuge codec pack installed, which does support mpeg-4 and its subcodecs. I'll have to see if I can turn quicktime off, or somehow force the vids to load in my other player.
 

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Posted by Jennifer Pan (Member # 2035) on 07-04-2006, 06:53 AM:
 
Dude, a walk in the cooler isn't going to stop me. You're new, you'll get used my horniness soon enough. I also suggest you buy a new computer. There is no point in using the thing if you can't have an updated version of Quicktime.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-04-2006, 10:00 AM:
 
Although I like computers and all sorts of movie tech stuff, given the choice I'd rather talk about sex. More fun subject. Gotta have those priorities straight!

 

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Posted by Jennifer Pan (Member # 2035) on 07-04-2006, 11:50 AM:
 
Oh Bobby... Let's go start a sex forum. For people who talk about it... but don't really get none..
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 07-04-2006, 05:17 PM:
 

quote: Joe Redifer

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here is my OFFICIAL entry for the THX trailer contest.

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Joe, you are a funny, funny man. Good job!

Btw, for future reference, real trailers are 24fps.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-04-2006, 07:00 PM:
 
I know that, but I think they wanted them in 4:3, 29.97.
 

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Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 07-04-2006, 09:34 PM:
 
Computer's fine, Dual P4-Xenons. I can do almost anything it seems. Just I've had crashes in the past, alot of them, and as you probably know, windows is never the same fater a 100 or so crashes. A faulty powersupply caused that, whenever the machine was under heavy load, the 3.3v line to the CPUs would drop out. In short, I just need to reinstall windows, but am too lazy to.
 

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