Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Trailer Collections

This is topic Trailer Collections in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Peter David Bruce (Member # 4447) on 11-27-2007, 07:42 PM:

This isnt something I am doing, but I wonder... does anybody on here collect trailers, when they arent being used anymore and the supplier wants to melt them down? We have to send all of ours back as each is counted.

I often see whole boxes of trailer reels for sale on ebay... just wonder if anyone on here makes a habit of it themselves?

Peter

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-28-2007, 12:07 AM:

If you don't mind my asking, where do you work that they are so anal that they actually return trailers? I know of two different chains and a few independents where they just let them pile up in big boxes in the corner of the booth; when the box gets full, they unceremoniously throw them in the dumpster. They've been doing that for decades. Some of us like to go through dumpsters for that reason.

Of course if you talk to loudly about it, some studio lawyer with the head of a roach will wake up and slither out from under some rock and start screaming that they are the property of his anus and you need to send every last one of them back so he can shove them up where they belong. I always imagine the look on their face if indeed one day every theatre in the country sent every trailer they've got laying round, send them BACK to the corporate headquarters of every studio lawyer who made a stink about it. Return them COLLECT....after a good amount of vinegar syndrome has set in. [Razz]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-28-2007, 12:42 AM:

I know a few people who collect them on a regular basis since they have their own 35mm projection units in their homes.

I usually send them back in the cans for the depots to throw in the recycle bin with the finished prints that are destined for destruction.

Selling them, especially the new and sealed ones on eBone is a bit risky, esp with Disney, Paramount, Fox - for they monitor eBay sales and have agreements with eBone to close down those auctions that has their trailers up for let to the lucky bidder. They don't get so panicky if one of their old ones pop up since it's way out of release to worry about.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-28-2007, 09:27 AM:

Which is kind of a stupid thing to devote any resources to at all when you think about it. What the hell is anyone going to do with a trailer? Bootleg it onto a DVD and sell it? Who the hell would be stupid enough to buy it? And if anyone did buy it, who cares? You can download HD versions of them from Quicktime.com. I should download a bunch of them, mix them together onto a DVD and list that on eBay and see what happens.

I remember asking for an international version of the Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire trailer, but no one wanted to grab me one because "they all had to go back." I wonder if this is something more closely monitored outside of the states.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-28-2007, 11:04 AM:

I remember back in the old National Screen Service days, if you didn't send back trailers you would get a nasty letter. (They did this because they would send them out to 2nd run theatres. Imagine that, trailers going to more than one location! We were still getting used trailers probably into the early 1980s.) I suppose you probably would get an invoice eventually if you kept a trailer, but we nearly always sent ours back on time, I'm not sure on that.

Trailers used to be wrapped with a numbered band (before the days of bar codes). I always thought of the person who had to keep track of the numbers and the trailers....whenever I was thinking my job sucked, I figured that job was worse.

Posted by Peter David Bruce (Member # 4447) on 11-28-2007, 01:38 PM:

NSS control about 60% of all our trailers... hence us having to send them back. the rest are sent by MPD (Moving Print Distribution) in the UK.

One of my friends managed to wangle a grindhouse trailer (as it was never shown in the UK - the film, OR the trailer). he sold it to a tarantino collector and made a mint!

[Smile]

All I hear is when they are sent back.. they all get smelted down to its core elements and put back into the production process for the next set of trailers needing to be made.... quite a process ive heard.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-29-2007, 02:55 AM:

NSS used to keep trailer inventory for DECADES -- we played classics what were 10, 20 even 30yr old, and you could get trailers for them well into the early 80s or whenever it was NSS went belly up.

I remember I had played CAMELOT and got a beautiful IBT trailer for it and sent it back like a good boy. Then 6 months later when we booked it again, all the trailers were "junked," as my contact at NSS told me. She then went so far as to ask why I sent the trailer back -- said they had stopped tracking returns about five years earlier. How nice...stab me first, then throw acid in the wound.

Posted by Peter David Bruce (Member # 4447) on 11-29-2007, 03:48 PM:

so nss dont track them anymore???? woah thats a trick i dont wana miss!

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 11-30-2007, 08:15 AM:

Frank's referring to NSS US not UK