Trailers : Stuck in a time warp?
Many a time, I feel that when I wrote The MBA Gang, it was me that I had based it on… for there is no day I don’t spend drawing business models for a film project, marketing layouts for a “in my dreams” film, reviewing a movie or tracking the various news and knowledge sites on cinema… so while I am “so busy” signing sheets of vacation leave requests from my staff, I sit here thinking about trailers…
And for simplicity sake I’ll stick to Bollywood trailers – atleast those shown on television.
Now I don’t know who or how or when… but there seemed to be once, a group of wise guys somewhere in India who decided that they are going to change the face of trailers and thereby the marketing of the film… it will be a complete new face… and so the MTV Song thingy replaced the traditional trailers.
This is what usually happens on a usual Desi TV Channel
8pm : Hit list – songs of hit or flop films are shown
8:30pm : Top Twenty this week – ok so now you have 20 biggest hits of the week shown by the channel. And depending on what channel it is you may see songs which you saw when you were a healthy minus two years off from your present age.
9:00pm: My Choice or I Like or whatever – Now here a celebrity (depends on your definition of “celebrity”) comes on screen and tells us her/his favorite songs… so the MTV Video songs start playing again… some that you watched at the 8pm show, some in the 830pm show and some which you will be watching on the 10pm show, an hour later.
9:30pm: Trailer Junction… !!!! Yesss… ok it’s really exciting to see glimpses of what’s coming up… The show starts… some forthcoming Movie’s title flashes on your screen… song starts… and it plays… and plays… and plays… and plays… till you have heard the WHOLE DAMN FUCKING SONG… Next movie trailer… Name of the movie flashes on your screens… a song starts… and it plays… and plays… and plays… and plays… till you have heard another entire song…
The entire process is repeated again and again… till they have irritated you enough to make you run with your head pointing towards your television and crashing your head inside that screen…
The point is when did the people who make and design trailers stop thinking and start snoring? I know that the films producers may be trying to crunch in that small allocated hour, a maximum of what they can… but could they go easy on the songs? As it is the songs are often played on other shows of the channel… why not use your trailer to “intelligently” market your movie?
As pathetic the state of trailer-making affairs may sound… please hold your breath… it gets worse.
I remember watching this trailer of a Sunil Shetty/Saif Ali Khan starrer in the early 90s where the trailer ended up showing the entire movie… right up to the shot on how the two heroes, mentioned above, kill the villain in the climax, right there in the trailer…
Who’s idea was that???? I mean… what the hell were you trying to show via such a trailer…
You can visualize the producer sitting on his extra leathery chair in an air conditioned “kholi” where you have to scream to be heard over and above the noise the made in 1972 air conditioner is making… Oh Channel Q is asking for X amount of money for a 45 second slot… Mishraji… ask editor to edit the entire 6 and a half hour movie into a 45 second movie… I want to squeeze the maximum out of that 45 seconds
If 40 years from now, if you scratch your head and try to think on why Bollywood makes only 45 second movies and not those long 3 hour movies… you know now… how it all got started.
But you know what the answer from the “thinkers” in Bollywood is going to be… This is what the masses like
Masses?
Did someone do a head count or a survey or collected some kind of reliable stats to show that such trailers are what attracts a tele-viewer? If the mis-perceptions/conceptions that decide what gets done and not done in Bollywood is for a second given the benefit of doubt, it’s quite painful to consider the boggling brain twister of a fact that the tha-thaiyya trailers are equally appreciated from the interiors Lotta-pur to the exteriors of Los Angeles.
It points to another factor that has been known but given up on… a reason that causes degeneration of movies every decade again and again… the false perceptions and the locked doors for any science and management to enter the design and concept rooms of a typical Bollywood office space.
Besides the trailers being forced to wear the ghagras of songs… there’s the buzz or intrigue factor that is absolutely missing in Bollywood trailers.
Take for example a recent release “Jaan-E-Man”. The trailers have been changed every since the movie was released. But lets go back to when they started bombing our tele-screens with the first original trailer made for television. As usual… it was songs… we’ve talked about that… lets move on…
What did the trailer project?
Simple… a love story…
What feeling did the average movie goer have on seeing it?
Boredom…
Honestly… the average Indian has had enough of love triangles. So unless and until you have a different twist, turn, treatment or taco in a triangle… he/she is not gonna make the effort to visit the theater. The name “triangle” for today’s audience (it can always change tomorrow) is a big put off.
But there in lies the tragedy of “Jaan-E-Man”… upon seeing it, I found that it was not at all a bad movie… the concept of triangle was used but there was no push/pull of emotions… should I go here or there in the movie except for a few minutes in the climax.
It was a fun and entertaining movie.
The trailer failed to relay this concept to the viewer. The word triangle was spelt out in so huge and bold letters that, the designers of the trailer left no room for the cine-goer to stand up, walk out and drive to the nearest theater to watch the movie.
Something must have happened, for a week after the movie’s release, the trailers are changed. And there’s a marked shift in hooking the tele-watcher.
Funny lines are used in the trailers, it moves, the songs are still intact, but they play in the background – but above all – the most important factor – everyone in the movie seems to be having FUN. It’s then that you start thinking “This doesn’t look bad at all… look at Kher, Kumar and Khan… they seem to be having fun… making jokes and all that… hey I didn’t notice that the look of the movies seems great too… ummm” … so the next thing you do is check what’s the next show of Jaan-E-Man, drive to the theater, watch it and have a good time…
Impact. Hook Point. The biggest failure of the first trailer was it slapped the tele-viewer again and again by repeatedly screaming “HEY THIS IS A TRIANGLE LOVE STORY” – Result? Don had full houses in California where Jaan-E-Man had two filled rows at the most.
And I’m impressed by Salaam-E-Ishq’s teaser on the tele. Again though there’s a background music/song going vroom vroom, the impact gets created by showing the various emotions each of the 12 characters are going through… an intelligently designed trailer sells it’s first ticket right on the very first time it’s showed on the television.
Though I’m eagerly waiting to see how Honeymoon Travels comes out… quite honestly the pictures (stills) of the movie being released to the media don’t have a quality of “pull you in”… it’s very distant and does not make the viewer want to take a second look.
And I think that’s where Spiderman succeeds. Even though the name now is sufficient to cash in another billion or close, the people behind the project, just haven’t given up on hard work and using their brains creatively. The Intrigue factor in Spiderman 3 is powerful and hard hitting. It makes you want to count the number of days left for May 2007.
With the film and blogging communities now finding common grounds… there may soon come a time where people will become more sensitive to a movie than otherwise. No longer will producers keep a movie under wraps and a month before it’s release – unleash a movie’s trailers expecting the audience to lap it up and buy the first day first show tickets. The dynamics of trailer impact may change the more a project team interacts with the cinema fanatic online. Nothing needs to be revealed. Nothing needs to be told. But the sensitivity factor hugely is spiked up… that may get even an “ugh” movie some decent sale… Ever heard of something called Snakes On A Plane?
Of course ultimately it’s the quality that will pull the viewer in. Lets assume for a second that the quality of “Chickoo aur Chackoo” is fantastic… bad trailer, bad perception… no one goes… how many times will the “word of the mouth” work in the favor of a movie? Not everytime will it result in a “Sholay” or a “Munnabhai MBBS”…
Plus you are looking at a bad investment… having invested in designing and relaying the trailer on TV Channels with zero spike in the interest towards your product….
It’s time you give a serious thought to it… maybe if you could switch off that hummer of an air conditioner in your office, you’ll be able to hear my thoughts clearly… 
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Nice article Oz bhai….trailers do have a huge “pulling factor”. Remember Dhoom( first part) where first they came up with a teaser with just bike sounds….vrooooomm vroooomm and then the title..Dhoom…later they came up with trailers..that builds up curiosity not only in the movie but also its next trailer…The first time this kinda thing happened( i might be wrong) was when they started advertising for Pepsi…one of the first Ads of Pepsi was feat. Juhi Chawla and Remo Fernandez…the teaser went like this..
” Are you ready for the magic?”…with about 10 secs of coverage on both the lead actors…No one knew what were they talking about and then at the end of the trailer they had this
Magic begins Wed so..and so.. date 6:00PM
Everyone in India was hooked to watch…what? an Advertisement for Pepsi…
If the teaser for a Cola product can generate so much curiosity..why not use this marketing strategy for Film Publicity..keep building the anticipation factor in the viewer so much so that he “HAS” to go quench his thirst in the cinema hall…
As I have said before: We suck at marketing. It is not our forte. For example, Kabul Express Trailers: The promos are promoting the soundtrack but movie, imo. Since it is a documentary-film I thought they could have promoted in a different film. Why resort only to songs?You won’t see a Hindi Movie trailer without a song – is it because song-less trailers does not excite the audience or there is not enough creative out there to…?
(sorry.. it’s an early morning, for me..)
correction: I thought they could have promoted the film in a different MANNER.
It’s so true though, there was a time I enjoyed trailor junction as i thought i’d get a good teaser but it’s mainly songs. If I wanted a music review I’d look for the charts section not trailors.
Black had some good promo’s from what I recall, not seen the pepsi ad’s here so no comment but when I see previews of Hollywood movies in the trailer section they usually get it right, they try to capture it’s audiences attention gagging to know more.
You have a small slot – think about what message you wish to convey carefully. Giving the story away isn’t really exciting nor is the singing and dancing but some curiousity always helps.
There are mini Oscars from making trailers abroad, its a million dollar industry, out here, savvy producers are just picking up on the art, because now we have a ‘marketing dvision’ of course many of our trailers and posters are ‘inspired’ too, but some of the most original and mindblowing promos have been made ‘for’ RGV, Darna Mana Hai/Zaroori Hai teasers and poster campaign, Gayab, Satya, my wifes murder, i know some of the editors who have made these promos, very intelligent guys. infact there is one guy who took 2 weeks an cut a promo of Black, it was never used, but its legend in the industry, he just used shots of hands!!! it was an awe inspiring promo
I think yashraj movies have the best trailers . the target audience knows exactly what to expect.
Without giving too much away , the trailers do the trick.
Then there is some one like Mr Mani ratnam who would not give away even 5 % of the story line.Will keep everythin under wraps.
I have seen a similar pattern amongst hollywood trailers(though do not watch many english films).
They give away the story in such a way that the viewer is attracted towards the concept.
One movie which started the trend of showing public reactions to viewing was jab pyar kissi se hota hai. the movie took a slow start, but the trailers showed ppl r enjoying the movie n then more ppl went to watch it.
Other movies copied it but with lesser success.
For me the success of a trailer is seen in interval of films shown in theatre. If the trailer makes the person going to his seat after gettin samosa n popcorn,stand wherever he is and forget his popcorn, that is the best trailer.
Earlier, cinema halls used to show trailers of upcoming films during interval. What works or what not is always confusing.
There was not a single word about Kalia and Satte pe satta when they were released and on morning of friday, people saw the posters of these films and as usual because it was AB’s films, cinema halls were filled with audience.
How it happened but just before the release of Shan, DD showed song – Yamma Yamma in its Chitrahar program which used to telecast on every wednesday and people eagerly waited for Friday to come to see the film where a bald villain was sitting on high chair and AB’s team was dancing.
or perhaps with AB it was different equation. His films did not depend heavily on the promo factor.
Kranti was publicised heavily and was a major hit but Rajia Sultan could not get benefits of advertising, perhaps becasue it took too much time in releasing.
I think point is to generate curiosity in the audience and it can be done by anything. If star cast is great then audience already feel curiosity, or some special thing about the film should come before audience through any means- print media or electronic media.
China Gate was heavily promoted and Ajay Tiwari’s character was promoted but film could not pull many audience inspite of Chhama Chhama.
RGV’s experimental cinema certainly needs this curiosity factor otherwise people wont go to watch his factory’s product. He has been dependent on marketing too much and this is the reason his equations with audience has been changed. people went with hope that he is bringing out products of quality equal to Rangeela, Satya, Company but got disappointment.
Mahesh Bhatt believes that any publicity is good publicity and thats why before his films so many talks are in market. But same phiosophy did not work for Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai and their Umrao Jaan is not able to sing happy songs.
Indian audience is consumer at the end of the day or say every Indian is having consumer mentallity deep down and if you make good promos but your film is not what you show in trailers then he wont forgive you. Money matters a lot in India and if film makers dont remember this then he is in a difficult situation.
Back up your film with same quality as you wish to show through trailers and you get support from audience.
Otherwise, except big cities, till now marketing is not very respected word in Indian psyche. Till recently matrimonial ads were not seen with high respect and people used to feel that those who have difficulty in marriage go for advertisement otherwise in India where everybody is eager to marry how come you could not get proper match.
Same philosophy goes to any kind of product.
For knowers promos and films may be different case and they can appreciate trailers but wont go for film. e.g in the case of Snakes on the plane.
or James Bond.If you dont like particular subject or genere of films you wont go.
To bring an audience from 0 interest to some interest is arduous task but if he already has some interest then its easy to allure him and only here trailers can work.
Hey Oz, nice thoughts. But about all that dhinchak-dhanchak….mostly everyone follows the same principle. The music has to be “hit” n then only the movie can work. So trailers are nothing but just to promote the music n not the movie. These days producers make good money cz of music rights n so the music company needs to make profit. Many big music companies release the songs instead of any real promos. N if the director is not big enough, he to cant say a word to music companies. N what Suparn said about RGV n their innovative promos…. completely agree. I think one big factor was that cz these films had no songs to promote the music. So they had the chance to use their brains. N thats why many times I have felt chaeted by RGV cz their promos are so good…u want to c the film n the films turn out to be his muse’s video shot from every posssible angle…like Gayab.
I can’t speak to the trailers as I don’t have enough knowledge, but reading the first part of your post, I thought you could have been talking about MTV.
Or, maybe that is the point of reference used by the shows of which you speak?
oz, dil ki baat keh di tune.. have been wondering the same for some time now. among the recent spate of films, it was the trailers which put me off from watching jaan-e-man, KANK, and umrao jaan (though i don’t think any trailer for the last two could’ve pulled me in). too slow and mushy, and gives me that “been there, seen that” feeling. you would think that at least with the big stars, the movie could be marketed well, yet they go down the same beat-down, trodden track of showing a bunch of songs..
i’m glad you mentioned “snakes on a plane” too.. i had a ball watching this movie!! with a title like “snakes on a plane” i would’ve watch it even with NO publicity.. but the internet hype helped garner whatever initial success it did. and it was a cult hit, and deservedly so. (did anyone else enjoy giving their friends and family phone calls from samuel l. jackson from the SOAP website?? talk about SMART marketing) most hollywood trailers do make a below-avg movie seem way above avg simply thru their trailers, something the hindi film industry really needs to pick up on.
we talk about trailers and i see something creative like this today… now who wouldn’t wanna see “scary poppins”??
)
awesome editing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic
Great article- RGV probably revolutionized the trailor scene here- remember Darna Mana Hai’s superb promotion? Any way, after a lacklustre show for some time, Nishabd renews one’s hopes in RGV- the trailors are haunting!