Paramount-pictures

There Will Be a Wonderful Life. Clip of the Day

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

In response to Paramount’s consolidation of the marketing divisions of Paramount Pictures and Paramount Vantage, I went looking for a mash-up trailer that would give us a sense of what we’re in for. Because advertising for specialty films is typically different from advertising for major studio films. But seeing as Vantage has already done a fair enough job lately trying to make a documentary look like a teen comedy, the consolidation may not really be that noticeable after all.

Anyway, I couldn’t find a good mash-up that re-cut a recent independent film to resemble a blockbuster, so here’s something else entirely that I found during my search. It’s a Wonderful Life “made to look like the movie is about George Bailey’s descent into madness.” Consider it a belated celebration of James Stewart’s centennial (he would have been 100 on May 20th). Or consider it merely a fun re-imagining of a classic. And consider this assignment for mash-up enthusiasts: how about a reverse re-imagining of There Will Be Blood as a Capra movie?

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Classics

How to Spot a Fake — The ‘Star Trek’ Teaser Trailer

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

The above trailer is a fake. The real teaser for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek should be attached to prints of Cloverfield this weekend and is scheduled to hit the interweb next Monday (it will likely be leaked earlier). Apparently some people were tricked last week into thinking this fan-made teaser was the real deal, but that just seems ludicrous. Sure, the video is put together decently enough. Sure, there have been some teasers that give us no new footage save for a new logo. However, there is nothing about this teaser that seems appropriate to how Paramount should want to market the new Trek. If the studio had actually released this, I would have believed its executives knew nothing about movie marketing whatsoever.

First of all, Paramount would never want to sell this reboot/prequel thing to the people who would most appreciate the trailer’s use of music, voice-over and footage from past Star Trek movies. Instead the studio is likely to capitalize more on the fact that the movie is fairly separate from the rest of the Trek franchise. It will want to and need to show us something fresh in order to get the attention of us non-Trekkies. After all, Abrams has said from the beginning that his movie will not necessarily be for the fans. So, expect the real teaser to show us some actual footage, preferably of the new actors portraying the characters. Then it can also show us the Enterprise and then it will want to show us the logo we’ve seen on the teaser posters.

The Trekkies all know there’s a new Star Trek coming out this Christmas. So there’s no need to make a teaser trailer that appeals to them, especially if it isn’t going to have anything new. Yet at the same time, there’s no need to make a fake teaser trailer that’s marketed to the Trekkies when those fans are going to be the first to realize it’s a fake (which is what happened). I guess some hardcore fans actually appreciated the thing, but really the only people who could have bought it are those minor Trekkies who are just on the outskirts of real fandom. Seems like a wasted effort to me.

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