TEASE ME, TEASE ME

Not sure whether you've come across the trailer of the new Liam Neeson film, Unknown, but it really is a thing to behold. It gives you the entire plot in about 60 seconds. It's remarkable. The most amazing thing is that it's a film that obviously fancies itself as a bit if a mysterious thriller, look at the name. Yet in the trailer we get introduced to Neeson's character, see him head to Berlin, get involved in a car crash, wake up, can't find his wife, manages to find her, she doesn't recognise him, then someone else claims to be him, Neeson doesn't exist, speak to a German copper, see a few car chases and it builds to a thrilling climax. The only thing we don't see is the final denouement. It's not so much a trailer, more a micro film.



It got me thinking back to how trailers once were. Do you remember the teaser trailer? The one that springs to mind immediately is Jurassic Park. You see a miner digging, coming across amber and then you get the Jurassic Park title screen. No dinosaurs, no actors, nothing. It was so effective though. We all knew it was about dinosaurs, we knew it was Spielberg, but that was enough. It was an event, and showing us any of it would have distilled it. The teaser trailer heightens the anticipation.



What has happened to the teaser trailer? It's a rare, rare breed now. We are now treated to 30 seconds of the best bits of the film, quickly cut together, with the music getting louder as it reaches its conclusion. Imagine if the Jurassic Park trailer showed the moment we first see the brachiosaurus, or T-Rex demolishing a car. Would those scenes have been as memorable had we seen them on the telly the day before? No, of course not. Would The Usual Suspects have packed the she same punch had we seen a trailer showing Kevin Spacey go from cripple to healthy as he walks down the street, or Bruce Willis coming to terms with reality in the Sixth Sense. No, of course not. Its the same as Sky Sports doing an advert for a pre-recorded match and showing all the goals and the result. You just wouldn't bother tuning in.

There have been some interesting uses of teaser trailers in recent years as film studios tries to adapt to the many different forms of marketing that now exist. Cloverfield was a great example, the trailer giving nothing away whatsoever, not even a name, just a date. Then fake websites are created where people use the internet to try to hunt down any information that they can.



J J Abrahms was at it again with his Star Trek reboot, the first trailer just showing the Starship Enterprise in construction, just enough to get people excited about it. The fan boys (and girls) know exactly what it is, it's referencing, it's nodding, it's not treating the audience like fools. Designed solely to get us chomping the bit.



These types of trailer seem to occur before a film has gone into production, where there is no actual footage to show off.  They need to announce it on to the scene. Tron did something similar, releasing a trailer just to gauge the reaction of audiences to see whether it was worth following through with the idea. The ultimate teaser trailer, so effective it is justification for creating the film. The closer a film comes to release though, the more we see of it, to the point where we now have these incredibly irritating tv spots where you get a lengthy trailer and then supposed members of the general public saying how great it is. They clearly haven't been dragged off the street (why all the make up), it only serves to insult the intelligence of the UK cinema goer even further.

The fault clearly lays at the door of the marketing people. I have heard many interviews with film makers where they voice their dissatisfaction at the trailers that are promoting their film. The most recent example was Simon Pegg and Nick Frost talking about their film Paul, they were resigned to the fact that the trailer took just the most broad jokes on offer and decided to show nothing of the interesting religion/atheism subtext. The marketing people think they know best, and in all honesty they may do, Paul was after all a massive success, but a number of people I know, who are all Pegg/Frost fans, were put off the film because of the trailer. Surely that can't be a good thing, turning fans against a film.

Another good recent example is Monsters. The trailer for that made it look like a non-stop action epic, where the reality was that it was a low-key love story set against the backdrop of an alien invasion. The creatures themselves were incidental. Instead, the marketing men decided to make it seem to be something that it wasn't. This might get a certain type of demographical bum on the seats but those people who do attend based on that 30 second trailer are inevitably disappointed, not because of the film itself, but because it isn't what it was sold to them as. If a studio believes in a film as much to back it, go to all the trouble of distributing it, you might think they would have the confidence in its premise to market it on that basis. Monsters has become a massive hit, not because of a team of execs, but because it is an original, striking and great film.

Essentially all I'm saying is that studios have become lazy. There is no sense of creating anticipation anymore, it's all exposure, exposure, exposure. Leaked clips, released stills, lengthy trailers showing the crash, bang and the wallop. Whatever happened to the Blair Witch approach? That was a phenomenon, was it real, wasn't it. No one knew. A supporting documentary created to add to the mystic, A film made for next to nothing turned into one of the most profitable films of all time. Its no coincidence. Get creative. They know how to do it, they are capable. At the end of Iron Man 2 is what might as well be a teaser trailer for Thor. A big hole in the ground, then you see Thor's hammer. Simple. And totally effective. I was excited about seeing it. Now they release a trailer showing the baddies, the effects and Thor in his gear, I'm completely nonplussed.

Cinema goers are just like any red-blooded human. We want a bit of foreplay....build up to the main event and don't leak it until we really, really want it. It's best to leave us wanting more.....