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The Problems With Movie Advertising

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Advertising - Cinema Screen TrailerAdvertising for movies is important, without advertising there would be no way of informing people that a movie is coming out. It is essentially the point at which the art of movie making takes a back seat and the business of movie making takes over, with trailers, posters and other promotional material being created to manipulate and entice audiences into parting with their hard earned cash in exchange for a couple of hours entertainment. But in recent years, trailers and other mediums used to advertise movies often give away too much of what they are trying to sell.

Details that spoil plot twists, show all of the funniest moments in a comedy or an incredible visual of a special effects movie in the trailer may convince audiences into seeing a movie, but then backfire when the audience’s experience is a disappointing one, resulting in bad word of mouth and ultimately a poor financial performance at the box office.

Trailers can contain any footage from in the movie (and on occasion, even some that’s not), and if you’ve seen the trailer enough times, if iconic enough, you’ll remember them. When the time comes to finally see the movie, that character who you’ve just seen killed 90 minutes into a two hour movie..? They’re not dead, and even though you just saw them die with your own eyes, you know they’re not dead. You know that thanks to the magic of movie making they’ll miraculously be saved, turn out to be a twin, cloned, or brought back to life by some other means in the next 30 minutes, because you haven’t seen that iconic image showing them alive and well that you saw in the trailer, the one that stuck with you and was an influencing factor in your decision to see the movie in the first place.

Fast & Furious 6 clipTrailers are not the only problem, before a recent screening of Iron Man 3 there was the usual advertising to sit through, then an assortment of trailers – all par for the course, and in my opinion, part of the whole movie-going experience. I enjoy seeing the trailers (at least the non-spoilery ones) on the big screen, but then there was a special preview for the upcoming “Fast & Furious 6” movie, Introduced by one of it’s cast members, it wasn’t an exclusive new trailer, or some kind of behind the scenes feature, no, it was an ENTIRE FIVE MINUTE SCENE from the movie. And not just any five minute scene, it was an ENTIRE ACTION SEQUENCE.

Now, some people may be wondering what the big deal is, it’s a clip from an upcoming movie? Well let me explain. Call me crazy, but when it comes to seeing a movie for the first time, I value my ignorance of the movie’s events and storyline. I’m fairly perceptive, maybe more-so than your average movie goer, and enjoy a well written and put together movie where I’m given enough details to make my own sense of what’s going on, of what all I’m seeing means. Sometimes, I’ll figure it all out, and sometimes I won’t see it coming, and that’s a huge part of what people enjoy about movies.

Being amazed by how things develop is the end result of basic storytelling, but showing an entire action sequence weeks ahead of the movie’s release is just contemptible, not only to the audience, but also to the product that this kind of advertising is trying to sell. I have enjoyed the “Fast & Furious” series so far, I’m quite looking forwards to the sixth movie, but now one of the biggest issues I’m going to have with it is that during a fairly fun action sequence, when I should be excited and having a sense of action, I’ll be bored because I’m waiting to get to the end of the five minutes I’ve already seen.

Mad MenAdvertising has come a long way since the days shown in things like Mad Men, the advertising executive that made the decision to release this entire scene ahead of the movie clearly has an idea how to sell something, but has already lowered the value of the product being advertised. Thank you very much Mr marketing, you have already lowered my experience of the movie to that of boredom during, of all scenes, an action scene – hopefully not the climactic one of the movie. I’m guessing they’re the kind of person who reads a murder novel starting at the end so that they already know who the killer is. Idiot.

Posters and other material can be just as bad, and in recent years, through laziness this has gotten worse. Gone are the days when great pieces of art are commissioned to create iconic and breathtaking images for a movie’s poster art, now we get images captured directly from the movie and given the Photoshop treatment. “Oblivion” was one of the better recent examples, with shots showing the desolate wasteland and ruined cities of Earth, which amazed and created interest without giving away any plot spoilers or details what would affect the experience of watching the movie.

Oblivion Poster 1Oblivion Poster 2Oblivion Poster 3Oblivion Poster 4

Then there’s the complete opposite side of the coin with the new Star Trek sequel Into “Darkness”, where the posters were all character shots of the principal cast, in what appear to be screen captures from the movie, with the movie’s title printed over them. Lazy, but it at least didn’t spoil any plot points. Then there were some other, special effects shot posters which firstly showed the Starship Enterprise, in flames, as it appears to be about to crash land, and most recently, a new poster which shows the ship under attack, showing the attacking ship (which is clearly of a similar design – make of that what you will) in full detail. This is a poster, not a trailer that you can try to avoid, this is on display in most cinema foyers and will be on display when you’re queuing to buy your ticket FOR this movie! Unless you’re blind, you can’t help seeing it.

Star Trek Into Darkness Poster KirkStar Trek Into Darkness Poster SpockStar Trek Into Darkness Poster UhuraStar Trek Into Darkness Poster Sulu

Star Trek Into Darkness Poster BonesStar Trek Into Darkness Poster HarrisonStar Trek Into Darkness Poster2Star Trek Into Darkness Poster1

Were this a perfect world, trailers and flashy posters would not be necessary, but this is not a perfect world, I get that, but a little common sense and intelligence in the decisions being made would go a long way where promotion of a movie is concerned.  Things like trailers and posters are required to advertising movies, but it should never be at the cost of the final product, and the same care and attention that goes into making that should also go into promoting it.

Stay away from anything regarding a major plot point, don’t show all the funniest gags, stay the hell away from footage of the movie’s last 30 minutes (I really don’t want to know before the movie is even out that Vader is Luke’s father, or that Bruce Willis is dead), and if showing something visual where money has been spent on visuals, fair enough, use them, but use that footage and those images sparingly, give the people enough that it sticks with them and no more, think about what you may be giving away with what you choose to show.



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