THE POWER OF PREVIEWS : TEASERS, TRAILERS MAKE MARK.Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer If you were in a movie theater or watched television this year, it was impossible to avoid seeing an advertisement of the giant flying saucer flying saucer: see unidentified flying objects. from ``Independence Day'' blowing up the White House. ``It scared the hell out of me the first time I saw it,'' recalls Brian Greene Brian Greene (born February 9, 1963), is a theoretical physicist and one of the best-known string theorists. Since 1996 he has been a professor at Columbia University. Biography Born in New York City, Greene was a prodigy in mathematics. , a Downey resident and frequent moviegoer mov·ie·go·er n. One who goes to see movies. mov  ie·go ing adj. .
``Something about seeing the White House explode really shook my
confidence.''
The effectiveness of that moment - pieced together by Intralink Film Graphics of West Hollywood West Hollywood A community of southern California northeast of Beverly Hills. It is mainly residential. Population: 36,600. under the supervision of 20th Century Fox - helped make ``ID4'' this year's must-see film, with domestic ticket sales topping $300 million. ``The trailer is not the only reason that people will see the movie but it's the most important element,'' said Craig Murray, owner of Burbank-based trailer specialist Craig Murray Productions for the past decade. ``One strong image is sometimes all it takes. The White House blowing up was in everyone's mind six months before the film came out.'' The movie business has seen relatively impressive growth this year in domestic ticket sales - the first battleground for consumers' dollars - with a 4.6 percent gain to $5.68 billion expected. And growth in sectors such as home video, cable and overseas has prompted studios to boost spending on marketing movies, partly as a way of preselling the film to the secondary markets. Trailers have become prominent enough that the E! cable channel runs a weekly half-hour show called ``Coming Attractions'' that carries nothing but trailers. So studios go to specialists for trailers, which range from $50,000 for production of a typical two-minute clip to as much as $300,000, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. industry trackers. Greene is looking forward to 20th Century Fox's re-release of the ``Star Wars'' trilogy early next year, largely because of the trailer. ``They've been saying something like `See it the way it was meant to be seen,' '' he said. ``It made me think of when I was 19 or 20 and saw `The Empire Strikes Back,' and when I left the theater, I thought, `That's the best movie I ever saw.' '' Prerelease pre·re·lease n. Something released before an official or scheduled date. adj. Of or relating to an interval preceding an official or scheduled release: marketing has become crucial because of the increased numbers of films flooding into theaters, jumping from 353 in 1994 to 410 last year and 433 this year. A film's opening weekend is the best gauge of whether a movie lives or dies. As recently as 15 years ago, most top movies made more money in their second weekend than in their first, but in the frenzied fren·zied adj. Affected with or marked by frenzy; frantic: a frenzied rush for the exits. fren marketplace now, attendance usually drops 20 percent to 50 percent between the first and second weekend. ``There's a saying in this business that marketing will only get you your first weekend's gross, and everything after that is just word of mouth,'' Murray said. ``In the 1980s, if a movie didn't open strongly, you could chase it for a few weeks with new advertising. But now, if it doesn't open strongly, no amount of marketing is going to change how it performs.'' For Murray, the key is first to tell a story to appeal to a specific audience and find ways to expand that audience. ``Everyone is bombarded all day with ads on buses and buildings and TV, so everything is fair game,'' Murray said. ``You've got to keep people in the habit of going to movies, so you've got to give them new reasons to go. We're the front line of that.'' It was no accident that Fox broke through with ``Independence Day.'' Before the first ticket was sold last July 2, Americans had been hammered with images and reminders of ``ID4'' for eight months. Teasers, the industry's name for 15- to 45-second ads for films not yet rated by the Motion Picture Association of America, had started running during the holiday film season, setting the stage for an ad during the Super Bowl with the warning: ``Enjoy the Super Bowl. It may be your last.'' Thomas Sherak, senior executive vice president of Fox, said his studio worked on the ``ID4'' for more than a year before it hit theaters. ``The minute a project is pitched, your work starts,'' he said. ``You test it thoroughly before you even put the first teaser teaser an animal used to sexually tease but not to impregnate the members of the opposite sex. Usually males and they may be surgically prepared to ensure that they cannot mate or are not fertile. out, so we pretty much know how it's going to play.'' For the year's dozen potential blockbusters, teasers can start nine months before a movie's release and trailers, six months ahead. For most other releases, the first trailers show up two to three months ahead of time. ``We have a captured audience, so trailers are one of the most important parts of the marketing campaign,'' Sherak said. That first glimpse First Glimpse is a monthly consumer electronics magazine published by Sandhills Publishing Company in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. The magazine was known as CE Lifestyles before a name change in early 2006. of movies originates in a dozen small Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County production studios specializing in teasers and trailers. Murray's is in the middle of the pack with about 25 employees. Other prominent players include Intralink, Kanew Co., New Wave Entertainment, Aspect Ratio, CBO CBO See: Collateralized Bond Obligation. , Flamingo flamingo, common name for a large pink or red wading bird, similar to the related heron, stork, and spoonbill but with a longer neck, webbed feet, and a unique down-bent bill. Flamingos are tropical birds, although large colonies have been observed high in the Andes. Films and Kaleidoscope kaleidoscope (kəlī`dəskōp), optical instrument that uses mirrors to produce changing symmetrical patterns. Invented by the Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster in 1816, the device is usually a hand-held tube, a few inches to as much Films. Murray's first ads for Disney's ``101 Dalmatians,'' which opened Nov. 27, appeared a year ago with teasers featuring the dogs' spots showing up on national monuments national monument In the U.S., any of numerous areas reserved by the federal government for the protection of objects or places of historical, scientific, or prehistoric interest. like Mount Rushmore. ``With a teaser, all you're trying to do is get the name out and build awareness,'' Murray said. Subsequent trailers borrowed footage from the enormously successful 1961 animated release and emphasized pratfalls, puppies and star Glenn Close's scenery-chewing role as Cruela De Vil. ``Dalmatians'' opened spectacularly over Thanksgiving weekend with a record-setting $45.1 million in its first five days. It should make it to $115 million by the end of its run. After the debut, Murray's company rushed out another ad for ``Dalmatians,'' this one with dogs barking to the tune ``Jingle Bells Jingle Bells yuletide song composed by J. S. Pierpont. [Pop. Music: Van Doren, 200] See : Christmas .'' ``We're leaving no stone unturned on this campaign,'' he said. Murray, 43, is quick to give credit to the studio's marketing department, directors and writers. ``We were in lock step with the studio, and when you get a great film like this, it's so much simpler,'' he said. Peter Adee, senior vice president of creative film services for Disney, agrees that no individual should be singled out when a movie succeeds. ``It's a cliche, but the movie business really is the most collaborative work there is,'' he said. ``What makes Craig Murray good is that he is creative and tenacious te·na·cious adj. 1. Clinging to another object or surface; adhesive. 2. Holding together firmly; cohesive. tenacious viscid; adhesive. in a business where it can be hard to get at what it is that is needed to open the movie.'' Adee disputes the notion that some movie concepts, such as Disney's ``Aladdin'' and ``The Lion King,'' are so strong that marketers have a relatively easy time coming up with the campaigns for successful movies. ``The marketing is only obvious in retrospect,'' he said. ``With `The Lion King,' we had no idea we had that kind of hit until after the opening weekend.'' For nine years, Murray held an exclusive agreement to work only on Disney trailers, starting with ``Down and Out in Beverly Hills Beverly Hills, city (1990 pop. 31,971), Los Angeles co., S Calif., completely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles; inc. 1914. The largely residential city is home to many motion-picture and television personalities. ,'' which turned out to be a landmark movie for the studio under the management of former Paramount executives Michael Eisner Michael Dammann Eisner (born March 7, 1942) was CEO of The Walt Disney Company from September 22, 1984 to September 30, 2005. Early life Michael Eisner was born to a wealthy family in Mt. Kisco, New York, and raised on Park Avenue in Manhattan. and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Not only did it revive Richard Dreyfus' career and become a respectable box office performer, it also marked Disney's shift from a specialist in family films into a mainstream studio through its Touchstone touchstone Black, silica-containing stone used in assaying to determine the purity of gold and silver. The metal to be assayed is rubbed on the touchstone, and then a sample of metal of known purity is rubbed on the stone right next to it. operation handling movies targeted at adult audiences. Disney has long had a reputation for clashing with creative types because of its desire to micromanage micromanage Administration A popular term for excess oversight of lower management by upper management its public image, but Murray said the relationship has always worked well. ``The nine years with Disney gave us the opportunity to thoroughly understand each other,'' recalled Murray, who previously worked for Walt Disney World Noun 1. Walt Disney World - a large amusement park established in 1971 to the southwest of Orlando Orlando - a city in central Florida; site of Walt Disney World as a writer. ``We came to know the exact feel that the Disney name embodies. It's part of my genes now.'' Murray had a staff of five when he started, so there was never a shortage of work from Disney. That meant many nights and weekends of work to meet deadlines. Starting in 1986, Craig Murray Productions and New Wave Entertainment were responsible for all but about 5 percent of the Disney trailers through the early 1990s. Murray's exclusive agreement ended last year because of his desire to expand his business, although he continues to do a significant amount of work for Disney, including ``Hercules,'' the studio's major animated release for next summer. Among his favorites are 1986's ``The Color of Money,'' for which Paul Newman Noun 1. Paul Newman - United States film actor (born in 1925) Newman, Paul Leonard Newman won the Best Actor Academy Award, and last year's ``Toy Story,'' which performed well above forecasts as the first fully computer-animated movie. Murray has worked on 11 Disney movies that topped $100 million in domestic ticket sales. The demand for his services has escalated to the point that he recently launched a second studio in West Los Angeles
``The industry is moving faster than ever. There are more choices, shorter deadlines, increased demand for sophisticated graphics and immediate responsiveness,'' he said. ``We sometimes have a week or two to get something out from the first cut, but the hard work is making it look like it hasn't been assembled on the fly.'' Murray's staff starts by watching the film two or three times and then breaking parts of it into separate bins, such as action, romance and comedy. It can be an unsubtle process, taking the biggest laugh line or most massive explosion from a movie as the trailer's centerpiece, sometimes prompting moviegoers to argue that the trailer gives away too much. When Murray hears that complaint, however, he responds simply: ``Then the trailer did its job.'' One of the best recent examples came with Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) .' 1993 hit ``The Fugitive.'' The two most memorable scenes - the train crash and Harrison Ford's jump down the front of a dam - were included in trailers. It seems unlikely that anyone decided not to see ``The Fugitive'' because of overexposure overexposure too long an exposure time or too high a milliamperage causing too black a picture, loss of detail and some anomalies of translucency. to the plot. The film took in $183.9 million, making it the 26th-highest domestic grosser of all time. Trailer-makers are under such pressure that they often use music that's not in the film or create shots that will not be in the version moviegoers see. In 1991, in a major exception, Warner ordered a shot for its trailer of ``Robin Hood Robin Hood, legendary hero of 12th-century England who robbed the rich to help the poor. Chivalrous, manly, fair, and always ready for a joke, Robin Hood reflected many of the ideals of the English yeoman. : Prince of Thieves'' of an arrow splitting another arrow, then decided to incorporate the shot into the movie. Trailer-makers also have to come up with faster-paced versions for 15- or 30-second TV spots, presenting another set of pressures. ``A movie trailer is meant to play before a captured audience, but with TV spots, it's you vs. the remote,'' Murray said. Several trends have helped the trailer business prosper, such as advances in computer hardware and software. ``It used to be that you made all your money hitting the rewind re·wind tr.v. re·wound , re·wind·ing, re·winds 1. To wind again or anew. 2. To reverse the winding of (recording tape or camera film). n. 1. The act or process of rewinding. button and waiting, because that was inevitably where the scene was that you needed,'' Murray said. ``Now it's instantaneous, and we're constantly upgrading the software.'' The trailer business is also benefiting from the boom in theater construction and the trend toward megaplexing. Some chains will show as many as 10 trailers before starting a movie, particularly at theaters in the Los Angeles area, while the number will be far fewer in markets away from major cities. The National Association of Theater Owners and the Motion Picture Association of America have set a limit of 2 minutes, 30 seconds for trailers attached to the first reel of a movie. But there are no limits on the number of unattached trailers a studio can send out to exhibitors and none on the number of ``previews of coming attractions'' a theater operator can show. Additionally, trailers have become a useful way for people to keep up on the latest trends, according to retail consultant Frederick Marx of Marx Layne & Co. of Farmington Hills Far·ming·ton Hills A city of southeast Michigan, an industrial suburb of Detroit. Population: 81,400. , Mich. ``We've become a much more visual society - I think because people are talking about movies more,'' Marx said. ``You want to know what's coming out and in the groove. There's an insatiable appetite to be informed but in nuggets Nuggets can refer to several branches of interest:
Marketing movies also gives people a sense of what's fashionable, Marx said. He cited a 1983 release, ``Sudden Impact,'' as an example. ``That line of Clint Eastwood's - `Go ahead, make my day' - if you don't get that, you've been on Mars for the last 20 years,'' he said. TRAILBLAZERS Memorable movie marketing campaigns A listing of films that far exceeded expectations Movie, year of release, studio, domestic gross, marketing hook The Graduate, 1967, Avco, $335.2 million (adjusted for inflation); This is Benjamin. He's a little worried about his future. Butch Cassidy This article is about the criminal. For the singer with this pseudonym see Butch Cassidy (singer). Butch Cassidy (13 April 1866 - c. 1908), born Robert LeRoy Parker, was a notorious train and bank robber. and the Sundance Kid, 1969, Fox, $330.6 million (adjusted); Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. The Godfather, 1972, Paramount, $352.2 million (adjusted); I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse. Jaws, 1975, Universal, $260 million; Amity am·i·ty n. pl. am·i·ties Peaceful relations, as between nations; friendship. [Middle English amite, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *am Island Welcomes You. Star Wars, 1977, Fox, $322.7 million; May the force be with you. Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981, Paramount, $242.4 million; I hate snakes. E.T. The Extraterrestrial, 1982, Universal, $399.8 million; He is alone. He is afraid. He is 3 million light years from home. Ghostbusters, 1984, Columbia, $238.6 million; Coming to save the world this summer. Batman, 1989, Warner Bros., $251.2 million; Wait 'til they get a load of me. Forrest Gump, 1994, Paramount, $329.7 million; Life is like a box of chocolates. Apollo 13, 1995, Universal, $175 million; Houston, we have a problem. Twister, 1996, Warner, $241.7 million; The dark side of nature. AND COMING SOON Ghosts of Mississippi, Dec. 20, Columbia; No man is above the law. My Fellow Americans, Dec. 20, Warner; A comedy about life, liberty and the pursuit of two ex-presidents. Michael, Dec. 25, New Line; He's an angel...not a saint. The Evening Star, Dec. 25, Paramount; A story about friends, family and other natural disasters. Fierce Creatures, Jan. 10. Universal; Don't pet them. Star Wars trilogy re-release, Jan. 31, 20th Century Fox; Three reasons why they build movie theaters. Volcano, Feb. 28, Fox; This winter the coast is toast. LA erupts in 1997. MURRAY MAGIC Disney films with Craig Murray trailers Movie, year, domestic gross Down and Out in Beverly Hills, 1986, $62.1 million The Color of Money, 1986, $52.1 million Three Men and a Baby, 1987, $167.7 million. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988, $174 million The Little Mermaid little mermaid the sacrifices her own life to save her beloved prince. [Dan. Lit.: Andersen’s Fairy Tales] See : Self-Sacrifice , 1989, $84.4 million Pretty Woman, 1990, $178.4 million Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale (type 425C -- search for a lost husband -- in the Aarne-Thompson classification). The first published version of the fairy tale was a meandering rendition by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in , 1991, $140 million Aladdin, 1992, $217.3 million Cool Runnings, 1993, $68.3 million The Lion King, 1994, $312.8 million The Santa Clause, 1994, $145 million Pocahontas, 1995, $140 million Toy Story, 1995, $191.8 million Hunchback hunchback, abnormal outward curvature of the spine in the thoracic region. It is also known as kyphosis and humpback, and in its severe form a noticeable hump is evident on the back. of Notre Dame Notre Dame IPA: [nɔtʁ dam] is French for Our Lady, referring to the Virgin Mary. In the United States of America, Notre Dame , 1996, $98.4 million Ransom, 1996, $132 million (estimate) 101 Dalmatians, 1996, $115 million (estimate) Hercules, 1997, over $100 million (preliminary forecast) CAPTION(S): 4 Photos, 2 Boxes Photo: (1--color) Craig Murray, standing, talks with Mark Lowie Sr. about a trailer that Murray's Burbank-based production company made for ``101 Dalmatians.'' David R. Crane/Daily News (2--color) no caption (Robert Redford Noun 1. Robert Redford - United States actor and filmmaker who starred with Paul Newman in several films (born in 1936) Charles Robert Redford, Redford as the Sundance Kid) (3--color) no caption (E.T.) (4--color) no caption (Michael Keaton as Batman) Box: (1) TRAILBLAZERS (see text) (2) MURRAY MAGIC (see text) |
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