Twentieth Century FoxWhen was the last time you saw a movie with just one trailer? Never. Since the '50s, most movies have gotten a teaser, a trailer, and a TV spot. But lately, with the web feeding our content greed, that old formula has splintered six ways to Sunday's matinee. Now we have teasers for teasers, international trailers, red bands for racier content, parodies on YouTube—it's endless titillation. And nowhere is that more obvious than summer blockbuster season. "The best campaigns are the ones that snowball," says Nick Temple, whose trailer outfit Wild Card has been competing to create parts of the campaign for Hugh Jackman's X-Men spinoff, The Wolverine, out July 26. But Wild Card didn't start the ball rolling. That was Skip Film, which gave birth to the weirdest thing yet in trailer lore: the six-second Vine video known as the "tweaser." Because "tweet" plus "teaser." Because it pulls a tiny thing out of a big thing. Just ... because.
The Art of the Trailer
Short History of Coming Attractions
Why Fan-Made Movie Trailers Are Often Better Than the Real Thing
Tweaser
Release Date: March 25, 2013 Length: 0:06
This tweaser is a—take a breath—six-second teaser for a 20-second teaser for a two-minute teaser for a 2:32-length theatrical trailer for a feature-length movie. It packs 20 separate shots (is that Jean Grey?) into its blip of a run—that's 3.3 cuts per second. But Skip Film editor Skip Chaisson says an earlier version contained twice as many. It was a challenging experiment with form, Chaisson says. He had to choose shots that would work on Vine's square aspect ratio and audio that would sound decent on crappy phone speakers. But it still tells a story. Which is? "Wolverine is a badass," he says. "That's pretty much it."
Teaser
Release Date: March 27, 2013 Length: 1:56
It's textbook narrative. Or, as Wild Card's Temple puts it: "Reluctant hero, conflict, flash the title card. Simple is best." His team—which competes with other companies at every phase of a movie's campaign—started receiving dailies from the set almost immediately. They realized just as quickly that the teaser would need shots from the big CGI scene in which Wolverine battles a nemesis atop one of Japan's famous bullet trains. In the past, the craziest effects didn't appear in previews because they happened too late in production. But trailers are now enough of a product themselves to justify changing everyone's schedules. Fox rushed the train scene into visual effects so Temple could splice it into the teaser.
International Teaser
Release Date: March 27, 2013 Length: 2:27
It's similar but not identical to its US counterpart. "In this country, event is king," Temple says. "But the international markets try to focus on the character and the emotion." Here, everything feels heavier, with music and title cards to match: "This year, when he's most vulnerable, he's most dangerous." Noted.
Trailer
Release Date: May 21, 2013 Length: 2:32
A third company, Transit, beat out Skip Film and Wild Card for Wolverine ’s first official trailer. Tony Sella, chief creative officer at Fox, had just two requirements: Fill out Wolverine's emotional backstory and tease the main villain. Transit answered with the best ad yet, complete with our first good look at Wolverine's nemesis, the Silver Samurai. Although the opening nightmare sequence seems to suggest there's no life after death for Jean Grey, Fox won't confirm. (At press time, the second theatrical trailer was in the pipeline and revealed more plot twists.)
Fan Trailer
Release Date: March 28, 2013 Length: 2:15
Editing software is affordable, which explains the zillion fan-made trailers on YouTube. Some, including this one by moviemagic5, went up a day after the teaser was released. It might even lead to bigger things. Michael McIntyre, head of studio mOcean, says he mines fan trailers for new hires. "They're doing it almost for free out there," he says. "Let's bring them to Hollywood and ruin them, break their hearts."
