While I was sitting through some trailers for the umpteenth time at the cinema last night (and mainly the same ones I’d seen the previous night) a couple of thoughts occurred to me. Actually, they’ve occurred to me many times in the past, but for the purposes of this narrative, it fits in well to say that they occurred to me yesterday.
1) Films that are really bad don’t get their trailers re-edited for the UK. We were treated to a trailer for First Daughter starring Katie Holmes trying to get by as the President’s daughter and live a normal life. This is obviously so poor, that it’s not worth removing the “coming this fall” from the voiceover. I assume that the film’s not being released sometime around September this year.
2) Under no circumstances can you include any dialogue in trailers for foreign films – you wouldn’t want the audience to realise that they were going to have read subtitles if they come to the film. Case in point – the trailer for A Very Long Engagement. For starters, the film has an English title so no clue there. You might realise from the stars of the film that it may not be in English. But the trailer should include lots of meaningful looks, action (if applicable), beautiful scenery and a voiceover. The audience will accept a Stella ad with no English translation at all, and there’s that Spanish beer ad at the minute that has subtitles (can’t remember the brand). But otherwise that’s your lot.
There are of course many more, but I can’t think of them at the moment.