My dear boy,
Trailers. I have pondered on this for a while and wondered what lessons there are for us to learn.
See, trailers have become an integral part of film, so much so that they are considered a genre in themselves, owing to their distinct form, purpose, and recurring conventions, even though they exist primarily as paratexts (texts that exist around or alongside a main text, like posters, promos, etc). Rick Altman, affirming the same in “Film/Genre” (1999), echoes, “genre is not a fixed thing, but a system shaped by audiences, industry, and culture.” The number of views that a trailer garners on the internet can be an indicator of whether the film will do well in theatres. As such, beyond being promotional material, it has become a tool for gauging audience reception level. Nevertheless, before we delve into this discourse, we must understand what a trailer is. Hence, we shall examine various definitions of a trailer.
With that said, the Oxford Dictionary defines trailer as “a series of short scenes from a film or television programme, shown in advance to advertise it.” (Never use a dictionary definition in your academic papers, my boy) Wikipedia corroborates the foregoing thus: “A trailer (also known as a preview, coming attraction, or attraction video) is a short advertisement, originally designed for a feature film, which highlights key scenes of upcoming features intended to be exhibited in the future at a movie theatre or cinema. It is a product of creative and technical work.”
In Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers, Lisa Kernan posits thus: “A trailer is a commercial for the experience of a movie.” Keith Johnston, explaining the structure of a trailer in Coming Soon: Film Trailers and the Selling of Hollywood Technology, agrees with Lisa when he defines a trailer as “a tightly timed emotional ride.”
Furthermore, Christian R. Hoffman in Cut to the Chase – How Multimodal Cohesion Secures Narrative Orientation in Film Trailers, while quoting Maier (2009) highlights that film trailers are “multimodal texts in which several semiotic modes are combined, and parts of texts created for other purposes are transferred, rearranged and supplemented in order to attain a promotional purpose.” Kuehn, A. J., cited in The Semiotic Status of Movie Trailers, defines a movie trailer as “a marketing tool that positions a certain film within the movie market and its purpose is to arouse the public’s interest in watching it.” Hence, it is a no-brainer that the common thread among these definitions is the promotion of a film.
However, certain scholars argue that the trailer is a short film or an independent text, which can be judged on its own merit, and contributes to the main text. Vera Uphues quoting Professor of Film and TV studies at the University of Aglia, Keith M. Johnston, in The Evolution of the Hollywood Movie Trailer – A Case Study Based on the Trailers for the Four Adaptations of “A Star Is Born captures “[…] that analysis should treat the trailer text as a unique short film, rather than a lesser (abbreviated) form of the feature film” and that they should be seen as “revelatory texts that add to the overall picture of film theory” (2009, p. 2).
It therefore follows that a trailer is much more than promotional material aimed at engineering the mind of the audience, in that it mediates between the film and audience, curating expectations, plotting graphs of meaning, and curtailing reception bias.
This, nonetheless, leads us to the muddy waters which Kernan terms “trailer logic.” It is within this concept that we find trailer producers creatively exploit “falsifications” which result from what “Kernan calls “discontinuity editing…, [which] operates through alternation, combination and abbreviation of scenes to construct a new, trailer logic, differing from (yet, obviously, related to) the narrative logic of the film” (10) as captured by in Matthew Ogonoski’s Now Playing with Coming Soon: Sweding, Fan Culture Collaboration, and the Adaptation of Movie Trailers within a Transmedia Industry.
Ogonoski further highlights that “Falsifications may also occur due to the presence of shots or scenes that do not survive a film’s final cut.” Ogonoski asserts that “Though trailers are not intended to deceive consumers, they do exploit textual multiplicity and manipulate consumers’ anticipation.” Martin Oja, in On the Concept of the Deceptive Trailer: Trailer as Paratext and Multimodal Model of Film agrees to disagree when he states that trailers “appear to be deceptive about the film’s genre” when they emphasize genre cues (the dominant) that don’t align with the film itself.”
It is, therefore, safe to state that whether the falsifications are by design or by omission, trailers play an integral role in film marketing strategies.
Why is this important? Digital blueprints.
“Social media no be real life.” This common parlance has become an enabler of all sorts. To some, it is a springboard for living for the gram with the excuse not to “lose” both offline and online. To others, it is a gentle reminder to take everything they see online with a pinch of salt. Stemming from our discussion about trailers, we can suppose that digital blueprints can be likened to trailers, whereas non-virtual profiles can be likened to feature films.
Should social media personas be treated as independent beings? As much as many would favour such an assertion, it is obvious that the problem arises from such a verdict. We would have endorsed personality disorder as popular culture.
Say, on the grounds of compromise, we reach for the low-hanging branch of Vera’s definition of trailer, “judging it by its own merit,” we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact “that it contributes to the main text.”
Assuming, out of sheer stupidity, we permit it, how then do we solve the psychological problem? These personas flow from the same unconscious. In Recurring Self in Selected Haruna Daniel’s Facebook Memoirs, Onyekachi et al posit that social media texts become a tool of inquiry into the mind of the author. In other words, social media posts are “revelatory texts.”
Hence, social media posts such as “I am not my posts” are but fruitless attempts at concealing the psychological disposition of the author. Given that the psychological springs for both virtual and non-virtual life are one and the same, it is folly to excuse digital footprints in the guise of “cruise.” History asserts that no truer words than jokes. In fact, jesters were licensed truth tellers who were permitted to mock kings, nobles, and institutions without punishment. The 14th-century phrase “many a true word is spoken in jest” captures this belief.
Look, if it needs to be explained, it has no business on social media.
Love,
Dad.
