Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Academy Award Winning Move Trailer

What is satirized in this video? What does this movie trailer suggest about today's entertainment industry?

2 comments:

Kassidy said...

This video is satirizing how the films that tend to win Academy Awards are similar in the way they are put together, and the video can even be used as a tool to teach a person how to create a trailer that would seem appropriate for an academy award. Even though the dialog in this video is not what would actually occur in a real movie trailer, the tone and context of the dialog allow the viewer to be pulled along through the story line of the trailer, showing the basic parts of the movie and what parts of the movie would be included in the trailer in order to appeal to the audience. The trailer even satirizes how characters are generally introduced in movie trailers, with the "my name" comments. It also shows how movies that win academy awards can have seemingly pointless plot lines that are set purely to grab the viewer's attention and pull them into the movie emotionally. The trailer also shows how the movie can have generalized plot twists that are present in most movies, such as "a character once thought trustworthy may no longer be trustworthy". The trailer gives the building blocks to creating a story that will affect the viewer emotionally enough to rake in a few academy awards, but when broken down, the story is no more than a simple template of this trailer with the blanks all filled in.
As for our entertainment industry today, the video is showing that many story lines are similar at the core, and the trailers that are designed to advertise the film are simply templates that show the different aspects of the film as appealingly as possible. Unfortunately, as we have seen millions and millions of films within the last hundred years, the story lines are becoming repetitive, and the "great" movies are judged on their ability to disguise this story line as cleverly as possible, with a "twist ending" or even a plot line outside of social norms. This video clearly shows that our entertainment industry today has become so repetitive, that people are now actually able to point out the general story line of any given movie, and this trailer has done exactly that and outlined the template for the films that tend to win academy awards.

Andrea said...

This video is satirizing the techniques filmmakers use in making their movie trailers and how most movie trailers incorporate these elements.

Instead of laughing in the video they say "laugh laugh laugh" and instead of mentioning the actors names they show "an academy award winning actor". This is what makes the video funny and shows the familiar parts that filmmakers often put in their trailer. Trailers are made to capture the audiences emotions and interest, which is why trailers include moving music and plotlines that involve touchy subjects. They usually show the introduction of characters and the building relationships between them. Also, trailers generally show an action scene or a part of the climax- but to not seem so dramatic they add a catch phrase.
It's a mixture of elements (love, comedy, and action) in a movie that attract the largest audience (and the largest money)- which is exactly why filmmakers include snipetts of all these in a trailer. The video suggests that movie productions from the entertainment industry today are becomming predictable by focusing on the same plotlines and characters.