FLOGGING FELT – Breaking the Trailer Tradition.

For some reason, the idea that a movie trailer has to be a mini movie that tracks the plot, complete with beginning, middle, and in many horrific cases (Hancock) end.

Here’s an example of a recent by-the-numbers movie trailer that sets out the premise, the plot – and the twist, all in the space of two and a half minutes – Richard Gere’s The Double.

It looked interesting, didn’t it? Right up until they gave away the twist. Thanks. Reason to see the movie? GONE.

We’ve had enough, movie sellers. We want the sizzle, not the steak. Lure us in to the movie theatre with a clever aroma, a hint, a tease – not the best bits of the film. Sure it’s tough when the only good thing about a movie are those three or four good bits, but that’s exactly when you need to go off the reservation and give us something interesting.

It’s not a new concept, and as The Muppets have shown us, when you do take a leap of faith and give the audience credit for having half a brain, the response is phenomenal. The hunger for something interesting is reflected in the way that the internet responds to it.

The carefully crafted mix of sound and vision in David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo may not be the perfect example of showing the audience something they’ve never seen before, but it does ram home the point that ANYTHING different will peak the interest of the jaded cinephile more than the usual ‘hello, here’s the twist, here’s the outcome’ trailer.

A trailer doesn’t have to re-invent the wheel every time, but by giving cinema goers a shock with something a little bit different, a little bit new, we remember the film in a way that a boring trailer never can.

We might even go see it.

The most painful thing about creating trailers that are a little different – it’s not anything new.

The trailer for The Muppets has created excitement above and beyond the thrill of the return to the big screen of everyone’s favourite gang of felt-based entertainment. By riffing off blockbuster movies – The Green Lantern, The Hangover 2 and messing with the traditionally awful romantic comedy trailer formula, The Muppets have stated the case emphatically – we’re smart enough to make a funny trailer, our movie must be pretty good.

No matter how much of a bomb Green Lantern was, you can still appreciate the awesomeness (even more so) of ‘Being Green’ trailer.

The juxtaposition of R-rated comedy and the ‘fluffier’ world of The Muppets? Hilarious.

The Fuzzy Pack

By acknowledging the impact of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo‘s trailer, and providing their own take on it, The Muppets creates an appeal to an audience who might ordinarily have dismissed

The Pig With The Froggy Tattoo

Here’s the trailer that, in a way, shocked the system, and perhaps gives us hope that movie trailer makers might stop and say ‘hey, we can do something like this’ – the parody trailer that re-introduced The Muppets to the internet – ‘Green With Envy’.

Green With Envy

It doesn’t just have to be the movies that benefit, either. The recent trailer for the zombie survival game, Dead Island, was such a hit, the rights have been snapped up, and now it’s in development – to be made into a movie.

Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedian did a great job by lampooning the world of boring movie trailer by using the golden tonsilled king of blockbuster voice overs, Hal Douglas to great comic effect. Whatever the movie was going to be, you knew that someone involved in the making of it – was funny. A plus, when selling a film about a comedian.

We’re not kidding when we say that selling a film in a non-traditional way isn’t something new – Alfred Hitchcock made an art of the teaser trailer, selling the mood and the hype, but not the footage or the plot.

The Birds

Can you imagine Christopher Nolan doing something like this for The Dark Knight Rises? What if JJ Abrams and his excellent Bad Robot team could unleash their creative fury in a way that truly inspired filmmakers to expect something completely different at the cinema?

Psycho

We can only hope that one day, Hollywood marketing execs take a lesson from say, oh, Orson Welles, and try something new – something new from the 1940′s. It might just help them sell a movie without ruining it for the very people they’re selling it to!

Citizen Kane