Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Movie trailers.

Editing happens in more than just the writing medium. Take for instance a movie trailer.

The recently released movie Catfish is a documentary about a photographer Nev and a relationship he develops with a family over Facebook. One day an 8-year old girl (Abby) sends Nev painting of one of his photographs and the two begin sending messages back an forth via Facebook.

Nev eventually begins to "meet" Abby's family and begins an online romance with Abby's 19 year old sister Megan. Nev starts noticing some inconsistencies in his communication with Abby, Megan and the rest of the family. He and his friends (who are filming the budding phone/internet relationship) drive cross country to meet Megan.

***Spoiler Alert***

Not everything is as it seems.

When I initially watched the trailer I felt as if this documentary suddenly warped into a psychological thriller or perhaps a horror movie. I don't want to give away the ending but I will say the trailer gave me expectations of what the film is only to have it turn out to be something else.

That said, what is the point of a movie trailer? Is it to give the potential viewer an idea of what happens in the movie, attract him or her to the theatre because it looks like something they want to watch for a couple hours? Is it fair to mislead them into thinking it is something different than what it truly is?


1 comment:

  1. Totally agree with you, Heather. There are so many movie trailers that are misleading, some even show scenes that you won't actually see if you watch the movie.

    I think the disconnect from the movie trailer to the actual story of the movie comes from the fact that movie trailers have to be created and shown before the actual movie comes out. So maybe sometimes the movie trailer is created even before the actual movie finishes filming just so they have something to show the public.

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