Trail to success

Most moviegoers decide whether to see a new film in the span of
one to three minutes. As a marketing device, movie trailers are
highly effective tools that can determine the next blockbuster or
flop at the box office.

But what people don’t realize is that making movie
trailers can be an excellent way to start a long-term career in the
film industry, according to “Coming Attractions,” a
documentary about the history and effects of movie trailers which
will be screened tonight at the James Bridges Theater.

“Trailers are an excellent training ground for editing,
and writing, and for shooting,” said Michael Shapiro, the
director and editorial supervisor of the film.
“Cinematography is also an avenue; sound mixing, scoring
““ these are all elements that go together to make either a
good film director or give a film producer a good idea of the
concept of how films are made and the people that make
them.”

Shapiro, who worked in the trailer business for over 30 years
and created the trailers for films such as “2001: A Space
Odyssey” and “Close Encounters of the Third
Kind,” will be one of four industry professionals who will
examine movie trailers during a panel discussion following the
film.

Other panelists include Rob Friedman, who most recently was the
Chief Operating Officer of Paramount Pictures; Gregory McClatchy,
president and senior creative director of advertising for Motor
Entertainment; and Joe Dante, best known as the director of
“Gremlins” and “Innerspace.”

Dante started his career putting together trailers for Roger
Corman at New World Pictures.

“It was an unusual path to directing, but it was certainly
a worthwhile one,” Dante said.

His experience cutting trailers eventually helped him later in
life, when he decided to become a film director.

“Editing trailers is actually a very good template for
directing movies, because you really have to study the work
that’s been done, and figure out how to piece it
together,” he said. “As you start to cut a scene down
to its smallest bit, you start to realize how a scene is
constructed, and it comes in very handy later when you’re
actually on a set.”

The idea to make a documentary about movie trailers and their
career benefits came from Andrew J. Kuehn, Shapiro’s business
partner of almost 44 years. Kuehn was one of the pivotal pioneers
of the trailer industry, and it was his death in 2004 that caused
Shapiro to carry out the project.

“On his last few days of life, he looked up at me in the
hospital and he said, “˜Make sure this gets
done,'” Shapiro said. “Charged with that request
from my lifelong friend and business partner, I and many others
spent the next two years making sure that Andy’s documentary
got done.”

Before his death, Kuehn set up the Andrew J. Kuehn Foundation
for the creation of “Coming Attractions.” The
Foundation will be donating $500,000 to the UCLA School of Theater,
Film and Television to underwrite the teaching of movie marketing
in the film school.

“This is something that’s not done very often at a
lot of film schools,” said Tim Kittleson, director of the
UCLA Film and Television Archive. “I believe it’s very
important to people (to learn) the craft of movie-making, but
they’ve also got to know the craft of how to sell the
movie.”

The Foundation will also donate Kuehn’s vast collection of
movie trailers to the Archive, including the original trailers for
“Jaws,” the “Indiana Jones” trilogy and
“The Sting.”

“This is a very large collection, and we’re still
just starting to receive it,” Kittleson said. “We
already have a considerable amount of trailers in our collection at
the Archive, but this will expand it to make it probably the
largest and certainly the most accessible collection of movie
trailers in the States.”

Much of the monetary donation, however, will go to benefit the
UCLA MFA Producers Program, which is headed by Denise Mann.

Mann, an assistant film professor, will also moderate the panel
discussion after the screening of “Coming Attractions.”
She will guide the panel in discussing the major changes in the
evolution of the movie trailer, in addition to each of the
panelists’ roles in the process.

One such major change was the introduction of market research,
the process when studios screen trailers on test audiences and
study their reactions in the hopes of appealing to the correct
target audience. Trailers have changed to more closely match the
test audiences’ preferences.

“You start seeing trailers becoming more loud,
action-oriented and bombarding the viewer with visual and oral
stimulus,” Mann said. “It’s interesting because
it’s symptomatic of the current state of the industry, where
there’s so many movies vying for audience attention on any
given weekend that they often cannibalize one another.”

Regardless of the studios’ desire to manipulate trailers
to appeal to certain audiences, working in the trailer industry
still remains a viable way to get started in the film business.

“It’s not as hard to get a job in the trailer
business as it is to get a job in the movie business,”
Shapiro said. “Perhaps a lot of young film students will see
the film and consider trailers as a starting ground for a career in
motion pictures.”

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