THE OFF HOURS
I think I might be able to call this the most bizarre trailer I have seen in a while. A very odd introduction to a film, mainly because it does not sell the film at all. Not to your Average Joe anyway.
Average Joe does not care about how much fun the cast and crew had on set, how ingenious the up-and-coming director might be. Perhaps making an actual trailer instead of a behind-the-scene featurette type thing would have helped?
Instead of a condensed explanation of the plot, this promotional piece starts out with clips of the film, featuring voice over snippets from the cast and crew. So far so good, it might even be an enjoyable trailer. But not 30 seconds in and we cut rudely to the director, producers and lead actors chatting away about the process of making this movie. This is stuff no one wants to know when they are trying to get a sense of what the movie is like and whether it is worth watching it.
This may be an efficient method to persuade the movie geek or industry professional, but for someone who just got curious and looked up the trailer or that someone is stuck with the commercial on a DVD where they can’t skip the chapters featuring the commercials (I really fucking hate people who release DVDs like that), then what? You really reckon that is a good pitch? Come on.
Inserting a clip of characters Ty and Francine makes even less sense in this edit. It’s random, misplaced and uninformative. The lines they utter are banal and flat. The edit is generally confused and the viewer has no idea where it is going. Perhaps it is down to the use of incorrect industry lingo on Youtube - in which case, I apologise for wasting your time.
Cut me a new trailer and I might bother writing a real review. Nil outta 10 y’all.
CARANCHO
I am not sure what this film is about. Nor do I think I care.
The opening conversation in this trailer is interesting and enticing. It is revealing and gives you the feeling this is something worth watching more of. It feeds the audience just enough information not to be too exposing or too mysterious and off-putting. Even the title card following the scene gives the audience a sense that this could be an entertaining film.
But from there on, the viewer is thrown in to a maelstrom of unconnected clips and an annoying soundtrack and lack of significant dialogue. The song adds little if nothing at all to the edit. The jerky unorganised clips have practically nothing to tell you of the premise. The snippets of scenes are thrown at you in a sad attempt at being clever and convey some sort of emotion I am still not sure of what is. Just playing with music for the sake of it is a childish effort at materialising the vision of a trailer and subtracts any kind of interesting feeling the viewer might have had towards the film.
But even if this is more than disappointing, at least they might have attempted something original, you would think. They have not. I would like to be able to answer the question “what’s original about this set-up?” with excitement.
The more I watch the trailer, the less I care about the movie. I am not sure what I have been watching and I am left numb and indifferent.
Meh. I’ll give it 1/10.
DRESSED
I have not much to say about this trailer other that it has worked in making me want to see a movie I might have been put off from had I just read a quick description of it on imdb.
The first scene makes you think: “Oh GOD is this Project Runway: The Movie?” But as it unfolds, the trailer unveils a much different story, one that deserves the typical, informative documentary-style edit, so as to make the most of the film.
Talking heads, voice overs, apparently random images of people and places: it all works exactly as it should. And even if it is not particularly inventive, it really does a good job at surprising the viewer and explaining the plot to them. It simply works.
A nice little 9/10.
Louise-Afzal Faerkel
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