MUGI TRAILERS
I cannot stress enough just how much I love movie trailers. I can vividly remember watching The Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer that was released when I had only just turned nine years old. I’d watch it over and over and over again, looking for hidden details and pausing at the exact frame that showed us the first look at Tom Hardy’s Bane. I can remember, too, sitting in the theater for that very movie, and being absolutely blown away by the teaser trailer for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, set to the tune of “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum”, from The Lord of the Rings. From then on, I was constantly on the lookout for good trailers. Godzilla, Boyhood, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Wonder, Logan…the trailers for these movies were all pieces of media that I found to be genuine works of art. While trailers are made to get people talking about the movie, more often than not I’d watch a trailer to talk about the trailer. There’s something that really makes the best trailers stand out – something that makes people come back to it again and again long after the movie has been released. I would love to create my own someday, so that’s what I’m trying to practice.
I’ve only made three, one being for an arc in the anime One Piece, one for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and another for Iron Man. They didn’t all turn out exactly how I’d hoped, but they were helpful in getting me to figure out what sort of style I like when it comes to trailers, as well as how to shrink thirty minutes of a movie’s footage down to two. I intend to make more in my free time as time goes on.
ONE PIECE — A WANO PRELUDE
In beginning my trailer-making endeavor, it probably wasn’t smart to start by making a trailer for one of the longest story arcs of one of the longest ongoing stories in modern media. As it would turn out, collecting footage from hundreds of episodes and condensing it into a short little teaser is quite the monumental task. Watching it back, however, I still feel as though I was onto something. The goal was to take moments from hundreds of episodes before the arc began, to the first mentions of the arc’s villain and setting. After that had been set up, I’d make the trailer for the arc itself using footage from that arc. However, I realized that the setup to the arc was already multiple minutes long, which didn’t seem to fit with the ideal length of a trailer we have nowadays. Nonetheless, I still like the idea, and I’ll probably come back to see the vision through one day, probably as less of a trailer and more of a 10-minute tribute.
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
My first fully complete trailer! There are some elements I like here, and some that I don’t. I like the intro, as I like the idea of leading the viewer into the movie by showing the setting of the film as well as a quote from a prominent character of that film (Lupin). It’s quiet and almost soothing. Then the transition into the more trailer-y portion of the video, where we go to the various scenes and swelling music. I liked the crescendo moment, with Harry riding Buckbeak, and some of the shots like the grim teacup and quidditch shots. However, I do fear that some of the shots used later just don’t feel right. Maybe they go on too long or too short, or maybe they’re just not the right shots at all. Regardless, it still feels like a trailer, which is something I’m proud of, in all honesty. A decent edit.
IRON MAN
Something about combining Iron Man and Daft Punk/Tron: Legacy score just feels right. I’m still working on this one, so I’ll leave you with this little one minute teaser.