Watch: A Professional Trailer Editor Discusses Modern Movie Trailers
by Alex Billington
April 17, 2023
Source: YouTube
“You start to kind of get a sense of what the movie’s going to be…” We love movie trailers! For the past 17 years, FirstShowing has been writing about and discussing movie trailers for films of all kinds. This video made by Vox debuted a few months ago, and it’s worth a watch if you want to learn more about the art of cutting trailers. It’s a 12-min interview with a trailer editor from the company Buddha Jones, a Hollywood marketing agency that cuts many big trailers. He talks about editing a few famous trailers – for Nope and 10 Cloverfield Lane – and the various tricks and techniques used. I appreciate how much he discusses sound design and music, and how important these are in crafting an effective trailer. I wish he spoke more about editing choices, why certain footage is chosen over other shots. However, this is still informative & amusing.
Thanks to Twitter for the tip on this. Description from YouTube: “How trailers work, explained by someone who makes them. Trailer editor Bill Neil works at Buddha Jones making movie trailers that scare, excite, and, most importantly, get people to want to see a movie. In this video, he explains the things that a trailer editor notices about trailers old and new, great and terrible, and somewhere in the middle. Starting with trailers from the ’60s, he gets all the way to the present while reviewing techniques like sound design, ‘rug pulls,’ and how to hide fake blood.” Buddha Jones is a Hollywood, CA-based marketing agency – visit their official site. This Vox video is produced & edited by Phil Edwards, featuring cinematography by Deangelo Harding. Created for Vox – visit the site for more info. To discover more video essays, click here. Thoughts?
