Massless

Some trailers are mashups, too.

One bit of remix culture which often works as standalone art for me is the cut-up cable channel promotion for upcoming or available movies, often grouped monthly. Some channels pour quite a bit of effort into their trailers. HBO, for example, gets pretty playful by grouping disparate scenes in ways that suggest a narrative continuity. (i.e. characters from The Sopranos talking with Larry David talking with characters from Six Feet Under, etc.)

Seems like we're getting some codification here, doesn't it? There's been quite a lot of trailers that are like short-form music videos, often picking some mainstream (but not too mainstream) hit. In some cases, I actually believe it's helped the bands attain greater attention - I'm really thinking of HBO's use of Coldplay's "Clocks" here (sample lyric: oooh, ooh, aaaaaaah) which isn't a perfect example since it was everywhere - Peter Pan trailer, etc.

Recently I found myself just watching the IFC trailer that uses Carpark North's song "Human" because the cuts and the music are entertaining enough. Go see - it's fun. Doesn't hurt that I also like playing the game of identifying each clip's origin and that it took me a few times watching each segment to make sure.

Dear media barony: I recognize I'm not alone in saying this but it isn't it interesting that I'm okay with making a blog post linking to your advertising ? I kinda think it's remarkale and I can do this because 1) I can link to the ad and 2) because it works as a standalone piece of entertainment.

Of course if the second attribute wasn't happening then no amount of online availability would inspire me to post. I'm begging barony, help me out here since I need a bit of reciprocity to help move things forward. And big kudos to those who are keeping mix trailers as interesting as possible.

Of course *cough* working on making the actual mix-worthy content awesome and notable doesn't hurt either. Which is why the linked mix is an IFC trailer and not one which includes clips from, say, Taking Lives or something. :)

posted at January 19, 2006, 2:07 PM