Writing the Trailer

Well I've done another polish and sent it over to Charlie. He'll do another polish, send it back, rinse, repeat.

At this point, we're getting closer and closer to the writing equivalent of obsessive impulsively waxing the surfboard over and over. We've done a "Gunmen" polish, we're done a "locations" polish, we've done polishes where we focused on minor characters, right now Charlie's doing a "weapons" polish, which means he's making sure the right people are carrying the right guns and that no one pulls something out of thin air or anything like that.

I'm serious.

We could go back and forth forever if we wanted. I can always go through a draft and find something to change, any writer can. What we need to do is give it to Producer Dude. But we're waiting for paperwork to finalize before we give him anything. Should be any day now...

You say that a lot in this business.

So in the meantime, I'm writing the trailer.

See, in the B-movie world, the only thing that really matters is the trailer. The BUYERS see the trailer, and order the film if they like it. If the trailer is boring, they don't buy the movie. It's that simple.

So what makes a good trailer? Well, you go to the movies, so you probably have a good idea.

Glamour shots. If there's a hot chick in it, you want a shot of said hot chick being hot. A friend of mine just finished directing an action flick and when he cut his trailer, after the car chases, the knife fights, the gun battles, he closes his trailer with the lead chick walking, wet, out of the ocean waves. In slow motion.

The money shot. This is not, in this case, a porn reference. B-movies like this spend a lot of budget on one thing, one stunt. Usually, they blow something up. When they shot The Eliminator, one minor plot point (about two sentences in the script) involved the hero blowing up a satellite dish. Guess what shot was used to end the trailer and a still of it even made it to the poster? Go look- there's a handy link to the right. See the bit in the bottom center of the poster of the two guys running from a big explosion? That's it. Minor bit. One paragraph. But they blew the Dish up, it's the money shot.

In Siege, we have, if done right, a flaming helicopter crashing to the ground. That's probably gonna be the money shot, if they shoot it right. Look for it in a trailer coming to a computer near you.

Also, the hero should d something heroic in slow motion. Sometimes, they'll take a normal scene and slow it down for the trailer. We've got a bit with the hero rising up out of some water firing his guns. Shoot it in slow motion, and it's Trailer Gold.

No talking. Or at least, as little as possible. Let's face it, your actors aren't going to be the best in the world. If they're not related to somebody, they're big guys or hot chicks hired to be big guys or hot chicks. Some of them are, in fact, decent actors. Some of them work very hard to become so, and get better and better. But there ain't no DeNiro in the bunch. So keep the talking heads down and pump up the flying fists of fury. Quick cuts, smash hits, get the blood moving. And then maybe one shot of the hero or bad guy yelling out the other's name in fury. I call it the "Wrath of Khan" effect.

"Khaaaaaaannnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!"

Now, to be clear, when I say I'm writing the trailer, I'm not putting together a 2-minute script of "Siege Greatest Hits" or anything. I don't know what they'll end up shooting. What I AM doing is going through the script and making sure we have enough of these easily-recognizable elements in the mix.

Hot chick scene? Check.
Money Shot? Check.
Slow motion heroic bit? Check.
Random, interesting action sequences? Check.
Somebody yelling someone else's name in fury? Check.

I think we're pretty good.