Oct 12 2010
A movie in a minute
People today have multiple leisure activities available to them. There’s bowling, drinking, partying, hanging out in nice and chic coffe shops, or spending the day at the mall. Another favorite is going to the movies.
Movies today have gone a long way. From black and white to color, from 2-D to 3-D and maybe even to 4-D in the future. The large variety of movies allows the public to nick and pick out what they want to watch. Chick-flicks for girls, Action for guys, Cartoons for kids, and romance for couples.
All movies go through a long process of screenings and marketing schemes that will hopefully increase their ratings and showings in movie theatres. A common maketing scheme is to show a ‘preview’ of the movie before it airs in theatres or comes out on dvd. A good preview of a movie is usually what determines the movie’s success. People generally like to stick to the genre of movies that they are familiar with, and they do not tend to watch movies that are completely different to the genres they they usually watch. Previews give the audience an insight into what the genre of the movie is, who is acting in it, who the director is and bascically a summary of the movie’s plot. It targets both people who may or may not like the genre of the movie. For those who do like the genre of the movie, it gets them excited and pumped up for the movie’s opening. For those who aren’t a fan of the particular genre; the way the preview is made and the specific scenes of the movie it contains aims to make those people think; “this isn’t the type of movie I usually watch, but somehow it seems interesting! i might give it a try!”
Therefore previews are never more than 2-3 minutes or less than 30 seconds. Good marketing tactics make previews that are 1-2 minutes long. These previews puts the movie in a little nice box where it, in the given time, manages to reveal parts of the movie that will amuse their audience, but not too much that their audience are able to obtain a clear view and opinion of how the movie is going to be; and therefore may decide instantly whether or not they are going to watch it.
I am the type of person who judges movies very quickly. I place a lot of importance on previews and usually use them, instead of ratings or movie critics remarks; to decide whether i would watch the movie or not. I like being held in suspense after watching a well-made preview that tells you just enough to make you want to know more.
In the year 2007, I watched my first preview of a thai movie. It was during one of my trips to thailand, in the city of bangkok where, while waiting for my parents in a shopping mall, i started watching a preview of a local thai movie on one of the big television screens displayed in the sitting area.
The thing about thai previews that I had never known before, is that they actually tell the complete plot of the movie. Their previews are a little longer than most hollywood previes, ranging from 3-5 minutes. In that 3-5 minutes, I saw what I imagine was the whole movie, but of course with a whole chunk of an hour cut off.
the first thing that came to my mind was; ‘whaaaaaaaaaaaat?’ I was astounded and a little amused at how explicit and detailed the preview was. The next day I met up with a friend who had lived in bangkok for several years. I mentioned the preview i had watched yesterday and heard a response of laughter, a lot of nodding of the head and eventually her saying; ‘Yes, I wasn’t used to it at first, but all thai previews are like that.’
Apparently, thai previews are meant to show the whole movie, but in a very short amount of time. To this day i am still not so sure why; and though I am sure that thai movies are very interesting and fun to watch; I do not completely understand how showing the whole movie in the preview is going to make the audience want to watch it more. In any case it could put off the audience if the movie doesn’t look good.
One thing’s for sure, thai previews are one of the most honest maketing schemes i know.
