Thursday, March 14, 2013

SIDE EFFECTS Movie Trailer

Here's a great example of a trailer that meets all the criteria you need to check-off and implement for your own book trailers. (What's the difference between a movie trailer and a book trailer? None really. As long as you have dramatic tension to show and tell in your stories, the process is basically the same, although the approach can be different.)

Watch the Side Effects Trailer:

Notice something very interesting about the opening of this trailer. Soderbergh (the director), or whomever was in charge of marketing, chose a bit of misdirection here. The drug in question (Ablixa) has nothing to do with sexual performance in the movie, but the trailer gives the impression here that this drug is prescribed for enhancing sexual performance. That's an additional hook, albeit somewhat misleading (that's called artistic license folks) it doesn't hurt to include this bit of misinformation.

Those sexually enticing scenes are followed by more sinister scenes of bloody footprints, a murder and a 911 call, but not before the trailer opens in earnest with a bit of the couple's "happy life" (before everything went horribly wrong) scenes.

Those initial scenes are like a prologue, which add context and meaning to the story. From there, it all goes downhill. This is only one approach to opening a trailer. Some trailers open with blood and guts right out of the gate, but that's more suited for a horror films since you already know what to expect from that genre.

This film, this story, is more of a psychological thriller and therefore it's a bit more subtle in how it's presented, but the hook and the effect they're after is certainly effective.

I'll be breaking this one down, deconstructing it scene by scene so you can see how masterful it really is in hooking the viewer and drawing you in, one salient scene at a time.

This is how you want to approach your book trailers. Remember, a story is a story is a story, regardless of the media that delivers it. Movies, books, plays, etc.

A brilliant trailer. Check back soon (or subscribe to this Blog) to see how this story and this trailer dispense the perfect prescription for trailer success.

You just might get hooked, addicted, or both.


1 comment:

  1. I know, I know, it's been a while since I post here but I've been very busy and ill to top it off so I hope to make yet another comeback and make more entries here.

    In all fairness, I'll also be posting some of my own (newer) book trailers and deconstructing those too. Hope you're following along. Thanks for watching.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comments.