The Cutdown Episode 5: Getting Into the Trailer Industry

[Derek]

Getting Into the Trailer Industry

How do you get to be a trailer editor? In this episode Derek and Ric talk about breaking into the industry, creating a reel and getting your foot in the door. We also talk about E3 and dive into the trailers for the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and the remake of Final Fantasy VII.

 

Trailers Discussed: Watch Dogs: Legion, Cyberpunk 2077, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Final Fantasy VII (2019), Final Fantasy VII (Domestic 1997), Final Fantasy VII (International 1997), The Prestige, Inception.

 

If you have questions or comments please send them to cutdown@idlethumbs.net.

 

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[Derek]

We only talked about a couple trailers from E3, but there were so many great trailers worthy of discussion. It'd be fun to hear which trailers were your favorites and why you liked them. If your curious about my personal favorites from E3 I made a video which sums up a few thoughts for each of mine:

 

 

If there are any questions about getting into the industry which you still have, please ask away!

[Ben X]

Another great episode! I don't have much to say, but I was wondering whether you think that editing a very recent movie would be more or less successful for a movie trailer reel than doing something more showy like making a trailer with modern sensibilities for a movie from the 30s or changing a movie's genre (like the well-known 'Shining as romcom' or 'Mrs Doubtfire as horror' ones). Are they about the same, and are there trends in reels? Feel free to answer this on a 'cast rather than here, but I felt it maybe covered too similar ground to this episode for me to email it in!

[Roderick]

Pitching in to say I really like this new cast, keep it up! It's a worthwhile topic, despite me also generally avoiding trailers and/or being grumpy about them telling me too much about the movie. I like trailers as an artform, but they're generally not meant for me.

[Derek]

On 7/12/2019 at 2:17 AM, Ben X said:

Another great episode! I don't have much to say, but I was wondering whether you think that editing a very recent movie would be more or less successful for a movie trailer reel than doing something more showy like making a trailer with modern sensibilities for a movie from the 30s or changing a movie's genre (like the well-known 'Shining as romcom' or 'Mrs Doubtfire as horror' ones). Are they about the same, and are there trends in reels? Feel free to answer this on a 'cast rather than here, but I felt it maybe covered too similar ground to this episode for me to email it in!

 

I think both are perfectly valid to put into a reel because they show different editing skills. Making the parody trailers shows mastery of separating the dialogue and story moments from the original film, which is usually not necessary to such an extreme degree, but is a good skill to have.

 

Being able to cut a trailer for a modern movie is also a good skill to have, because oftentimes it's necessary to have multiple takes on a movie, and finding a different direction when you've already seen lots of examples can be very difficult (sometimes it's easier to just get a different editor on the project).

 

Really though in a reel I just want to see good work. I feel I can tell from just one trailer whether or not someone knows their stuff, and I think other editors will say something similar.