Re-cut trailer: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Parody video made from movie clips and trailers}}

A '''re-cut trailer''', or '''retrailer''', is a [[Mashup (video)|mashup]] video that uses footage from a [[movie]] or its original trailers to create a completely new context, or one different from the original source material. The mashups are parody trailers that derive humor from misrepresenting original films: for instance, a film with a murderous plot is made to look like a comedy, or [[List of Latin phrases: V#vice versa|vice versa]]. They became popular on the [[Internet]] in 2005.

The making of retrailers became possible with the availability of consumer-level [[digital video]] [[Film editing|editing]] suites. The more sophisticated of these allow the editor to separate the [[Sound recording and reproduction|audio]] and [[video]] tracks of a clip, allowing the original [[film score|score]] or [[soundtrack]] to be removed — these contribute most to a scene's tone—and replaced with another. By placing clips of different characters (typically closeups) together in sequence, a relation between them may be implied, regardless of where each character is actually situated within their respective movie. All that remains is to include certain conventions such as [[voice-over]] [[narration]], [[titles]] and [[Motion picture credits|credits]], and the familiar [[MPAA]] [[Motion picture rating system|rating system]] copy (the white-on-green introductory screen).

The earliest identified re-cut trailer debuted in December 2003, named ''Kill Christ,'' created by an NYU film student. It mocks the films ''[[Kill Bill:<!-- The official website shows a colon in the title. See here: http://www.miramax.com/movie/kill-bill-volume-1/ --> Volume 1]]'' and ''[[The Passion of the Christ]]''.<ref name="wired">{{cite magazine | url =https://www.wired.com/2013/06/fan-trailers/ | title = Why Fan-Made Movie Trailers Are Often Better Than the Real Thing | first= Angela | last= Wattercutter | date= June 21, 2013 | access-date = December 18, 2018 | magazine = [[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] }}</ref> In 2005, the format started to gain popularity with Robert Ryang's re-cut of ''[[The Shining (film)|The Shining]]'', which made the [[horror film]] appear to be a light-hearted family [[comedy drama]] about father and son bonding, adding voice-over narration and [[Peter Gabriel]]'s song "[[Solsbury Hill (song)|Solsbury Hill]]" to augment the re-edited footage.<ref name="wired"/> Ryang had made the re-cut trailer as part of a contest for the [[Association of Independent Creative Editors]] from post-production house P.S. 260 in [[New York City]], with his entry winning.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/movies/his-secret-movie-trailer-is-no-secret-anymore.html | title= His 'Secret' Movie Trailer Is No Secret Anymore | first= David | last= Halbfinger |date =September 30, 2005 | access-date = December 18, 2018 | work = [[The New York Times]] }}</ref> After it was published to the Internet, it jump-started the popularity of re-cut trailers for the internet community.<ref name="wired"/>

Soon after the ''Shining'' retrailer took the Internet by storm, Emerson College comedy troupe Chocolate Cake City created a re-cut trailer for the ''[[Back to the Future]]'' films, portraying the films' characters in a [[romantic love|romantic]] [[homosexual]] relationship akin to the one by the main characters in the film ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]''. The retrailer primarily used clips from ''[[Back to the Future Part III]]'', which was set in the [[Wild West]] of the 19th century. ''Brokeback to the Future'' was one of several re-cuts that emerged in late 2005 in which a homosexual relationship was suggested between two male [[main characters|leads]]. As ''Brokeback to the Future'' gained popularity in early 2006, other re-cuts were created that specifically parodied ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]''.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.mtv.com/news/1524942/brokeback-to-the-future-creators-hope-heath-and-jake-dont-hate-them/ | title = 'Brokeback To The Future' Creators Hope Heath And Jake Don't Hate Them | first= Larry | last= Carroll | date = February 24, 2006 | access-date = December 18, 2018 | work = [[MTV]] }}</ref>

In 2006, comedy troupe [[The Lonely Island]] made a ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' [[Digital Short]] in which a trailer of [[Mel Gibson]]'s upcoming film ''[[Apocalypto]]'', a film entirely in the [[Yucatec Maya language]], was recut and had English-language subtitles added to it based on statements made by Gibson during a well-publicized [[drunk driving]] incident of several months prior, to make it appear that the characters were saying [[anti-Semitic]] things.<ref>{{cite web |title=SNL Digital Short: Apocalypto Recut |url=https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/snl-digital-short-apocalypto-recut/n12134 |date=December 2, 2006}}</ref>

With continued growth of the Internet, including the ease of mixing videos and publishing to sites like [[YouTube]], re-mix trailers continued to gain popularity. While most were made with the intent of present a film in a different genre than intended, other trailers were made to rectify what some might see as bad marketing or approaches to movie promotion. A notable example was the fan-made re-cut of ''[[John Carter (film)|John Carter]]'' based on the [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] character. Michael Sellers, a fan of Burroughs' work, had been disappointed by the trailers Disney had released, including the one used during [[Super Bowl XLVI]]. He and his friend Mark Linthicum spent the evening after the Super Bowl downloading available material for the film and other works to piece together a more representative trailer of the source material; this caught not only the attention of the film's director [[Andrew Stanton]], but of major media productions that praised the trailer's quality over Disney's own efforts.<ref name="wired"/><ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/john-carter-fan-trailer-disney-293944 | title = Fan-Made Trailer for 'John Carter' Could Be Better Than Official One | first= Borys | last = Kit | date = February 22, 2018 | access-date = December 18, 2018 | work = [[The Hollywood Reporter]] }}</ref> In a similar vein, the web series ''Honest Trailers'' from [[Screen Junkies]] similar remixes films to create trailers that sarcastically portray what happens in the film.<ref name="wired"/>

*[[YouTube poop|YouTube Poop]]

{{Appropriation in the Arts}}

[[Category:Internet memes introduced in 2005]]

[[Category:Parodies]]