The Artist Creative Reponse
ReturnWhen watching the official trailer for The Artist I had some thoughts. Turns out I don't like this trailer, the first part of the movie is a bore and so when the trailer focuses solely on the success of George and Peppy, it feels like it is underselling the film. “Ooh yay” say all the silent film romance fans excited for the first film in their taste to not feature grain.
The best part of the movie is the switch up, from silent to sound, and the impact this has on the characters. The silent film aspect, the characters' life, the romance, all lead to the idea of struggling in the film industry during such a revolutionary time. For the film to under-portray this aspect of the film seems like an injustice.
For my own trailer I intend to exemplify the switch up aspect of the film. Only teasing the movie as a silent film romance. Then to be hit with the sound scene and then showing the impact though a montage of his life getting worse.
Because of the lack of dialogue in the movie, I couldn't do the typical movie trailer idea of a voice-over introducing the movie and explaining the concept. It made sense to introduce the story with text cards. I attempted to keep things simple and imply as much as possible about the concept of the movie through the visuals, leaving the text cards to only say what is necessary. I disliked that about the official trailer, “An Encounter”. What does that add? “The Fall” and then three shots of said fall. I want to use more visual elements to convey these messages which should leave the audience more thoughtfully informed and wanting to watch the movie.
I decided to orchestrate the first half of the trailer with Fantasie D'amour it had varying levels of intensity built into the music. Allowing me to show many emotions within the shortened time with minor editing to the music which would have been a pain.
The middle or the sound scene should be completely silent except for the diegetic sounds in the scene. Those sounds need to be amplified as they are integral to the story and purpose of the film.
For the final montage the first thing I thought of was the music from oppenheimer. First off, it's amazing. Secondly, it gives the feeling of tragedy and epic at the same time. A strange mix of emotions that would fit the trailer perfectly. In the end I went for American Prometheus starting at about 1:09 into the music.
I thought it was a good idea to have some narration in the second half. It would hopefully guide the audience to understand the change presented in the movie that would allow for narration. For someone to say something about the past would have been very fitting.
With the trailer halfway finished I sent it to Andrew for feedback
“I think it’s good up until the point where it shows the sound scene
trailers aren’t supposed to give away the full story and by including something that is so important to the development of the story i think it’s a bit of a bad idea to put it in the trailer, but other than that im loving it, especially the music and how you reused the song from the film”
Andrew was 100% right. The sound scene along with my plan of a montage for the fall would have completely spoiled the movie. If I end the movie with a scream, that would have spoiled the first part of the film. Personally I don't think this would be that great a loss, as the first half doesn't have the same twists or suspense. Audience will get in seats to answer the trailer's question as “How will George cope with the change.” A perfectly reasonable trailer. However this would rule out showing any of my favourite half of the film, as including it would mean that the audience knows the answer to this question and they feel spoiled.
My solution for avoiding spoilers is showing the first half of the movie while intermingling the second half. Highlighting the differences between them. I only need to be careful about spoiling the contents of the last half. For example, if I were to show the Tears of Love audience as a comparison to the audience at the start of the film, then the audience may feel spoiled that they know the outcome of that movie will be a poor one. There is a simple work around though and that is too obscure that the film shown is Tears of Love. First time viewers won't know that movie is the only one in the second half until they already see that it's a colossal failure. Intermingling the second half, gives my trailer the advantage of targeting the right audience for the film. Drama and tragedy is the game of The Artist, whereas the official trailer plays it as a romance film. I am to show that while it starts as romance, things get tragic with george.I aim to pose the questions that would get audiences in seats as “What makes George's life turn out this way”.
The music of the second attempt was surprisingly hard to find. This trailer needed to highlight the tragedy. That was the main thing I focused on. Evidenced in the halfway finished trailer, the Oppenhiner soundtrack, which would have fit perfectly This to say the least was quite sad. Trivia: The music playing in the suicide scene is Scene D'Amour from the Vertigo OST. How very cool.
The only thing I could think of was that the Oppenhiner didn't work because it was too new? Seeing that songs from Alfred Hitchcock's fit nicely into the film I wanted to give some of his other OST’s a try in the trailer. The 64 years older Overture from North by Northwest instantly caught my attention with the dramatic shifts in intensity.
It fit well alongside the artist clips but I really struggled to join it with the Fantasie D'amour song. There was never a way to get them to transition nicely. It was also hard to properly introduce and include Peppy in these scenes due to having the rush into the transition. I attempted to solve this by then changing the Fantasie D'amour song to something similar to Overtures bmp. Analysing the songs lead me to many options, surprisingly Comme Une Rosée De Larmes come together quite nicely, even if the song is a little on the sad end. Everything flowed well.
The sadness gave the trailer a slower pace and anticipated the twisting emotions in the movie. It did make the trailer less catchy then before which could be something that I revisit in the future. However what I think conveyed sadness after feedback seemed to be happy or just classical which definitely a mood that I wanted to aim for. Sad but hopeful, and this mood would enhance the switch up.
After a few revisions I found that It was hard to start with George in the opening, as for the switch up I would highlight the difference in the audience from the starting film to the audience for Tears of Love. Switching from the starting film to Peppy and George and then back to the starting film to show the differences didn't feel right. Because of this, I started off strong with Peppy and George's introduction. One thing that I just realised now is that showing their introduction spoils that small scene of tension where you don't know if George is going to be angry or not. But either way showing them as friends already ruins the scene so I think it's justifiable to introduce them with it and keep the tension included just like I did in my first trailer attempt.
While the transition between the two music pieces still could be better I struggled to do so. In the build up of the ouverture I matched it up with buildup for George going out onto stage. The switch up is my trailer's time to shine. It starts off with the juxtaposition of the audience's reception between both of George's films. The clips of his success in the opening dissolve into the audience of the Tears of Love, a much more visually darker, less full audience. The dissolve then changes over to the difference in Georges and Peppys relationship. So that afterwards I could slow down the trailer a bit and display the highs of Peppy and Georges relationship during the silent film era and how George became a lot more distant and worse to be around when he had fallen from fame and Peppy started gaining popularity and influence.
In the next section the cuts really get faster and faster. I wanted to really lay into Georges drinking because toward the end of the film he does a lot. And it is a good indicator that he is really suffering as an individual.
For the very ending I made sure to slow the cuts down to really get the emotions of the scene across. I put what I think to be the most dramatic scenes in the film and so it seemed right to spend time on each of them during the climax of the trailer, something contrary to typical trailer advice. I believe this turned out well, The Artist is not an action film and framing it as such with fast cuts would draw the wrong audience to the movie. This slower pace gave me the option to put in shots of Peppy as George takes a drink. I put this in as a teaser that Peppy is relevant in this part of the movie as George thinks about her. This gives the audience a clue and pushes the question “What makes George's life turn out this way”. They can only know for sure if they watch the movie.
The last shot is George in the burned down house in his darkest moment. This is an image that I want to stay with the audience. A once famous man filled with tragedy, you'll have to watch the movie to understand.