Studio Factory Exercise

Studio Factory

This iMovie exercise teaches:

● How to create variant trailers for different market segments
● How to think of a movie as a saleable product

(Instructions for Windows Movie Maker are here).

1. Preview audiences are unenthused. Photoplay shows fans how stars prepare for scenes, warns viewers that exhibitors hypnotize them, and deems Sunrise twaddle for highbrows. Production stills show "one happy family." The studio showcases different Fox Studio films and stars. Display ads shill the silent version (1927) and, a year later, the Vitaphoned version (1928) as, hmm, well...

the cunning of a love thief"
"most beautiful picture ever made"
"the sin of husband-stealing"
"the master touch of F.W. Marnau"
"The most important picture in the history of the movies"
"now showing with 'Felix the Cat and comedy'"

2. In lithographed lobby cards, and in window cards and one-sheet posters, Fox positions the movie in the American market, variously, as a film about

a philandering husband
a repentant husband
a doting husband
a crazy-in-love couple

3. Fox engages National Screen Services to produce a trailer flogging Sunrise as... high art for highbrows.

4. Hello? Is anyone piloting this marketing campaign? It's time for you to start marketing this movie.

5. Write yourself a log line—a single sentence stating the heart of the movie, usually the unique central conflict. (If you haven't yet viewed Sunrise, write your log line for a different movie you know well).

One size doesn't fit all. Picture your audience. Would a trailer for a 1950s art house audience resemble this? For Fox movie houses in 1930's rural Nebraska? For the German export market?

6. Create for a target audience (you pick which) a 20-second "trailer" for Sunrise. Use nothing but a sound track and this production still. Use your log line as the needle that stitches your trailer together.