For Kriv and I, the trailer was the key element of the publicity materials for “Lucky Country” – it was the one tool we had that would have the broadest reach. More importantly, it was the first point of contact that most of our audience would have with the film – so we knew we had better make a good initial impression!
Both of us love watching trailers on the internet. To us, great trailers don’t tell you the whole plot of the film or reveal all the best jokes and set pieces. They make you desperately want to see the film and talk it up in anticipation of its release.
Some of my favourite trailers over the years have stayed with me, despite the hundreds and hundreds of trailers I watch. One of the best trailers I have seen is for Brian de Palma’s “Femme Fatale” – a film that is definitely for fans of de Palma’s style-over-substance thrillers, but very much one of my guilty pleasures. The trailer itself is a work of genius – check it out here:
There are other trailers that just perfectly captured the tone and mood of the film and watching the trailer again, can stir up the emotions you had watching the film itself. The best example I have for these types of trailers is the “Magnolia” trailer – I imagine this was a difficult job for the trailer editor to encapsulate 9 interweaving stories and multiple characters. I re-visit this trailer a lot – I am very time-poor now with twins, so watching the 2 minutes trailer is quicker than watching the whole 3 hour movie, but I can still get my PT Anderson fix. Here is the trailer:
Finally, there are these great Public Service Announcements that David Fincher made as teasers for “Fight Club”.
When we were considering the trailer for “Lucky Country”, we thought about a lot of recent trailers for westerns and thrillers, such as:
“No Country for Old Men” – although not a period film, I think that they had a similar issue of selling a dark film (albeit with stars and the Coen Brothers).
“There Will be Blood” - both teaser and full trailer – I really love how both these trailers use speeches from the film over imagery.
“The Proposition” - I thought this one started well and built to a good action montage from the film, which we could use to highlight the thriller aspects of our film.
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” - this is a very lyrical, beautiful period film, great use of slow motion to set the trailer up initially and I love the fades to black to set up the pacing of the trailer.
Looking at the various examples Kriv felt the more action, or rather “tension” based, and less lyrically structured trailers were perhaps a good direction to follow. We agreed that we didn’t want people to think this is an Aussie “Jesse James” – a beautifully shot tone poem.
We wanted our audience to think that “Lucky Country” is a thrilling ride filled with suspense and tension and was a bold, unashamedly, entertaining “genre” film – it’s a modern Western and a Thriller. Kriv was really insistent that we use these two “Tags” to our advantage, because no other Australian film this year will or can.
Kriv also liked the trailers that use speeches from the film have a tonal potency that really grabs your attention. Both of us wanted to avoid the use (or over-use in a lot of recent examples that we could cite) of captions explaining the film. To us, it was better that the characters spoke rather than using pithy caption clichés.
We worked with The Solid State on the concept and design of the trailers and I think that the final trailer speaks for itself – they have done a fantastic job! Check out their website for other examples of their work – www.thesolidstate.com.au. Also, have a look at their most recent trailer for “Balibo” which just looks amazing.
Whether we succeeded or not is up to the audience. But we have been getting some great feedback on sites like Quiet Earth and TwitchFilm!
