Intriguing Pop Culture Editing

[Maj]

Not the closest topic to fighting games, but they certainly influence our video editing choices - moreso than actual feature films do. In fact i've noticed that some of the best trailers come from otherwise mediocre movies. For example, two of my favorites are Sin City (which was a good movie) and 300 (which sucked). Both of them had a preview teaser and then a full theatrical trailer.

Sin City trailers | 300 trailers

Sin City was fun, it was tangled, it had a lot of surprises, and it had an unbelievable cast. But 300 ... as an action movie, nothing interesting happens after the first battle because they never bother to spend any time setting up a proper threat. It's the Spartans versus an entire bracket of cannon fodder until they reach finals and get swept. If something that one-dimensional doesn't even cut it as an action flick, then nothing is gonna save it.

The trailers though, those things are pure awesome. Something about Frank Miller's visual style and the way the directors managed to preserve it translates unbelievably well into hype machines. Whoever made those trailers also made two perfect choices for background music. In fact i think the first Sin City trailer is vastly superior to the second one simply because it lets the music loose instead of hiding it behind what would otherwise be very cool lines. But no matter how cool those lines are, they can't measure up to the anticipation you get from watching those actors' names appear one by one alongside their stylized images while that track is rocking in the background. Also i totally dig the custom "Coming Soon" storyboard at the end with the comic book rain backdrop, complete with thunder sound effects and everything

The same deal with the pair of 300 trailers. The first one is way better because they isolate two or three of the best lines in the movie, then let the music and the visuals do the talking. In the second one, once they start talking they will not shut the fuck up! In fact they outright waste the very best lines by mashing them all into one giant run-on sentence. The moral of the story is, don't try to summarize your entire plot simply because you have an extra minute to fill.

Finally, here's the trailer for Dark City, a movie that i enjoyed immensely:

Dark City trailer

It's not quite top tier as far as trailers go, but it does a great job of conveying the atmosphere of the film without giving away any spoilers (unless you watch too closely and memorize it prior to watching the film). There's even a custom studio logo. The best part is that it manages to avoid speech altogether. They could have easily fucked this up and made it unwatchable, but instead they left enough unsaid to keep us genuinely intrigued.

To summarize, here are my tier rankings for how information is conveyed in movie trailers:

Top tier: Dope music, minimal words taken directly from the movie or written in text
Middle tier: Dope music, an attempt to reconstruct the plot using sound bytes
99th tier: Getting some generic chump to tell us what the movie is about via cliche voiceover (can't stand it when they do that)

[Maj]

Been watching a fair amount of sports, since basketball and soccer seasons are in full swing. These two commercials are both incredible:

Joga Bonito: Ronaldo | Take it to the Next Level

That whole Ronaldo running sequence from 0:34 to 0:47 is absolutely brilliant. Well, okay, i don't know how much of that has to do with the editing and how much of it is me wishing he could still run like that. But yeah, the end result is awesome.

[Maj]

Really cool editing idea with these two new NBA commercials:

Amazing Playoff Moments: Kobe Alley Oop to Shaq | Larry Bird Steals the Ball

Both of those were actual in-game plays. They were even recorded way before HD cameras. Obviously this required an insane amount of post-production and editing wizardry, but 40k views in one day isn't a bad deal either.

[Maj]

I saw this Jaguar At Play commercial on TV (in HD) and i was gonna mention that they do some interesting editing from 0:12 to 0:16. They let the car drive into frame, then speed up the camera to follow the car for half a second, then let the car drive off frame. We probably could've done something like that in combovids. But that shit looks awful after u2b has its way with it, so nevermind.

[Magnetro]

I had to re-watch that clip like 5 times because it felt like they were showing a different car. Don't know if that's just because I know like 0 about cars or because it went by too fast.

Maybe for editing setups to combos? Like, to make showing the set up to a combo more interesting you can probably mess around with having things pop into frame so that the viewer can see what is being used to set the combo up.

[Maj]

I just want to point out that turning a judo flip into a car flip EXPLOSION is movie trailer genius!!

Fast & Furious 6 Trailer: Road (at 0:35)

Can't wait for this dumb, awesome, dumb movie to make me hate myself for loving it.

[error1]

idk seems like they are running out of really stupid names, I guess fast & furisix tested badly

[Snoooootch]

You know, My gf loved the first F&F movie. I thought it was pretty awesome too. We stuck to them, just as my brothers did, and now, This film looks incredibly stupid, but for some reason, I am unbelievably excited to see it. When I reflected on why it is that I feel this way with my brothers, they said the same thing. I wondered if other people felt the same way; feeling embarrassed about how corny the movie looks, yet being so excited to watch it. Haha

I especially thought this part was stupid. I mean, what's Dom gonna do, Catch her and fly her to safety? Hahahaha... I am genuinely intrigued. Fuck...

[Maj]

The first one came out back when Southern Hills Golfland was still around, so a bunch of us saw it together 'cause Valle. I don't remember how or why i saw the second one. Then omni called me up one day and asked if i wanted to go over to his place to watch the third one (Tokyo Drift). I was like, "What the fuck? Are you serious?"

Since then i've looked forward to watching every single one. They're dumb and ridiculous but they're also kind of brilliantly stupid. At the very least, you know 6 Fast is guaranteed to be entertaining. They fucking shoot a car out the front of a burning crashing airplane!