Recently my mom relayed a conversation she'd had with a movie trailer director. He had complained about trailers that give away too much of the film, and mentioned his preference for going into movies he's heard little or nothing about.

I'm a fan of trailers and I like walking into a theater with expectations. With all the internet reviews, word of mouth and franchise pictures today, you can find a movie you'll like without ever seeing a trailer. But it's not always that easy to get a sure thing. Moving on, I sometimes {cough} download new movies to watch in the comfort of my home. And sometimes, well once, I watched the beginnings of some dled movies to choose what to see in the theater. More often than not, I like the first 15 minutes of a movie that I end up enjoying overall. And if I don't like the movie in the first 15 minutes, I usually don't enjoy the rest of it.

I can be easily convinced by a trailer to see a movie I won't like, but the beginning of the actual movie speaks for itself. Not that it can't steer you wrong. Also, I think that an intriguing or enjoyable beginning can wet your appetite and move you to see the whole thing. I think audiences would be able to make better choices, if they could judge what they're asked to buy based on a consistent and complete sample, which would be the beginning. On IMDB and other sites, you can watch trailers and maybe short clips, but never the real thing. So distributors and sites should make the beginnings of movies available for dl. It might even be more democratic as some indie films might have low budget trailers, but the beginnings could really pull you in.
-- miggavin, Apr 21 2006

Starz.com http://www.starz.co...bel=starz_on_demand
video on demand - I think it has previews [Jinbish, Apr 21 2006]

15 minutes of movies. No editing.

I remember being in a hotel and ordering a film on their cable - this is how their system worked. After 5 minutes or so you were blocked from seeing the film...

Also - try starz.com (linky). I'm outside the US and can't get the content - but it appears to have a 'preview' option.
-- Jinbish, Apr 21 2006


Yeah, starz doesn't seem to be for movies in the theatre. 10-15 mins would be available, but you might realize after 3 mins that you don't want to see the rest of the preview or the whole film.
-- miggavin, Apr 21 2006


Help me out here, since I can't see the damn video. Are the previews just trailers or the first minutes of the films in question? And I do notice that those films are out on video (dvd).

I like the idea in general.
-- Jinbish, Apr 21 2006


They're trailers. I like the in demand rental thing, not yet as much as the through the mail. I'd like to see the in demand option for new pictures, but still you can't beat goin out to the movies.
-- miggavin, Apr 21 2006


The 15 min preview could be a business enhancing gimmic for services like NetFlix. With every shipment you also receive a custom burned DVD with previews "People who ordered your DVD selection also ordered ..., enjoy the previews." On the sender side this service could be automated at fairly low cost.

The sender could actually make some extra money from studios by biasing the preview selection to promote certain films. I heard Amazon does that with books, but that may be just a myth.
-- kbecker, Apr 22 2006


If this were to happen, the first 15 minutes would simply become the new trailer. Hollywood would tweak it for whatever type of audience they want, losing any realistic indication it might have had.
-- Aq_Bi, Apr 22 2006


That's possible Aq, but there would be trailers still, this would be just another option for those moviegoers interested enough to spend the time downloading and watching previews. It probably would never be poplular enough to affect the content. Even if they tweek it, it'd be a nice addition.
-- miggavin, Apr 23 2006


Note that this is quite common for music. In the iTunes Store you can listen to 30 seconds of the song you might want to buy. But in that same store you get to see the videos with trailers, not just the first x minutes!

I hate trailers also, for that reason I go to the 'sneak preview', showing movies that will be released in a few weeks time, but you don't know what you are going to see. And I try to avoid trailers everywhere.
-- rrr, Sep 19 2007



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