I was watching movie trailers on YouTube, and was noticing style differences between the decades.<\/p>\n
The 1995 movie Virtuosity has a narrator. To us as modern movie audiences, narrators feel very cheesy.<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But how do directors communicate to the audience without them? Look at the preview for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, an equivalenty action movie. There’s no narrator, and not even any dialogue. This probably comes from the fact that it is a sequel, so we already know what to expect, and they can get by with more tease and less content (although the same could be said of the whole movie).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hg_eEnm_QsU\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Inception trailer has some narration at the beginning. This is fairly uncommon among modern (2000-2010s) movie trailers. One thing about it — he’s not talking TO you, he’s just talking (but not with dialogue from the movie), and letting you figure it out. It’s less narration, and more monologue.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RSyQ3K0xnYg\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I think the Inception trailer is representative of what we’re seeing in modern times. The audience has to figure out what’s going on, which means they’re thinking and more engaged.<\/p>\n<p>The trailer for Source Code (2011) uses a few title screens to fill in a few details.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NkTrG-gpIzE\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>To be fair, Inception and Source Code are more in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html\" target=\"_blank\">JJ Abrams-mystery box<\/a> genre of movies. But here’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which again has no narrator, and uses on-screen text more heavily. If you read the on-screen text in your head with a cheesy 80s-narrator voice, it seems almost the same. It guides people through the “what’s going to happen next?”<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3xuMfKxXnDk\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>80s movies have the same vibe as the 90s, although this seems like they tell you a bit more about how you’ll feel when you watch the movie (“with a touch of romance”), rather than the 90s one which is more narrative and descriptive. Check out the trailer from The Wizard, 1989.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NT6zfPC3sDk\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Going farther back is A Clockwork Orange, 1971. There’s no narrator. This actually feels surprisingly modern, although the pacing seems older.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/40Xc-9YeWE4\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Godfather, <del datetime=\"2011-03-20T23:03:32+00:00\">1872<\/del> 1972. No narrator, and only some dialogue. Again, this feels modern, but the pacing gives it away.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bf16Vc3iZjE\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Doctor Zhivago, 1965, has a narrator. Also, notice the length of the trailer. This isn’t a movie trailer so much as an academic report.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wAWrXTn5Www\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Again, a long trailer for Lawrence of Arabia, 1962, also has a narrator. Near the end, the narrator discusses more about the actors themselves, and not just focusing on the plot. Obviously a sign of the times.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IDF0at7sC0M\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was watching movie trailers on YouTube, and was noticing style differences between the decades. The 1995 movie Virtuosity has a narrator. To us as modern movie audiences, narrators feel very cheesy. But how do directors communicate to the audience without them? Look at the preview for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, an equivalenty action … <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/20\/movie-trailers-a-style-guide-1960s-2000s\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> “Movie Trailers, a style guide, 1960s – 2000s”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[542,543],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}