User:Ramez21/sandbox

Honest Trailers

Every Tuesday, Screen Junkies releases a new segment on Youtube called Honest Trailers. This show showcases a satirical trailer of various movies and TV series that already came out. They would point out flaws, plot holes and criticize the show using humour and logic at the same time. They have done trailers for film series such as The X-Men trilogy , the Spiderman trilogy and all the movies from The Twilight Saga. They have also done trailers for Blockbuster films such as Ghostbusters, The Fault in Our Stars, and Les Miserables .Their most recent trailer made was the 1999 film, Fight Club. Since its inception in 2012, Honest Trailers has had hundreds of millions of views and helped the channel reach more than 3 million subscriber.

History

It originally started in February 2012 with a team of five people: series creators Andy Signore and Brett Weiner, along with Spencer Gilbert, Gilli Nissim, and Dan Murrell. After watching the trailer for the 3D re-release of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace,, they were inspired to portray movies for how they really are. Andy Signore, said this about its origin:

"It started in February, 2012 when Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was being re-released in 3D. We were so confused as to why they would re-release such a disappointing film in crappy 3D post conversion. But then we watched the trailer and it showcased two minutes of all the coolest parts of the film: Darth Maul, the "Duel of the Fates" theme, and it almost tricked us into wanting to see it again. So that's when the idea of making an actual Honest Trailer was born. Marketing the film for the way it really is."

The decision to figure out which trailer to release is based off two things: fan requests and the attempt to go viral. Fans would often post which movie or show they would to see featured next and based on the amount of requests is how they choose it. Another method is the concept of choosing a film that would go viral quicker. This resulted in trailers such as Frozen and Game of Thrones being the most popular.

Style

One of the many ways that it remains popular is by pointing out various mistakes and tropes. During the Lion King trailer, they made a reference to the controversy about Disney stealing the entire premise of the movie from Kimba the White Lion, a 1960s Japanese animated cartoon show. They also pointed out Michael Bay's love for explosions in the action movies he directs, like the entire Transformers series. the Spiderman trilogy was also heavily criticized in the trailer for having the same concept in all three of their movies (Peter Parker struggling with his powers, breaking up with Mary Jane, and battling an evil superhero that ultimately kills himself).

Narrators

One of the most iconic things about Honest Trailers is the man who voices the narrator. Mimicking the "classic action movie narrator" has become highly appealing to the fans. Fans would often request for phrases to be said by the narrator and at the end of each video, the narrator would choose a handful and say them in his narrated voice.

The very first episode had Ptolemy Slocum, a voice over professional do the voice over for the very first episode, before co-creator Signore decided he wasn't a good fit. Gannon Nickell was chosen next and did voice over for over a dozen videos. However, he was enlisted in the military and was later called for service so he was not able to record often. Eventually, Signore had to start looking for a voice actor and stumbled upon Jon Bailey, who has done work for tv shows such as Community and Breaking Bad. He is now the current narrator for Honest Trailers and has been known by fans to change his tone slightly depending on the genre of the movie.

Success

Honest Trailers helped Screen Junkies reached over 3 million subscribers and over 300 million views on their show. In fact, the top 20 most popular videos are all Honest Trailer videos, with Frozen being the most popular with over 18 million views. Its success even reached famous celebrities and Hollywood directors.. When the Russo brothers directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they did it in a way that they will avoid being criticized by Honest Trailers. Joe Russo said this in an interview:

"What’s so funny is that I’m an avid honest trailer watcher. I love it, it cracks me up. So I think we talked about it in the commentary we used to sit in the room and go, “this is not going to end up in an honest trailer. This logic isn’t sound enough yet.” We literally tried to Honest Trailer proof the movie. Because what Honest Trailers really is, and I’ll say litmus test again, is “how sound is the logic in your film? How ridiculous are the buys that you’re asking the audience to make?” So we would just comb through the script over and over again and go, “how do we shore up this logic? How do we shore up this logic?” So it was a very helpful exercise for us."

Honest Game Trailers

Following the immense success of Honest Trailers, they teamed up with one of the largest channels on Youtube, Smosh, to release Honest Game Trailers every Saturday. The premise is the exact same as Honest Trailers, where instead of movies and tv series, they instead give honest trailers for popular video games such as Pokémon Red and Blue, Mario Kart, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Its most popular video to date would be the honest game trailer of Pokémon Red and Blue, which has had over 7 million views since its release two months ago.

Affliates

• AVByte
• CinemaSins
• HISHE
• RedLetterMedia
• TeamFourStar