How Trailer Music Tricks You

so did anybody else hear about the new Star Wars trailer [Music] no matter how hard you try it almost seems like every other week or so there's a new trailer that takes the world by storm and I'm not trying to be some cynic here if a new trailer really has you excited and me talking about a specific trailer hasn't horribly dated this video then great have fun go enjoy yourself roll it again the only problem is is that this isn't the new trailer for Star Wars Episode nine this is [Music] what I played is an edit of the Star Wars 9 trailer done by film score analysis and sight note if you aren't subbed to him then you're really missing out he makes these awesome film score reductions and animates them and if you're even kind of into film scores then you owe it to yourself to check his stuff out links in the description but I took film score analysis music list edit of the trailer and I played the main theme to Star Wars on top of it you know the but that isn't what plays during the trailer this is what we hear instead [Music] now on my channel I've spent a lot of time complaining about themes and light motifs and all that good stuff and I've spent an extra amount of time complaining about the usage of this main theme in particular and how it started off as Luke's theme and then it never really showed up in the prequels and then it hasn't really appeared that much in the sequel trilogy even during the scene where Luke kind of dies but not really what I'm trying to say is that the main theme of Star Wars doesn't appear in the trailer instead we get a collection of other Star Wars themes and ideas and if you really want a detailed breakdown of this trailers second-by-second and head over to dr. Frank Lemmons Twitter account where he's done just that and for those who aren't know dr. lemon is the Yoda of Star Wars music he created and curates a master list of all the musical ideas that appear in the Star Wars universe and he updates it all the time check the description for a link but for the eagle-eyed out there or I guess the Eagle eared or bat-eared for those of you who are extra observant and extra familiar with the sonic Star Wars landscape you'll notice that the ending of this trailer makes an interesting statement on one hand we're hearing kylo ren's theme [Music] but that's also a reference to the DEA's array or the ancient musical manifestation of death but at the same time it's also kind of the ewok theme so if you want to take this trailer from a musically literal point of view I think it's trying to tell us that kylo Ren is gonna lead a death cult of Ewoks but that seems like kind of a strange statement coming from someone like John Williams who's carefully crafted the score over the last few decades but there are elements of other Star Wars trailers that just I don't know they don't really sound exactly like the maestro himself like take the force awakens trailer for example right here where we hear the force theme or binary sunset [Music] the dark side now compare that to the original [Music] the trailer is much less legato it's punctuated by this blasting percussion it's doing everything it can to sound as epic and adventurous as possible but it seems to lose that sincere stoic nature of the original recording but why is that why the changes why the confusion what's up with trailer music well the answer my friends is that John Williams didn't write this I mean he wrote the music but he didn't arrange it see longtime viewers of the channel will already know this but to recap when you make a film the music is the last thing that happens because you need at least a rough edit of the film in order to start scoring scenes but while the film is being edited the marketing department needs to start selling the film to the general public which means that a trailer needs to come out but this is all while the composer is still spotting and syncing the film and then actually writing the music which then has to go off to orchestrators and arrangers to proofread your chicken-scratch then you have to have the music get read by an orchestra record it edit that recording makes it master it and then send it off to the audio department to cut it and then merge it with all the dialogue and folio and other ADR so while this whole process is happening it puts directors and producers in the awkward situation of figuring out what music they're gonna put in the trailer of their film because more often than not it's not going to be music from the film itself and when it comes to answering this question you basically have four options that people throughout the history of film have gone for in terms of creating a successful trailer soundtrack 1 if your film comes from a franchise you can just use music from one of the previous films [Music] this is what you see with massive franchises like Star Wars it has a long lush history of music from the franchise so as long as you include music from the past series it's going to remind audiences of the past films and hopefully remind them of why they liked the franchise in the first place and then be encouraged to see your sequel this in effect is what happens with these massive franchises like Star Wars or Avengers in the Avengers end game trailer for example you hear a massive thunderous rendition of the main thing to the Avengers [Music] at the time of this video I haven't seen endgame yet but I'm sure I'm gonna like it because I'm that kind of nerd but at the same time there's actually a neat little TV spot that plays each of the characters individual themes from the entire series back-to-back and so far in the almost 30 years I've spent on this earth I think it's the greatest and most effective trailer I've ever seen but I've also seen condensed versions of this trailer that missed the line the various themes of different characters but to be completely honest if I spend any more time complaining about Star Wars and Avengers on this channel my neckbeard is gonna grow a neckbeard but say that you don't have a franchise and that you're making a standalone film what's another option well option 2 is that you can license music any pre-existing music out there for example right now there's a Godzilla trailer that uses a slower version of over the rainbow what we are witnessing here is the return of tightness or I guess I'm immediately breaking my own rule here but you can look at the trailer for age of Ultron that was Ultron singing you've got no strings on me [Music] there are no strings on me or you can look at Bohemian Rhapsody from Suicide Squad that I'm not gonna play because it would absolutely get flagged or you can look at how Johnny Cash is hurt played for the Logan trailer or maybe even some Beethoven for die hard I'm starting to get a bad feeling up here Merry Christmas or maybe something that sounds an awful lot like sad but true by Metallica but isn't for army of Darkness you know your shoelace is untied [Music] he's a 20th century guy but this is where the marketing situation starts to become a little more tricky what is it about these pieces of music that made the marketing team gravitate toward them maybe the grandiose sound of ode to joy' juxtaposed with explosions tried to convey the over-the-top nature of diehard maybe the Pinocchio reference in age of Ultron was to subtly remind the audience that Disney now owns Marvel I think it's a less of a mystery as to why they played something that sounded like Metallica for army of Darkness but what is the overlap in demographics between people that love Bohemian Rhapsody and Suicide Squad what was Johnny Cash trying to tell audiences about Logan what is the association between these pieces of music trying to convey to the audience what do they want you to be thinking about when you're first introduced to these films and with that we get our third option so maybe your film isn't a franchise and maybe you don't want to or you can't afford to license music what do you do maybe you use some production music or library music whatever you want to call it think of it as b-roll or stock music it's music designed to operate in the background with one upfront cost and once you pay you can do whatever you want with it for that one-time payment no strings attached but the problem with these pieces of library music is that they're open to anyone who's willing to pay the fee because it's just a one-time fee composers end up not making royalties which in the end of the day can make it cheaper for studios to use but because these pieces of library music don't come with any royalties for the composer there's no exclusivity if you pay the fee you can use this piece of music however you want which means that these pieces of library music can end up appearing in multiple places for example here's a trailer for Lightning McQueen in cars 3 [Music] [Music] this is a piece of music called renegade by gamma but because it's a piece of production music with the license up for sale upfront free to be sold to whoever's willing to buy it you can also here in this car commercial that I found life it roses the unexpected and I also found it in a SpaceX video [Applause] and I also found it in a commercial for I want to say oil I heard it once when I was watching drag racing one day because I had the TV on and I saw that drag racing was on and I was like when do you ever see drag racing on TV wait is that the tune from cars three long story short I heard it in a commercial but I couldn't find that specific commercial but it proves a very important point that this kind of production music can appear basically anywhere which can be kind of a problem when you're trying to manage a brand or is it here's a piece of music by immediate music called Redrum [Music] and here it is in the trailer for the 2004 film Godzilla final Wars and here it is again in the trailer for 2002 is the ring theory movie since the sixth sense and again in the trailer for 2001's The Mummy Returns Brendan Fraser wives and according to one source this piece of music has been used in a lot of different trailers which raises an interesting question how much of this comes from convenience and how much of this is done on purpose how much of using the same pieces of library music is a stressed out producer looking through a catalogue and saying yep that sounds fine ship it and how much of this is being purposefully used as a marketing tactic hey if you liked the movie The Mummy Returns here's a really subtle hint that shows how these two films might be similar and maybe you're more encouraged to check out our new movie and this is a massive widespread phenomenon in the world of production music for example look at all of these appearances for a track called moving mountains from two steps from hell and who are you he's gonna make a scene the Volturi will kill him if he reveals himself in the sunlight not just pain in anger from his first day at Hogwarts mr. Potter our news celebrity to his first kiss well how was it [Music] a shocking number of tracks get used over and over and over again and it's difficult to tell whether it's out of convenience or trying to sway an audience in one direction or another through subconscious Association but the final strategy for scoring a trailer is by far the most fascinating if your film isn't part of a franchise and you don't want to or you can't afford to license music and you don't want to pull music from a library then maybe you just decide to score your trailer with the music from someone else's film for example here's the trailer for d2 The Mighty Ducks a world championships did you hear it I'll play it again a world championships that's the main theme from Back to the Future so if your kid in the 90s and you loved back to the future then hey there might be something about this d2 movie that feels kind of familiar something you can't quite put your finger on but you want to check it out because you feel like you might like it or how about this here's the original trailer for The Incredibles [Music] which is note-for-note the theme for on Her Majesty's Secret Service [Applause] it's no secret that Brad Bird the director for the Incredibles wanted John Berry known for his work on the James Bond films to score The Incredibles but after berry backed out of the project Byrd turned to Michael chiquinho to score the film instead but before berry backed out Byrd scored the trailer to the Incredibles with the theme from on Her Majesty's Secret Service so for a lot of kids out there that James Bond sound would have solidified the secret-agent tone of the film but for some of the parents taking their kids to see the film it might have had a strangely nostalgic feeling to it you couldn't quite put your finger on it but it felt familiar it might help you think that you're already gonna like it before you've ever seen it but what might be my favorite example of using someone else's score in your trailer is this right here [Music] now I didn't actually go out and buy the island to find what scene this cue is actually in because well I didn't want to but you'll never guess where this track reappears [Music] you're not in Kansas anymore you are on Pandora [Music] who are you Walter Raleigh Wow many weaknesses yeah this one I'm not entirely sure how or why this one ended up the way that it did but it's a great example of how reusing music can create strange associations between properties and brands ultimately by your using these pieces of music the producers are gonna manufacture a bizarre musical lattice of sounds and ideas that will inevitably cross pollinate with other brands and properties but a great way to avoid any of those problems would be to hire a composer to write original music all of these practices overshadow and undermine the works of composers like John Beall who has written over 2000 movie trailers in his career which is a phenomenal amount of work and if you want an idea of what his work looks like you can look at the trailer to the original Star Wars [Music] villains but even when there's a composer on staff ready to write an original score for the trailer you still hear horror stories of directors standing over the shoulder of their composers demanding that they directly copy other people's work which at the end of the day really makes you think maybe you like the sound of that trailer because you just thought it sounded cool or maybe it specifically reminded you of that film that you saw once and really liked and now you have that association with this new film so maybe you're more encouraged to go and check out this new film so even though it sounds like John Williams and you think it's John Williams on some level it isn't John Williams and regardless of whether you noticed it or not one thing is for certain it is effective thanks for watching I'd like to thank on my patrons for making these videos possible with a very special thank you to AFN Matt Andrew Luke Billy Vasquez Clara tan dr. whoa Donovan Hodges Hayden Elsa Jordan Adams Karen Rosa now Who am I and Zoll boot um in general also thank you to everyone for requesting that I do a video on trailer music it's a lot of fun it's a great rabbit hole to dive down and I'll put all my resources in the description below so you can go and find your own favorite trailer music and see where else it's appeared if you'd like to request a video then go and check on my patreon page if you like what you saw here be sure to check out my other videos and if you really like what I did they consider supporting the channel on patreon but that's all I got for now thanks for watching

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,474,193

Rating: 4.8917632 out of 5

Keywords: Trailer, Soundtrack, Music Theory, Music, Commercial, Liscence, Library, Stock, Production, Film Trailer, Movie Trailer, Star Wars, Avengers, Film Scoring, Composition, Back to the Future, Teaser

Id: ZFonFfFsXcQ

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2019

Reddit Comments

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[u/MichaelTheCutts]

This is all true. I saw Avengers last week and got a trailer for Lion King. The trailer mix of “King of Pride Rock” was incredible, and made me in that moment want to see the movie. I’ve since cooled on that feeling, but man, that pull on the Nostalgic heart strings was extremely effective.

[u/KingAdamXVII]

This might just be me, but I can't stand Sideways. He tries to act like he knows a lot about music theory but never gives any insight other than "Here is a leitmotif and it is/isn't used appropriately".

Thanks to Frank Lehman for the only bit in the video worth watching.

[u/Bl0ndie_J21]

I’m only a few a minutes in... but was this guy just critical of the ST trailers and their music? The two best trailers to ever exist? Because I’m not okay with that.