Movie Trailer - with Chris St. Pierre

This man has cut the biggest budget film trailers for many of our favorite movies. Names such as 300. Watchmen. Man of Steel. Justice League. Birds of Prey. Wonder Woman. A Star is Born. Joker. Sweeney Todd. X Men. The Great Gatsby. Aquaman. Harry Potter. His name is Chris St. Pierre, and he sits with America's Podcaster, Kurt Caceres, to teach us what goes on behind the scenes creating the trailers that are meant to grab our attention and get us into the theater. These are the unseen men and women who captivate our minds, hearts and life with cinematic brilliance and top level music. Trailers have become such a big marketing tool that millions of fans will wait in anticipation for a release as if it was the films actual opening day. They get millions of views on YouTube as well as massive play on television and many streaming services. But how does one encapsulate an entire two hour movie into an average time of 1 minute and 50 seconds for modern day trailers? What is the strategy behind this? It is a highly competitive business and the big studios call the shots. Get Ready.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, please take yourseats. The show is about to begin.
Just like a microphone check who thisis it? Oh my gosh,
three, two one, Welcome towhat you need to begin the podcast.

(00:23):
You know what I said? Youknow who this This is America's Podcast to
Kirki Saras. We're doing this ona Saturday afternoon. This is a rare
show on a Saturday because our guest, he's so hard to get get in
the studio that he just had hehad a dentist appointment in the area.
He'sa well, sit, not nokidding you. He's all, well,
maybe I could stop by on theway home, and he did that,
so we have him here. I'mgonna do him in a second, but

(00:45):
I've across for me. We havethe one and only. We have Tony
Frost's baby, Tony Roso, guys, he said pizza, We say,
you little real. He doesn't evenwant to do He's this is too early,
bro. It's like weird because whenI was an intern, wuhan,
who was like wuhan, Yeah,I don't have anything that might have to
be like I think you didn't knowhe got promoted Tony Frost and yeah,

(01:07):
yeah, that's very important. That'swhat I was saying. Now, what's
up baby? So he used tobe intern in an intern only he was
treated like one and we would makehim go to run our errands. But
he got he got promoted us.We had another intern and take my place,
and then he quit. So everyone'swondering who this voice is and you

(01:30):
you recognize it, but you probablyforgot. She hasn't been here so long.
She's my favorite female co host onthe circuit. Well, I mean
we have here, the funny,the beautiful, always elevating the show.
I'm so glad she made it today. Freaking you made me so excited.
It's good to see we have BanyaRenee. Thank you welcome. She had

(01:53):
a comedy so last night she stoppedit here today she has another one tonight.
I'm nothing. Yep, I'm gonnago to bet his beach should do
some do some comedy there, somelive in person. Let's look at that.
So here, this is your warmup. You could start like cracking
jokes and see how they work outand start getting no labs here and here
we are straight from Houston, Texas. Went to TCU and fort Worth studied

(02:22):
radio TV and film. He isa star Wars and superhero geek collector.
That's how we connected. He's he'sworked on on some names. These are
some projects he's worked on. Theymight recognize three hundred, Watchman, Man
of Steele, Justice League, Birdsof Prey, Wonder Woman, A Star
is Born, the Good Liar,Joker, Sweeney Todd, X Men,

(02:44):
the Great Guys be Aquaman, andhe is. His name is Chris sin
Pierre. Thank you, thank you, well, rest due, thank you,
thank you for being here. Umso three hundred or three hundred,
three hundred, they're battling for thestreets. Yeah so, um so he

(03:10):
knew. So I'm gonna tell you, sorry, tell you what he does.
So those names are very familiar,big feature films, and he gets
paid. This dude gets paid towatch movies for a living. Let me
ask you, do you do youalready know what he does? Did you
ask him early? Oh? Ialready know, because I already know.
Oh wow? Oh so so notonly an editor, but he's the one

(03:38):
who makes the big film trailers thatwe all see, the big film trailers
that we all see. He doesthat and so well, every single one,
yeah, every single no one elseexists. He's the one and only.
That's why he's so busy. Soum, you know, he knew
he wanted to be an editor,but he started as a runner and production
assistant out of the gates at acompany called Mojoe. He slowly climbed the

(04:01):
ladder from production assistant to assistant editor, junior editor, then editor and real
quick, what's the difference between andyou're some of these questions are going to
sound it's like deja vous, Butwhat's the difference between PA production assistant,
then an assistant editor, then ajunior editor, and then an editor?
Just pay Well, that's a bigpart of it. But PA is kind

(04:25):
of the entry level position in allfacets of the industry. Doesn't matter where
you are if you're on set inpost production. So that's kind of the
entry level. And that's where Istarted. And that was like making a
whole ten dollars an hour labeling tapes, running stuff around town back when we
back when we still laid things offthe tape and had to deliver them around
town. Some people listening to thislike, what's a tape? What's a

(04:46):
tape? Yeah, but that wasjust kind of the entry level I did
that for a while and kind ofyou know, sunk my teeth in and
slowly climbed the ladder to assistant editor. Um. Once I kind of learned
how to do that, and thenit's really just like waiting for that opportunity
to strike. You know, assistanteditor, what do you you don't what
do use your job as assistant editorcompared to the basically to make the editor's

(05:09):
life easier. I mean they're canyou pull clips? He's like, oh,
do this helping clips, helping withselect RILs like clips, Yeah,
helping you just organize footage, youknow, look for lines you're looking for
if dailies are coming in, cutlike a kind of a sequence together that
we can use. Yeah. Sothat's like apprenticeship, that's basically what it
is. Right. So you youhave to know the editor, yeah,

(05:31):
and what he likes for him totrust you to be able to do these
things. Yes. Um, butfor my type of job, we work
in an agency, so there's severaleditors and there's usually right now we have
two assistant editors, and so weall we all have a relationship with them.
Um. But yeah, they theykind of each editor maybe he's different
and has different wants and needs,but they actually pretty good at doing what

(05:55):
they do, and they make ourlives a lot easier. So what is
what do you like about when yousee trailers about Chris? What I like
about Chris's She was just staring jokes. I watched there, you know,
I find all of this so interesting. Okay, here's what I pulled from
that. Chris. You you saidyou and the editor will pull maybe a

(06:17):
line from the dailies to figure outwhat you want to use in a sequence.
Are you figuring that out yourself oris that directed? Because these trailers
are amazing. There's a lot ofpeople involved. So I mean, on
a like, I was telling Curtearlier that we might cut as an agency
three trailers for a movie, andthen there's like three or four other agencies
also cutting three trailers for a movie. So at the end of the day,

(06:40):
the studio ends up at like fifteentrailers and they pick one. Oh
right. But the process is,yes, we watched the movie, all
of us, and just like anybodyelse would watch the movie kind of make
notes. We start breaking down thefilm, creating select sequences and whatnot.
And then there's a creative director.I'm working with he's doing the same thing.
He's making notes, and then thestudio exects their marketing team they're giving

(07:02):
inputs. So and then we gota music guy looking for music and we
kind of have a little bit ofcollaboration. Okay, So trailer one,
you guys can go on this approach, and then trailer two maybe a slightly
different way, and maybe three's like, let's try the out of the box
whacky one. This is the onewith a cool different song, right,
you know, with are the safebets, and then that's just your company.
Yes, So you know, what'sfunny about what he was saying earlier

(07:24):
reminds me of being an actor.So they have to do all this work
present a trailer. That's like usdoing all this work presenting an audition,
right, but we're up against fifteentwenty other people and at the end of
the day, if you don't getpicked next, I'll do all this work
right next. And it's like you'reauditioning every time you present a trailer,
basically, yeah, yeah, andyou know, and then you get into

(07:45):
there's a whole campaign and there's asecond round of trailers. So if you
got passed on the first one,maybe sometimes they're like, well, you
know what, we like that trailer, let's bring that back, or maybe
some pizza pieces of what you didcan be used, or then there's a
TV campaign, you know. Sowe're on these movies for like a year,
yeah, because we're so far outwhen we start them. Do they

(08:07):
when they're requesting these trailers, dothey give you some sort of outline or
a feel a field. Maybe maybesome things that they like, but not
really they leave the agencies up tothe direction, Like we kind of are
the ones that are giving them options, you know, and so they basically
just give you the movie and trustthat you're going to give them. They

(08:28):
know that you're going to give themwhat's supposed to be. Yeah, I
mean there's some input. They mightsay like we really love this line or
we really like this moment um,and there might be some approaches that my
boss, the creative director, willtalk over with him, But basically they
wait and see what we can whatwe give them, and then there's a
big discussion because he's go back andforth. Take the version twenty something,
let me ask you some fakers,and it's like a lot of you don't

(08:50):
read any scripts. You just watchthe films. Sometimes they read the script.
Do you depends on the movie becauseyou said, um, when we
first met a thing at your house, you said that sometimes you're already editing
with dailies ahead of time. Yes, right, Like, so those of
you who don't know who dailies arewhen the film's shooting there, that's all
the foot is from that day,and so they'll be sent the dailies from

(09:11):
that day before the film's even finished, which you've got to try to figure
out what to do with that.Well, that's one reason why you see
those scenes and trailers and people werelike, huck, come, that wasn't
oh for sure, because we're sowe're so far ahead. We got everything.
You know, we don't always havethe dailies, but a lot of
times we do. So maybe wewant like a certain line on camera or
a differently, we want the wideshot or the close up. We can
move around that stuff, and that'smaybe not how it ends up in the

(09:31):
film. Yeah. Yeah, howis it you guys are so far ahead,
like you say, you're you're ayear ahead already. Yeah, how
is that? Sometimes? More?I mean, I mean the movies are
done, that's coming out in twentytwenty two and twenty twenty three. Right
now, well they're done in asense like if they're dailies, they're being
shot and they're not done, don'teven have to look at But sometimes we

(09:52):
have the first cut of the featureon a drama, it's not so bad
because it's like real actors, realpeople. It's like we're not waiting for
for like right now. Yeah,Or with with animation, it's freaking pencil
sketches and you're just like, thisgot a look cool, but it's really
hard to sell right now someone's youknow, given the idea that this is
going to be cool. Yeah.We we just worked on this movie called

(10:13):
The Mitchell's Versus the Machines, whichis really good. That's really good,
but it was like that was atough one because it was all pencil sketches
and it's like I think this isgonna be funny, but I don't know,
you know, So it's hard.It's challenging sometimes. And then with
VFX, a lot of times weget um, you know, kind of
it's like a visual storyboard previs theycall it, and it's like you know,

(10:37):
and Harry Potter, it's like awhole sequence where Hermione jumps on the
dragon and they all fly like it'sall video game looking, and we cut
with that until we get the footagebecause right now the actors will just be
in front of a green screen andpeople are like, what's what's happening?
I don't know, And then we'llthey'll slowly integrate it into the VFX will
come in and then we'll switch itout. But we have to kind of
thing because I personally, I couldbe wrong. This is your poor table.

(11:00):
I feel because I used to.I actually used to be in the
video game industry and used to makevideo games, played them hardcore like an
obsession. Yeah, I used tomake video games as far as an actor.
But I feel that the video gameindustry actually changed trailers because video games
actually started making them a certain way. There was already trailers right forever,

(11:20):
but video games started changing the waytrailers were seen because of the audience needed
like a different they needed more attention, the way they grabbed their attention,
And like, I don't know ifyou if you've if you feel the same
that video game trailers? Did youever? Really well? When I first

(11:43):
started, we had one guy thatwas a video game guy, and it
just seemed like, well, thisguy's got a cool job. He's just
in there playing PlayStation all day capturingmoments. Yeah. Um. But to
me, they from what I seeon TV, it's mostly it seems like
they grabbed the uh. Like everyvideo game has like these little movie moments.
Yeah, they're cutaway scenes that arenot in the game. Yeah,
so they use that. So that'swhat I'm saying, dreams because like half

(12:09):
the time now when you see afilm, you're like, well, the
trailer was way better in the movie. Like that, dude, I remember
that from the nineties and the eighties, Like the trailers were better that.
Oh yeah, some of these movies. Yeah, well there's like I was
saying, there's there's there's enough goodmoments even in a bad movie. Yeah,
you put a good song up againstit, you know, you find
the best jokes, you know,and it's just like like and then yeah,

(12:33):
and then people go see it andthey're like, oh man, this
is terrible. Right. Have youever had to put one together and even
like a comedy, right, andyou had to put jokes in there,
But the jokes in a trailer,you know, we're gonna fall flat.
That the movie is so bad,but the trailer. Now, but this
trailer, they still end up ina trailer. Well, if you see
bad jokes in a trailer, thenyou know, tell you we're putting the

(12:58):
best exactly, exactly exactly. Ialways like the trailer. Guys cut the
jokes better, yea. And whatthey do in the movies, do what
they can. Yeah, there's toomuch. I stopped out for some reason.
When you stop down the music,you know, music's going along,
unt, dunt, the dumb punchline to boom hit, you know,
drum snap, yeah, and thenit's like line and the clear. Everyone's

(13:20):
like, oh, yeah, it'sjust funnier when you do that. Yeah,
you're kind of in the movies notlike that, but you did that.
Yeah, yeah exactly. Yeah.You can add things, yeah,
or we'll take a different moment fromlater in the film. You put them
together. We do. We callthose non sequitors, you know, where
you make one moment and then yourreaction from something else and you create your
own joke that wasn't even that's noteven. Yeah. I like that they

(13:43):
said the drums the drum, becauseyou'll hear the in a comedy. You'll
have the bill with the music blahblah blah blah and the silent moment and
the guy delivers the line right andit's super funny. But it's not like
that in the movie. Yeah,they don't have the music the same way.
What happened to the guys that usedto do the voiceover and the truth?
I know they got wow, likethe get rid of that guy.

(14:03):
Now they're still around, right becausethe TV campaigns you still have the like
they still read the title and therating. A lot of times on TV
or kids stuff, you'll hear kidsstuff narrated, but trailers not so much.
I guess they just felt it wasyou know, in some ways it
does feel more artsy and cinematic withoutthe lines. But it was a lot
easier when they would set up thething for you know, you just want

(14:24):
to say the line you need becausesometimes you're searching for a line of dialogue
to do the same thing and it'sjust not there. The trailer guy,
you could have them say anything,you know. Yeah, I don't know,
it's interesting. I don't know whythey decided that all of a sudden,
it was I don't know, black. Yeah, when I first started,
they were still there. We usedto have them on the Harry Potter
trailers. This guy James Garrett thatdid was like this old wizard sounding guy,

(14:46):
Harry will return yes. Um.And then like by the end of
it, they were just there wasno narrator, Like by the time we
got to the last movie, um, And I don't know when that happened.
It was just became copy and tellthem all the transition and then the
whole industry took it over. Speakingof the industry, for those of you
don't know, I didn't, Idon't know if you do, being a
student of the game. The termtrailer dates back to the distribution of movies

(15:09):
on reels of film. The reelswere always distributed unrewound. The theater about
to show the film first had torewind it, as early experience showed the
danger of expecting an incoming film tohave been rewound would have caused problems.
Therefore, the end of the moviewas the most accessible part to which previews
were spliced. Trailing the film andspliced for those you don't know, younger

(15:31):
people, they would actually the filmwas a physical like how do you describe
it? It was a piece ofplastic basically, and you would put together
two that were cut together and splicethem together. And that's how you cut
scenes together. Now, the averagelength of film trailer today is one minute
and fifty four seconds. Trailers wereinitially shown after or trailing the feature.

(15:54):
This led to their being called trailers. The practice was found to be somewhat
in effective, though, because theaudience is, yeah, the audiences is
over. Who wants to stick aroundafter the credits too? Right? Exactly?
Now? We stick around for postcredit Yeah, because of Marle Marvel
Marvel. Yeah. Now that's smartto get people to stay, because you

(16:17):
were like, is do they havesomething at the end? I want to
wait? But the ironic thing abouttrailers being in the front now, and
we've all been guilty for decades,is you're running late to the movies.
You're like, oh, no,I'm good, we still have there's twenty
minutes of trailers. But we'll beokay. Hey, I say that too,
Okay, I know my trailers arefront of a movie. I'm like,
oh, we got time, yeah, get some popcorn. You know,

(16:37):
The Avengers is already three hours.Let's not another half hour onto this
play. But you know what weright now are in the world where trailers.
Yeah, will tell you that trailersdon't matter. And look at Chris
Is already. How am I goingto put this together? We'll look because

(17:00):
you do trailers. There's Netflix,Amazon, Prime, HBO Max, so
many platforms, and no one's goingto theaters anymore, and so all of
these trailers are gonna have to somehowtransfer to online. Yeah, now,
how do you get people to watchthem? YouTube? YouTube? Like people

(17:22):
or Apple trailers. That's the biggestthing now, like people for example,
the Star Wars trail or something thatjust came out whenever oh them, it
was the Obi one Kenobi trailer.Everyone was waiting for it. Like,
yeah, dude, you have tobe careful. Sometimes there's fan trailers and
they're not the real trailer. No, because I think that every you can

(17:45):
always tell because there's like he's he'sthe Star Wars from Fantom Menace. He's
the Star Wars nerds, so youshould know. Um, but we were
just talking about Star Wars. Umhow Favreau saved them? Right? Yeah.
But what I'm saying is, though, is so now a lot of
times with big franchise and big things, people waiting for People are waiting for

(18:10):
the trailer trailer comes out May twelve, and you're waiting for it, and
when it comes out, every likenow they'll make a big spec to go
on like TV, like on anetwork, but like we're showing the premiere
of the trailer between this show's commercials. Yes, commercial blood. The big
trailers now have h Now they makeit expect a big thing about a release

(18:30):
of a trailer. Sure, yeah, but but I mean, given the
big movies, you're looking forward toit, right, you are, You're
waiting and so now, like toanswer Tony's question, YouTube now trailers on
there get millions of views. Ohyeah, millions. It's waiting for the
trailers, like really, yes,because the trailers better movies. Well,
you even have the trailers in betweenthe shows. Like I was really into

(18:52):
one division and then you have theafter one episode, was you go to
watch the trailer for the next one. I think they released like three tree
trailers for each episode now in eachepisode, but I think they're like it's
kind of a similar, Yeah,the next episode next time, before you
watch the next one, it's previouslyon the right. That's the whole thing
too. That's all, but yougot you just do films with right,

(19:14):
you like, I don't deal withthose smaller shames. So now so now
now, as far as editors areconcerned, obviously, the ones that get
all the attention are the big editorsthat do the big films, like that
edit the movies. Those are theones that get all the attention. Usually
what attention from who? Because it'snot from the from the industry. No,

(19:34):
that's from the industry, Like they'rethe ones who win awards at freaking
Oscars. That's what I'm saying.Like Spielberg's like, yeah, my editor,
blah blah. I've been using sincenineteen seventy Michael conn you know,
so you know, look at thisguy. Yeah, exactly, look at
this guy. You know, goahead, no, go ahead. I
got excited. I was thinking aboutthe Superman movies. I was just watching

(19:56):
Superman one again and how they hada specific editor that the guy was using
it. Yeah, so how thathow that director had a specific editor that
he used and he trusted. Andthen the second movie they had a new
director and they didn't trust that.I don't know, maybe I'm getting the
information wrong, but that director andeditor relationship is very strong and it is

(20:18):
the future because they trust if you'vebeen working with the sin you trust.
You don't even have to overlook overtheir shoulder. You know they're going to
present you what you already. It'slike, you guys are one brain.
I have a question though, Yeah, so with a studio, contact your
company and say, this person's inthe movie a lot, but the editor

(20:41):
took him out a lot, sohe doesn't have as many uh speaking parts.
Make sure when you watch this movieyou don't put him into um,
I mean the trailer there might belike if there's a problem actor that like
on one of the Fantastic Piecet movies. I guess Johnny Depp was in the

(21:02):
news, so we really were kindof dancing around that. Sometimes things like
that come up, but typically becausehe had his legal troubles, they were
like, that's a great question.So the timing was bad because he was
in court and they didn't want peopleto see him because that's going to turn
people. I didn't even know that. They want to be as broad as
possible and as appealing as possible.Yes, that's a problem. They do

(21:25):
try to that's that's there. Wego, okay, but you know that's
really the filmmaker's call too. Theyhave a lot of power as well.
And if yeah, you know,it's if they have him in the movie,
then he's in the movie. Andyeah, you know, So to
go to back to my point aboutthe editors thing, because these editors that
do films that we're talking about getthere's actually category at the Oscars for Best

(21:45):
Editing, and these guys you're justas talented as they are, but you're
not getting credit. However, thereis there are editor awards for film trailers.
Yes, wow, and yes,and you didn't know that. There's
something called the Key Art Awards.It's by the presented by the Hollywood Reporter,
and there's the Golden Trailer Awards andthen the World Trailer Awards were kicked

(22:08):
off at the con Film Festival inFrance in twenty thirteen. So there's a
few different this year thirteen happening nowthough yeah, I think it virtual.
But so now they give awards whichwhich they should to you guys doing movie
trailers. It's nice, you know, it's it's nice. It's nice for

(22:30):
the industry, but it's really justa pat on the back for but but
a lot of different facets of theindustry have their own. The ASC awards
for the cinematographers, the sound thesound guys that are just their own category,
their own peers wards. So that'spretty common well, and my point,
though more was that all editors shouldbe treated equally like just because editors
at the oscars get this doesn't meanthey're better than you. You know,

(22:52):
we know the film industry has abovethe line and below the line. It
does. Below the line it does. I mean, I'll run circles around
any actor, but I haven't gotmy oscar yet, so hey, who
you know what I mean. Sothat's my stand up comedy album and Emmy
I Gotta do, and Emmy IGotta do in the future. My Grammy's
coming next. Yeah, oh no, that's that guy. So um.

(23:15):
But these trailers are great. Iremember when I first so I remember a
lot of movies based on trailers,like Back to the Future is one of
my favorite movies, and I rememberthat trailer. I remember the the the
fire going through his legs as youknow, as a DeLorean you know,
took off into the past or thefuture. I remember those moments as I
watched you know films. I rememberthe Titanic trailer when I saw that for

(23:37):
the first time when the music andseeing the ship and I'm like, I
gotta see this, like he dida Harry Potter movies. So do you
think of that though at that time? So let's show him. We're gonna
show We're gonna we have a version. Let's see. I bet a lot
of kids remember so he did thethis let's watch this one for example?

(24:03):
Who wait? Did I not seethis one? Movies like this? Though
it's an easy one. There arefour of them. Okay, So so
that gave me chills. I don'tknow about you guys watching it, like
so this is this is why Iwanted This is why I wanted to ask
him. So what is your processto what how do you go about choosing

(24:25):
what you pulled from the movie todo that? What is your process?
You just go with your gut oryou is there a cookie cutter way to
make trailers? Well? These werefun because I read the books too,
so I already kind of had you'realready a fan. I was already a
fan of this particular but um,yeah, we break down the movie.
That's the first step. We watchedthe movie and you gotta break it down.
And I put like little Razor editson every single cut in the film,

(24:48):
and I put that into a timeline. If for editing people that don't
know, the timeline is what youwork with like that has all your clips
and things in it, and thenI make select reals so I can have
at the end of the day,I can have all my shots of Harry
Potter and all my Voldemort shots,all what all my shots that are wide
shots, all my emotional hugs andthings, and I can go to one
place and final that same thing withdialogue or break that down. And so

(25:10):
that's step one. And then it'slike I go through and I watch it.
I'm like, Okay, what storyam I trying to tell? And
I'll start pulling lines from my selectsand throwing him the timeline, you know,
and then you know it's a wholeprocess, But it really starts with
trying to create a coal open.So you just said you do Razor cut.
How many clips do you have?That takes for it is the most
boring day to go through. Howdoes your computer even handle that? So

(25:30):
I edit, by the way,and we had it on the same software.
I had it too. That's howthe first thing I asked him.
It's like an editor thing said,what do you edit on? No,
it's kind of like, hey,what kind of cell phone? Are you
an iPhone or an Android? Yeah? And I say you're not final cut,
are you? He's on that notanymore Adobe? So because I added,

(25:52):
so I know what the language you'respeaking, and like my computer,
if I if I don't use proxies, it freaking crashes. Are you?
I'm sure you were editing and ina converted or like pro res is the
codec they we're using. So Imean the stuff comes in and high deaf,
and we also knock it down alittle bit. Yeah, um,
just for space. Yeah, butit's really it's the clips are just tied

(26:14):
to one quick time, right,there's like eight reels or you know,
and and then tone the timeline.You can mess them around with them,
but they're all tied to those eightreels, you know. Um, So
then for this then you just yougo in and you you tell yourself what
story am I telling? You know, you know the overall story, and
like what story I want to tellin two minutes? Right? Well that
was the second trailer part. Thelast two movies were broken up in the

(26:37):
two parts. The last book.Yeah, and so that was the second
trailer of the seventh movie. Sothe first trailer the seventh movie, which
we didn't watch, was more oflike a teasery kind of thing, which
just like, Hey, this iscoming, get excited, this is coming.
And then and the first opening linewas the you know, Harry Potter
come to die, you know,and then it was just like a cool
montage and whatever. And then bythe time I got to this one,

(26:59):
is like, we need a littlebit more story now people need to know
what. So which one was thisagain? Which this was trailer two of
the set of the first movie.I didn't read any of the books,
so this one had a lot morestory, Like this is like, you
know, we need to find himand they're on the run, you know.
So what's your favorite part on that? When you have you just were
just waiting for the snake, You'relike, I'm gonna use that snake on
that cutaway when the snake comes downto the table. Yeah, do you

(27:21):
have something like that? You're yousee something in there. You're like,
yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, there's devices like that. Yeah.
You're like, oh, I'm usingthat now. I have a question.
When you go to a movie justto watch a movie just with your girlfriend
or boyfriend whoever you hang out withgirlfriend just kidding. No, no,

(27:44):
no, do you when you're watchingthis the movie like for an enjoyable night
out? Are you actually analyzing it? Like I habit? Is it too?
Is it hard for you to watcha movie anymore? No? I
mean, like sometimes I will belike, oh, that'd be a cool
shot, or if I was doingthat, I would That's definitely a line
I would pull. But no,I lose myself in the movie, especially
a good movie. Um. Probablyit's just like you as an actor.

(28:07):
You sometimes sit and watch an actorand you get you forget about the story
and you're like just studying his ya, how he's talking or like how he's
reacting. I mean sometimes yeah,because at first, for my first many
decades, I would analyze. ThenI realize I'm not enjoying the movie.
So then I would just like I'velearned how to just enjoy it and just

(28:29):
it's different now. But yeah,and it comes my habit. I maybe
look at trailers more like when Isee the trailers before the movie, I'm
like analyzing and learning, and sometimesyou're learning, You're like, oh,
that was cool. Or sometimes you'relike, how did that? You know,
like, especially yeah, especially whenone of your competitors got chosen,
you are you like waiting to seewhat did they do? What did they
do? It's hard, yeah,and it's hard not to be like,

(28:51):
oh, this is not as good, but sometimes it is better. Sometimes
you're like, oh, wow,they solve that problem. Yeah. Sometimes
it's a hard movie and then theyfigure it out. And other times you're
like, I don't know why theypicked that one. We did a better
job. But there's a lot ofpolitics involved too, you know, and
like I know you said already aboutyou you would add things into it.
But what it like, I've beenat movies and seeing a preview with stuff

(29:15):
in the movie in the preview that'snot in the movie. Yeah, well,
and part of it, like whatI was saying, when you get
the dailies in we're so far aheadof it, where a year out on
a movie and we're getting in theentire film and so the movie hasn't been
completely edited yet, and then orwe're getting even an early feature, you
know, and like we'll get likeeight virgins of a feature. So we're

(29:37):
we're so far out and we're likeOh, that's a great line and it
services the trailer story. Let's keepit, and then then it's out there
in the world, and then they'restill editing the future, refining the future,
blah blah. Well, so onceit's out in the world, it's
out. But they might be likelater like, oh, this doesn't serve
the movie anymore, let's cut it. And then it's in the trailer,
but it's not in the movie.So that happens a lot. All right,
Now, um, do you becauseyou watched so do you feel like

(30:00):
you how many movies you think you'vewatched in your lifetime? Ten thousand?
Just in general? Yeah, justlike a ballpark figure. So because there's
no there's like more women than wildChamberlain slept with you. You can just

(30:22):
keep watching them. He wasn't tired. Okay, sorry, I watch the
movies, you get tired exactly.So the thing is is like now,
when I watch after being in anindustry for twenty five years and reading ten
thousand scripts, I'm not kidding you, whenever I watched the TV show or
a film, I literally know becausethere's a very fine line of recipe for

(30:45):
storytelling, and so I always knowit's crazy, but like I'll be sitting
with somebody and be like, thisis gonna happen, This is gonna happen,
and I call every time and likesometimes the sexs like I've been doing
this song. I'm used to theproblem. I know you can. Are
you like that now? From watchingso many movies like times, I mean,

(31:06):
I'll always be like we watched TheCrown at home and it's like I'll
be like, it's towards the endof the episode, it's like this music
is playing, it's like a montage, and then I'll be like, cut
the black and then like he does, so we call this person is going
to die? Your story too,Yeah, anybody in the film in the
street knows what it's basic story.Yeah, but yeah it's funny. So,

(31:30):
speaking of cutting of black, Inoticed that, like in trailers,
there's never any like ridiculous like swirlcut or like a like a black like
blind's coming out, like yeah,circle white. It's always just a basic
cut or well a lot of thosetransitions are considered cheesy exactly. I agree.
They were in the old school.They were used all the time,
and George Lucas kind of paid homageto that with Star Wars with all the

(31:53):
circle wipes and sw yeah. Yeah, but in comedy you'll see switch pants
because that, for whatever reason,to play well in common interesting. But
it's just basically it's usually more dramaticto fade up and fade Yes, absolutely,
it just feels more elegant. Yeah, coming from an editor, there's
a million freaking ways to cut thingsand it's cheasy. Yeah. They're just

(32:13):
so bad with horror editing. It'sall frenetic and backwards. You know,
it's like stutter cuts and everything justto be disturbing because that's the mood you're
trying to se. That's everything goesout the window with horror. Try that's
a stutter you know, just likeblack black picture, you know, like
you just ye okay, yeah,um, let's do one more, Let's
do the great gasped Oh this isa previously show on TV. This Wow,

(32:57):
that's pretty good. Yeah, Soyou actually have to make so TV
does thirty second spots or sometimes sixty. Usually when you do a trailer right
when if it goes to finish,they then ask for cutdowns. They want
a two minute trailer for international,and then they want like a ninety second
trailer for international, and then asixty second TV spot that's based on the
trailer, and a thirty second TVspot based on the trailer, and then

(33:19):
there's a whole TV campaign right wherewe do like thirty different TV spots or
thirty seconds is pretty typical where youtry to show different facets of the movie
and sometimes more specific demographics. Youknow. So speaking of international, you
guys have to make cuts for differentcountries. They according to their what they're
into, right, Sometimes something theymostly will take what is made here domestically

(33:40):
and use it, but sometimes thereis like something specifically for China or something
like China for example. Apparently morewomen than men see movies, so sometimes
they ask, so you guys toyou guys have to know where somebody has
to know what a country more gravitastetoo as far as gender. Yeah,
let's pulling those stats for you.The studio will tell us you're going for

(34:00):
this, but um, usually it'sbased on the trailer that's out there.
All right. Now, this couldsound stupid, but say you kind of
movie and it has an Asian init, and you cut for America and
that actor is not shown in theAmerican one, would they kind of around
it to show the Asian more andthree it was Rodrigo Centaur. I think
that's his name. They got toplay Xerxes. Yeah, and I think

(34:22):
he's a callion or so. Ithink he's like brazil Greek, oh,
Brazilian Okay, yeah, don't quoteme on that. But wherever he's from,
that we did a trailer or aTV spot or something for that specifically
for him, Well, he waspopular in that country and so we utilized
him more in that. So sometimesyou are interesting, you are targeting,
you know, your audience. Yeah, that's really cool, dude, because

(34:45):
for this movie, obviously, allyou have to do is show for Gatsby,
You show Leonardo DiCaprio, and that'sit's all over the world. Yeah.
Yeah. Are there any movies thatyou could that turned out to be
big movies that you think probably justare because of the way you cut them
for commercials, that that made thembig movies? That made them big movies.

(35:09):
Um, that's true because the trailercould bring people in. They go
watch it and it makes lots ofmoney initially until work gets out that don't
go see it. I think thefirst Union Impossible movie was like, well,
I don't know if I did that. We're talking about this stuff here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'swell. I can't think of anything
that, like Tony Frost has putit happen with Butter for example. You're

(35:31):
like, that movie sells itself,right, It's like I need to do
anything, true, but I'm tryingto think of I can't think of anything
off the top of my head.That's like, yeah, I'm you know,
but I was talking the Suicide Squad. I didn't do that, but
the very first one that used allthat queen music, the bohemian rap study
that was awesome, and that allthose trailers were great and popped and everyone's

(35:52):
like, this looks great, andthen the movie felt a little bit flat.
Yeah, but that marketing got peopleto go see it. Did they
even use queen music in the movie? I don't remember. No. And
that's that's all. That's pretty coolreally okay. But for the Harry Potter
trailer that you did, I meanthe music it was so powerful over the
crescendo. And was that in themovie or is that that music was scored

(36:15):
oh oh oh the trailer? Yeah? Yeah, sometimes, and those guys
that did the score had also workedon Pirates of the Caribbean. They were
the Hans Zimmer Camps, so theyhave a lot they're really talented guys.
Yeah. Um, and so inthat movie, we would give them like
just kind of a you know,picture and audio up in timings and they

(36:38):
scored around it. But a lotof times we're pulling music. There's there's
music. There's music made four trailersthat's got high impact. And you know,
there's like a library, no ideasound design. You know, there's
all this all the sound design youyou hearing that is from companies that put
out like cool hits and whatever.Wow, And so we have a whole
folder of full stuff like your stuffthat literally just make sound effects and music

(37:04):
four trailers because it's got the tempoand it's got I mean, I was
thinking that when I saw the snakethere, because they had the sound,
I was like, oh, wasit that sharp in the movie the Snake's
dound. But everything in the trailersis like high impact all the time.
So it's like everything's got to beboom boom boom. But you know,
very it's just like a everything.You have a library, Like I know,
I have a library. I've probablygot a million songs that are licensed

(37:29):
and sound effects on my computer onall my hard drives, like six hard
drives over here, and I haveI have them categorized by folder, by
genre, by type, by sounds, so that when I'm editing stuff,
I can go in. I'm like, when I'm editing, I'm like,
oh, I want this type ofthing boom, and I can go find
it. I've got that. You'vegot that, yeah, because crescendos.
Yeah, HiT's big hits different,Like you know, sometimes you need like

(37:51):
a pad that's in the key ofthe music you're going into and there's an
ABC D, E f G,you know, and um, like you
know, switch sound, you know, and switch hits and whatever. Yeah,
and so yeah, there's thousands ofthem. But I have like a
folder of my go to It's likeI use these all the time, um,
and so yeah, I organize themin a way. But sometimes you're
like horror, You're like fishing forstuff. You're like, I need something

(38:14):
that's like this, and sometimes youhave to have your music. I go
look for it for you. Yeah, But as you kind of your PA
a little bit, yeah, editormaking ten dollars an hour, But as
you go, as you the moreyou have. The more you do it,
the more you hold on to somethingthat you're like, that's cool.
I'm saying that, you know,into my archive of cool sounds because that

(38:37):
you revisit them. You know,We're gonna watch one more just to get
your take on this one. It'sone more Harry Potter trailer real quick.
It doesn't start within the World toSee, but it's after that same Warner
Brothers. I could easily start withyou in the really good Oh the Lake.

(38:57):
You know, there's always the lake. This was the first trailer that
I was talking about that sets upeverything nice good? Are you also a

(39:36):
musician? I hear that musicians makegreat editor, Well, I used to.
I played the clarinet. It's nota very cool instruct than the recorder,
played jazz on the streets musicians overthere, that's the next one.
You're confused that but I But Ididn't. I played for like six years
and it's not that I was great, but enough to understand music and timing

(39:57):
and counts, and that's actually verybeneficial to me. Is a cutting So
no, it's so much is andlike as I've been, because you're way
more advanced than I am. Imean to me, it's still just a
personal thing that I do, butnow I'm starting every time I edit,
I realized, like literally a beat, if you do a cutaway like you
guys, the normal audience just acceptsit and takes like, oh that was
cool, But like you have tocut on the right beat or transition on

(40:20):
the right part, and it makesthe biggest difference. And we upcut music
all the time, so like you'redoing thirty seconds, you have a two
minute piece of music and it stillneeds to have that kind of first,
second, third act that rise,so you might have to take the back
of the song and cut it upto the middle. And so you have
to understand that four beats so thatyou stay on that four because if you
don't, it sounds often people arelike, yeah, something weird about it

(40:44):
because we all innately you know thefour beats, but you know you're not
really aware of it. So letme ask you, what are three things
I find in your We're gonna askan editor who does big budget movies what
he eats for lunch? What arethree things? And finding your grocery carts
um kombucha, Like that's not whateverybody else eats today I'm just like everyone

(41:06):
else. Beer, right, thatis what everybody else? Yeah, how
do you mix beer? And mixthem? But if the grocery store,
you get a lot of your stomachgood must rumble. Yeah, and I
love those like you know those TraderJoe's has those pretzel peanut butter pretzel things,
so you mix those with the beerand yeah, everything I eat more

(41:29):
than That's the editor life. Hesits in the computer with kombucha, beer
and pretzels. So what are yourtop three favorite bands of all time?
Favorite band of all time got tobe led Zeppelin, yes, say,
um, big fan of the oldElton John era. I like all this
stuff, but the seventies era.Um, and I don't know, like
Rolling Stones nice, So that's you. I just thought about that. A

(41:51):
lot of people at their work theycan have their headphones in and play music
while they work. You can't becauseyou have to be listening to what you're
doing. Yes, oh my god, when when the dogs barking, when
anything like, it's like because you'rereally locked in on that and all of
a sudden you hear something from theother room. Yeah. Um, what's
the one song that you would pickto pump you up like your Eye of
the Tiger, I have the time. I don't you know what, maybe

(42:16):
it's maybe it's danger zone. Youknow that's always like that hilarious. That's
a good song. You know hewas he didn't. Wait, he didn't
know there's a story because I sawDan Rather interview with him. Dude,

(42:36):
he does great interviews with musicians,and the big interview he did. But
there was some story there where thatwas written. But it wasn't meant for
Kenny log As to say. Hecame in and saying it. I forget
he was originally meant to song wow, not that he does write the song
track King, So whoever dropped out, that's what started it, because then
it was like it was, yeah, he did the I'm all right,
and so whoever was supposed to originallysing that must still be kicking themselves.

(43:00):
Yeah they're not taking it. Iforget the dropped out Jesus so um.
Your favorite genre of film to workon, I'd like I'd like adventure,
kind of like the Potter stuff,the Lord of the Rings, that kind
of thing. Ideally you'd want StarWars. But yeah, well you know
that's interesting. I actually did interviewfor Disney one one time, and the
whole time I was like, doI want to ruin Star Wars for myself?

(43:21):
I was like in the back ofmy mind the whole time, I
was like, I don't know umor comedy. I really like working on
comedy. Yeah, yeah, okay, because that's comedies. Sometimes comedy is
a nice little break because you don'tget so into the sound design. It's
just purely looking for funny moments andstop downs with drumming and things and okay
interesting, yeah, breaks the monotony. Yeah, if I just if this
one pertains you've had. If thatcloset over there was full of superhero outfits,

(43:44):
which one would you thick? Batmanthere? That's that's one statement that
would describe your twenty twenty. Um, you know, so twenty twenty for
me, obviously it was you know, it was a downer financially for everybody
whatever, but it was a fromme, like, there's a lot of
highlights. I got a puppy,I had time to like do stuff in

(44:05):
my around the house. We hadthe walls, you know, work on
the garden um and meditate and justkind of take a bit sometimes. Yeah.
Yeah, you watch Star Trek thenext generation, you know, things
like that. Wait, so soduring twenty twenty, with all those Netflix
shows being released and all these differentlike streaming things, you guys still didn't

(44:28):
have any trailers to me. Uhnot really, I mean Netflix was the
only Yeah, they do, no, not everything, some of them,
because like we worked on that Mitchell'sVersus Machines, but um, yeah,
it was like everything stopped, youknow, and then and then studios didn't
really know what to do, andthen there was this whole like, well
did we release it in the theateror there's the Warner Brothers is going stuff

(44:49):
and it's like a whole whole thing. So h yeah, it literally just
stopped. I actually got furloughed fora while. It wasn't working, and
it was just like, you know, I knew it was gonna come back,
like movies are gonna come back.This was when how it was when?
Yeah, no one really knew howlong we were used to like a
break all of a sudden, comeout of nowhere and like what do we
do? Yeah? So final question, if you can go back in time
for two minutes and face your littlefourth or fifth grade self, what would

(45:12):
you tell him? Well, Ithink I would have to convince myself that
I was myself. I always thinkabout that, you would convince your fourth
grade self, but you future,yeah, and it kind of looks like
he's got the same eyes. That'strue. I don't know if a lot

(45:35):
of question like that, because that'swhenever I ask it, you think no.
I think about the episode where I'ma guy had a morty had a
relationship with a girl, but thenthat timeline went away, he had to
go back. We were together fora long time, and I think,
would I believe someone if they saidthat, like in another timeline, think

(45:58):
about it that happened like it's yearold person. I watched if you walked
up to ten year old right now. I was like, hey, I'm
you go to jail. It wouldbe over. Maybe I need to change
this question. You're canceled. Didyou guys see the show Dark on Netflix?
You gotta watch that. It's aGerman show about time travel. It
is like it is fun up,it's it's it's really hard to it's like

(46:22):
crazy, like you're fat, likeall over the place of all the different
different rabbit holes and things and likequantum leap on crack. Oh yeah,
but really good, really like quantumYeah, I like crack Right, we
have a match. This is what'syour name? Going the podcast? We

(46:42):
got the crack head over here,Bonny Renee, we got we got Tony
Frost over here, and we gotour guests. Thank you so much,
Chris. If it's friends, canwe who can say it right? Yep?
Do you? Thank you so muchfor Sarah This America's podcaster Kirkus Sarah's

(47:09):
thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Good night,