Ravi and Binny Padda have an enviable job. When a feature film is being readied for release, they’re the first to see it. And they get to see it first because their task is to make a trailer for it.
If you think that’s no big deal, then log on to YouTube and search for ‘trailers’. You’ll not only get millions of trailers for films and TV shows, but also an equally high number of ‘fan trailers’ — trailers created by fans once they’ve seen the film. So while many may love creating trailers just for fun, for Ravi and Binny, it’s a job that’s critical to the success of a film.
“A viewer decides whether he’s going to watch a movie or not when he sees its trailer for the first time,” says Ravi Padda. “A film may have its flaws, but our job is to create a great trailer for it.”
Creating a trailer might seem like a paltry job compared with directing a full-fledged feature, but not when you look at the money riding on a single film alone. A means to generate buzz before the film hits the marquee, a trailer’s job is to ensure that the film gets a great opening at the box-office.
Creating the buzz
Merzin Tavaria, chief creative director, Prime Focus is witness to trailers being edited daily and asserts that producing a good trailer has come under much sharper focus today. “There is a sense of urgency amongst producers these days to create a trailer in time and aggressively promote it on social networking sites,” he says. In fact, news channels have even ‘premiered’ the first look of highly awaited films — Paa, 3 Idiots and Robot.
Binny Padda reasons, “From 2007, after producers began making films at budgets upward of Rs40 crore, they had to ensure the film was marketed well, so that they stood a chance of recovering such costs. Hence, creating a trailer that generates buzz and leaves an impression on the viewer is extremely crucial.”
However, cutting a trailer for Indian audiences is a tough task. “Hollywood gets away with only a couple of trailers for a film. In India, you need 20-25 small trailers, known as promos,” says Binny.
Some of these promos have the best
dialogues from the film, some have a song each. But the trailer which we so enjoy watching before a film at the multiplex — the theatrical trailer — is like a mini-film by itself. A dramatic intro, songs, best dialogues, action scenes, stunning locations — all captured in a minute or two.
“In short, a trailer has to reveal enough to sell the whole film,” says Binny.
But surprisingly, trailers are a domain which some filmmakers themselves stay away from. Says Rajkumar Gupta, who directed Aamir,
“My job is to direct the film. Throughout the shooting, I am so close to my film that I’m not sure if I can come up with a decent trailer. So I’d rather depend on a specialist to do it for me. Additionally, it sometimes it helps to have an outside perspective.”
The experts
Known as the most well-known trailer specialists in Bollywood, Binny and Ravi have created trailers for over 500 films so far, including for films such as Rang De Basanti, Kaminey, Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai, Rajneeti, Dabangg, and even for duds like Kites.
Each film is challenging in its own way.While Kaminey saw them unveil a Quentin Tarantino touch to Indian gangster films, and in Dabangg, they blended Mexican music into the trailer — a rather bold move for a film with extremely mass-market sensibilities.
Lagaan was an especially interesting experience for the duo, because throughout the film’s marketing campaign, they were careful not make any references to the cricket match in the film, as per Aamir Khan’s brief.
“We were tempted to include just one shot towards the end of the trailer — Bhuvan holding a cricket bat — but decided against it,” says Ravi.
They were also required to make significant anatomical changes for Raajneeti, which was the first time the duo worked with Prakash Jha.
“The original promo Prakash brought to us felt like a Hindi lecture,” Binny says. “It wouldn’t have worked for today’s generation. We reworked it, and despite it being a multi-star film, released a version which had Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif as the main pair in the trailer. People want to see more of them.”
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