The real hero of the latest Batman trailer isn’t Robert Pattinson, it’s the sound. The acoustic recovery of Something in the wayNirvana’s hit released in 1991, attached to the ultra-dark images of the film, takes up all the space and captures the viewer’s attention.
Batman isn’t the only superhero to have a classic soundtrack. the trailer of Venom: Let There Be Carnage is scored by One, struck by Harry Nilsson in 1968. Bywonder Woman 1984, we call blue Monday, from New Order, which completely sticks to the time of the film.
“Trailerize” a song
The phenomenon of the covers of pieces of pop music, all the sauces in trailers, does not only affect superheroes and has invaded blockbusters, such as Duneswhose images are enveloped by theEclipse, Pink Floyd, or spencertrue-false biopic of Diana dressed in a cover of Perfect dayby Lou Reed.
He even won the playoffs, like Youwhose disturbing third season was announced to the sound of a baby one more time lewd, or the Italian series Babyto the trailer of the second season with the background of a Girls just wanna have fun ethereal.
There is even a term to describe the operation, such as the guardian last may. Therefore, completely re-orchestrating a song, keeping only the lyrics, to make it into trailer material is called ‘trailerizing’ a song. The magnitude of the phenomenon is such that majors like Sony have teams dedicated to these re-orchestrations, as mentioned. variety last August.
“The key is often the words”
There are also companies that specialize in this work. That is what Go West does, the company that Nicolas Neidhardt founded in the United States about ten years ago, and whose activity consists of exploring the catalogs of record companies, in search of songs that can be exploited in trailers.
“The key is usually the lyrics,” explains the musician and producer, who worked especially on the trailer for blade runner 2049. “We often look for the hook that will make the song work with this or that trailer.”
that’s the song star man, by David Bowie, was used in the very recent trailer for buzz the lightningthe animated film that recounts the adventures of the “real” ranger of toy story.
The re-orchestration of these songs often adds a dramatic effect to the trailers with elaborate images.
“The trailer is marked by the pulsation of the music,” emphasizes Nicolas Neidhardt.
“An American-style trailer is built in a very precise format of 2’30 in three acts,” he explains. “There is a whole dramaturgy that rises and culminates at the end in a kind of apotheosis, a cliffhanger so that we really want to go see the movie.”
Authorization of rights holders
The music is composed for the trailer and the images edited from the music. However, adds the specialist, apart from some franchise issues such as Star Wars Where Jurassic Park, few film scores are dynamic enough to stick to such dramaturgy. But the choice of the song, of course, also depends “on the price of the song and the authorizations of the artists or rights holders.” Some artists are fiercely opposed to this practice, but others see it as an important source of income.
If the lyrics must stick to these ultra-calibrated trailers, the choice of the song’s vintage is not accidental either.
“It is a choice of the studios or the producers of the film or series, depending on the target they want to reach,” says Nicolas Neidhardt. The idea, for example, of re-orchestrating an 80s song allows you to reach listeners who liked that 80s song.”
“A Form of Nostalgia”
This is how David Bowie, Pink Floyd or New Order are associated with the biggest box office hits of the moment. It works with all seasons. Everyone who was a teenager in the 1990s, when Nirvana was on the radio and on MTV, had a little heartbeat when hearing the notes of Something in the way in the trailer of bat Man.
“This choice to mobilize pieces from the past in contemporary trailers corresponds to a very strategic stimulation ecosystem”, analyzes Stéphanie Marty, professor of Information and Communication Sciences at Paul Valéry University in Montpellier.
“First of all there is a stimulus from the contemporary generation to these pieces, in whom this will reactivate a form of nostalgia.”
Chorus of young girls and depressive lyrics
We owe this fashion for covers of pop or rock songs in trailers to Mark Woolen, the pope of Hollywood trailers. Whoever created the trailers for schindler’s list Y Moonlight had the idea in 2010, to illustrate the trailer for The social network, by David Fincher, to use the ultra-famous Radiohead piece, Sinister. Not Thom Yorke and his group’s version, but the one by the Scala & Kolacny Brothers Choir, a Belgian youth choir. The contrast between the song’s depressing lyrics and the creation of Facebook is stark. The trailer is a success.
In addition to launching the choir’s career, which was propelled onto the Coachella stage in 2011, as Mark Woolen says New Yorkerthe trailer of The social networkprofoundly influenced the sound of the trailers.
Singing a title known to someone else thus contributes to this winning turn, as Nicolas Neidhardt explains. Therefore, the producer often replaces a male voice with a female voice, or vice versa, to create an attention-grabbing contrast.
For him New Yorkerthis great musical recycling is quite symptomatic of the Hollywood industry, very busy producing reboot of old franchises…promoted by covers of old hits. Will Quiney, music supervisor interviewed by the guardian in May 2021 on the subject, he sees there also a wish from the studios not to take risks.
“The reason we use so many great, familiar songs is because studio executives don’t want to take chances with music that might upset people or sound too strange or too new.”
do it yourself and misappropriation
For Stéphanie Marty, however, this music is a true source of creativity among young vintage-loving Internet users. Without denying these trailers their marketing side and search for virality.
“The fact of mobilizing pieces from the past triggers, in the younger generations, a taste for vintage and retro, and stimulates their appetite for ‘DIY’, entertainment, and the appropriation of cultural content, especially on TikTok.”
Through covers, playbacks, duets, battles, contests, young Internet users contribute to the virality of the trailers.
These trailers foster a taste for vintage that is highly accentuated among young audiences, which is also manifested in an interest in garments or objects from previous decades. But they also contribute “to the resurgence of this music, to its permanence and the extension of its existence through the generations.”
In France, the phenomenon of the covers of old hits in trailers is still very rare. Just a re-orchestrated version of Travel Travelthe 1980s hit Desireless recently punctuated the trailer for In their life, by Emmanuelle Bercot. “In France we don’t have the culture of the trailer”, emphasizes Nicolas Neidhardt, who dreams of developing the concept in France.
Source: BFM TV
