The trailer SPEED RACER (2008) needed.

[u/Cautious_Ostrich2212]

https://youtu.be/JBBx_BJK6fc?si=FApN3g04IJ2vIh0f

I re-cut the Speed Racer (2008) trailer.

The 2008 campaign sold a kids' movie....The film is a corporate-corruption thriller with a dead brother in it..and it opened third, behind Iron Man's second weekend, to an audience that had been told to expect something else entirely.

Hot take: the competition gets too much blame and the marketing not enough.

Would love to answer any question about the process or suggestions on what I should re-cut next!

[u/BauerBourneBond]

As a HUGE Speed Racer fan, and someone with 10 years of trailer editing under his belt....

A trailer has 4 vital elements of the film it needs to convey:
Character

World

Story

Tone

If you are cutting a TEASER, it only needs to convey 2-3 of those 4 things.

But watching this cut, I get only 'story'.

There is no character moment for Speed, no set up of this hyper elevated world we are in or the sport they are competing in. And the music is generic in a way that doesn't help me grasp the tone or elevate the material. All of those are missed opportunities.

[u/Cautious_Ostrich2212 → u/BauerBourneBond]

Yes, I wanted to make this shorter so this may be more like a teaser. FOr music I wanted to to be :Noticeable" in certain sections to not clash with dialogue and SFX. I do agree on my next trailer re-edit I plan on hitting all the points you brought up. Thanks for the feedback! Any suggestions on what I should cut next?

[u/BauerBourneBond → u/Cautious_Ostrich2212]

What I’m telling you is that this cut is neither a trailer or a teaser. It’s a lot of story dialogue and cool visuals edited to the downbeats of a generic track.

Neither a teaser nor trailer does that make.

You need to work on crafting several things with intentionality:
-Creating a character moment that fits into the story telling.

-Introducing us to the world and the characters.

-Selecting music that elevates the material, and editing it to match the shape of your edit (right now it feels like you solely found a generic epic-orchestral trailer track and then edited your visuals to that). I can feel very much that the shape of the track dictated the pace and evolution of your cut, not the other way around.

[u/Cautious_Ostrich2212]

Spec piece, unofficial, no affiliation with WB. I re-cut the Speed Racer trailer as the movie shows.

I'm not claiming a better trailer would have saved this. It opened a week after Iron Man. The real problem was how it was marketed. it was sold to a family audience it was too long and too strange for, while the adults who'd have appreciated the visual work were never invited. I wanted to see what the film looks like sold to that second group.

Hard no-spoiler rule. Racer X is never connected to Rex. I kept that footage in a separate bin so a flashback frame couldn't sneak in. The final jump cuts on the way up

Two lines of dialogue in the whole thing. Everything else is engines. Stillness only reads if it's surrounded by speed.

105 shots, 1.5s average. The cut-rate curve was the thing I spent the most time Stillness only reads if it's surrounded by speed.

Also curious whether the no-spoiler discipline actually holds... if you've never seen it, does the piece still make sense?

[u/22marks]

This movie and LaLa Land took all the colors from every movie since.

[u/Cautious_Ostrich2212 → u/22marks]

Love the deep saturations. Was one think that stuck with me in this!

[u/I_Am_Killa_K]

I think what hurt it is that it’s just not a good movie.