Movie Trailers

Re “ Sneak peek fees pique studios ,” Business, Feb. 19 Thank you for reporting on this irritating new practice, whereby studios are being strong-armed by theaters into paying to have trailers screened. Studios and theater owners decry losing audience share, but when they subject their audiences to 20 minutes or more of trailers, what do they expect? I, for one, will express my displeasure by always choosing an independent theater. Laurie Trainor Los Angeles Recently I sat through more than 20 painful minutes of inane trailers.

Re “ Sneak peek fees pique studios ,” Business, Feb. 19 Thank you for reporting on this irritating new practice, whereby studios are being strong-armed by theaters into paying to have trailers screened. Studios and theater owners decry losing audience share, but when they subject their audiences to 20 minutes or more of trailers, what do they expect? I, for one, will express my displeasure by always choosing an independent theater. Laurie Trainor Los Angeles Recently I sat through more than 20 painful minutes of inane trailers.

A New Jersey company may not make its own online trailers for Disney and Miramax movies after a federal judge ruled that trailers, like movies themselves, are protected by copyright. U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle said trailers were not included in the "fair use" statute that allows, in some instances, the use of quotes and clips from writings, music and other media. The ruling gives film companies control over how their trailers are used.

In a small office in Hollywood, three USC students scan social media sites to see what's trending. They're looking not at Facebook or Twitter, but at Chinese websites such as Sina Weibo, Youku, Renren and Qzone. The hot topics: soccer star Didier Drogba's move from London's Chelsea club to Shanghai's Shenhua and the latest news on "Iron Man 3," the upcoming U.S.-China co-production starring Robert Downey Jr. "People love Iron Man in China very much," Cecilia Wu, a 20-year-old native of China and student at USC's Marshall School of Business.

Screenzone, a start-up company from New Jersey, is bringing movie trailers to shopping malls. Friday at Torrance's Del Amo Fashion Center, a 4-by-8-foot screen located near Warner Bros. Studio Store and Suncoast Video will start showing movie trailers to thousands of shoppers. The venture is the first of dozens planned by South Orange, N.J.-based Screenzone. There would appear to be good prospects for a medium that targets moviegoers at the point of purchase--malls that contain movie theaters.

Jack Atlas, Hollywood publicist and developer of motion picture "trailers" or "previews" to tout upcoming films, has died. He was 81. Atlas, who worked for MGM and Columbia before starting his own firm, died Friday at his home in West Los Angeles. A 1939 graduate of Tufts University, he first worked in MGM's publicity department, but began making trailers after serving in the Navy during World War II.

Why must the stuntman lecture me about movie piracy? This is what I asked myself recently while waiting for the feature presentation to start at the Beverly Center theaters. The same goes for the set painter who told me not to steal movies just before a showing at another cinema a few weeks earlier. For the last few months, the Motion Picture Assn. of America has been running a series of 60-second movie trailers to discourage people from downloading pirated copies of films.

Art Gilmore, who launched his more than 60-year career as an announcer in the 1930s and became a widely recognized voice on radio, television, commercials, documentaries and movie trailers, has died. He was 98. Gilmore died Sept. 25 of age-related causes at a convalescent care center near his home in Irvine, said his nephew, Robb Weller. "He was one of an elite corps of radio and television announcers, a voice that everyone in America recognized because it was ubiquitous," film critic and show business historian Leonard Maltin told The Times this week.

Hal Douglas Voice-over actor for four decades specializing in movie trailers, TV, documentaries, commercials and business films. "It's really narration in all of its own forms. One takes what comes -- that is the working craft, you know." Currently providing the voice-overs for the faux movie trailers in "The Holiday" and for the actual trailers for "Night at the Museum."

Lisa D. Kernan, 53, a UCLA arts librarian, photographer and film scholar who was an expert on movie trailers, died of cancer Sunday at her Los Angeles home. Kernan's doctoral dissertation was published by University of Texas Press in 2004 as "Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers." She considered trailers worthy of scholarly study. "Movie trailers are a unique form of cinema; they're ads for films, yet they're also little films themselves," she recently told an interviewer.

As Caleb Medley lay in a medically induced coma at University of Colorado Hospital -- critically wounded in the Aurora theater shootings -- his wife, Katie, gave birth to their first child. Despite the recent trauma and the challenges to come, a little joy entered  the world with little Hugo Jackson Medley. The boy was  born at 7:11 a.m. Tuesday, the hospital said, "and both mom and baby are doing great. " Caleb is an aspiring comedian; his wife is studying to be a veterinary technician.

"I have nothing to lose," Tom Cruise says. He's not talking about his pending divorce from Katie Holmes, his wife of more than five years. Instead, the "Mission: Impossible" star utters that phrase - along with "I am not a hero" - in the trailer released Tuesday for "Jack Reacher," Cruise's next film. The Paramount Pictures action movie, due in theaters Dec. 21, is adapted from Lee Child's novel "One Shot" and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of"The Usual Suspects.

The online video touted an epic unveiling from one of Hollywood's most revered filmmakers: "In three days, Ridley Scott returns to the genre he redefined.... " For the next two days, subsequent videos ratcheted up the excitement for the new project from the director of "Alien. " Then, finally, it arrived: not the movie, not even the full-length trailer, but the one-minute "teaser" for Scott's upcoming 20th Century Fox release "Prometheus. " "We teased the teaser," Fox Chief Marketing Officer Oren Aviv said.

In a recording studio on Sunset Boulevard, Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix are banging on two giant taiko drums built especially for their company, Two Steps From Hell. The brawny musicians exude the fierce intensity prevalent in much of their music - until they suddenly get off-beat and let out loud laughs that reveal just how much fun this is for them. Bergersen and Phoenix revel in the world of music for movies, but not in the same way as film score maestros like Hans Zimmer and John Williams.

'Monsters, Movies and Trailers From Hell!' with filmmakers John Landis and Joe Dante Where: Larry Edmunds Bookshop, 6644 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. When: Saturday, 7 p.m. Price: Free Info: (323) 463-3273; larryedmunds.com

From the earliest days of cinema, audiences have loved to be scared. The three-minute film from French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès, "The Haunted Castle," hit screens in 1896 with celluloid skeletons, ghosts, witches and even the devil himself, and our appetite for thrills hasn't abated since. Franchises such as "Saw" and "Paranormal Activity" continue to redefine the horror genre while setting records at the box office. Directors John Landis and Joe Dante know about horror: Their respective films "An American Werewolf in London" and "Gremlins" are classics of the genre (even if they do have elements of humor)

In this year of "anti-politics," with candidates attempting to distance themselves from the "system," get ready for the cinematic offshoot: a studio-made trailer poking fun at movie hype. In a 1-minute, 37-second teaser designed to follow other more conventional previews, a blond, bow-tied Robin Williams takes potshots at the footage that preceded it. "I don't know about you, but that last trailer . . . I've seen it--fast cutting, big music . . .

Art Gilmore, who launched his more than 60-year career as an announcer in the 1930s and became a widely recognized voice on radio, television, commercials, documentaries and movie trailers, has died. He was 98. Gilmore died Sept. 25 of age-related causes at a convalescent care center near his home in Irvine, said his nephew, Robb Weller. "He was one of an elite corps of radio and television announcers, a voice that everyone in America recognized because it was ubiquitous," film critic and show business historian Leonard Maltin told The Times this week.

This is the time of year when, like a character from a bad sci-fi movie, I leap into the brains of a bunch of L.A. teenagers, eager to hear what they think about the nonstop onslaught of summer movies. I call them my Summer Movie Posse. We watch the trailers from a dozen or so upcoming films, then I take notes as the kids pick them apart, offering acerbic, insightful and sometimes surprising thoughts on what they liked and what they loathed.