My friend Joe sent this over yesterday:
As the proud owner of Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park and the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series, I can assure those of you whose DVD collections may not be as bumpin’ that the way this preview is filmed is spot-on stylistically. I didn’t think it was laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it does kind of make me want to read the book.
I’ve never actually seen a good trailer for an opera, have you? I’ve seen ads with performance clips that are nicely edited, but nothing produced and designed like this. Perhaps creating a movie-esque trailer for a play, musical or opera would be false advertising; people would show up and expect something closer to a film. Or maybe a professionally done YouTube clip would get the attention of potential audiences who are just more comfortable with the movie preview format, but would be willing to give live performance a try if it was creatively marketed to them.
Gives new meaning to the phrase “to give one’s hand in marriage,” dunnit? And where did they find a Hugh Grant look-alike? Very nice stuff, thanks for posting it.
The trailer is delightful! Thanks for posting it. But as a fellow Austen junkie, I must caution: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” was a good idea that was not written well. This book runs the same risk.
As a theater marketer, I don’t think a well-made movie-style trailer (ie, a trailer shot for the camera vs. clips of on-stage stuff) is false advertising at all as long as one is clear with the text. And, frankly, they’re very eye catching.
On the other hand, many of the YouTube videos that “go viral” are very poor quality, tech-wise. So it seems to be amusingness of content that draws people in.
And kittens.