17 months have passed since I quit making movie trailers. Now, I can enjoy watching movies again.
I liked watching movies since I was a child. So, I was really happy to get a job making movie trailers for a TV station. When the trailers I made first were aired I was so excited. I never forgot their titles; Speechless and Marty.
From foreign films to Japanese films, timeless masterpieces, recent mega-hit movies, documentaries, animations and chick flicks, low brow comedies or unscreened films in Japan: I watched so many movies and made their trailers for 12 years. I repeated the same work over and over all day — watching a movie, picking several scenes and lines from the movie, offline editing, making an edit decision list and telop data (information about director and actors’ name and awards winning in the film), and writing scripts of narration. After I finished preparation for online editing, I went to post-production and wrapped up the trailers, which were completed for the air.
** Please see the URLs below for details of contents of making them.
Usually, I made trailers from original aired tapes, but sometime I couldn’t use the original tapes. Basically, the TV station can’t broadcast the movies without Japanese subtitles or voice-over acting. It takes time to insert Japanese subtitles or make a dubbed version. At that time, I had to make them using the EPK — Electronic Press Kit for the movies. The EPKs include several kinds of trailers, behind the scenes, interviews and some sound bites from the movies. I could watch other countries’ movie trailers when I used the EPKs.
Interestingly, the trailers were a bit varied from country to country even though they were the same movies. For example, the film ”Pearl Harbor,” which is directed by Michael Bay; it is a war movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor, as can be expected from the title.
In Japan, it was sold as a romance movie rather than a war movie, such as a war-torn tragic love triangle of 3 young people. So, if you have a chance to watch the Japanese version trailer, please compare your country’s and the Japanese. You might have a little bit different impression, especially if you are an American. It’s not only about the “Pearl Harbor,” these changes are often made in many movie trailers. I really enjoyed making the trailers because I could spend a lot of time with movies I loved. I was also happy to learn about the difference in cultures by watching movies trailers. It was my ideal job.
During the busiest time I made about 60 trailers in one month. It means I had to watch at least 3 or 4 movies per one day. When I started watching the 3rd or 4th movie, I completely forgot the stories of the films that I had watched before. I watched so many movies, so I didn’t remember what I had watched and what I hadn’t. It often happened that I didn’t realize that I had already watched a movie until the middle or end of the story. I also couldn’t watch movies at my leisure when I went to the theaters. I watched them from a job view point; I would choose this scene and that dialog. This scene would come next to that bomb scene — I always thought like that in my mind when I watched movies.
About 8 years later, I didn’t enjoy making them anymore. In fact, I thought it was my ideal job before, but watching movies became a chore for me. I felt a little bit sad that I couldn’t even enjoy watching movies.
Furthermore, I felt I was too old to make recent movies’ trailers, because I was losing a kind of sensitivity to understand or find good selling points from the movies with age. I didn’t like the movies, which seemed to be in competition for the latest and greatest CGI, instead of paying attention to the story line. For me, those CGI films were good for only enjoying the latest footage, not as a movie. If I could watch only the movies that I was interested in, watching movies would not become like a task. After I made the trailers for 12 years I quit the job. Unbelievably, when I finished the job I had no regret about it since I felt I had done all I could. The only thing that I looked forward to was watching movies without a job view point. I thought for sure that I could enjoy watching them like before.
Unfortunately, habits died hard more than I expected. I still chose several scenes and dialogs when I was watching the movies, even though I didn’t have to do that. I couldn’t watch movies without a job point of view. All told, I was about ready to give up enjoying watching movies as entertainment. Recently, it suddenly dawned on me that I could enjoy watching the movies without a job view point; I could enjoy it as entertainment like before. I didn’t notice that I was enjoying them purely for pleasure while I was watching them. I was able to recognize that 1 or 2 weeks later.
I still don’t know that if we should seek out a job based on our interests, or if we should think of it as “just a job.” But now, I feel that I was the lucky one, who had an ideal job, even though making countless movie trailers felt like a bit of a chore.
Unfortunately, habits died hard more than I expected. I still chose several scenes and dialogs when I was watching the movies, even though I didn’t have to do that. I couldn’t watch movies without a job point of view. All told, I was about ready to give up enjoying watching movies as entertainment. Recently, it suddenly dawned on me that I could enjoy watching the movies without a job view point; I could enjoy it as entertainment like before. I didn’t notice that I was enjoying them purely for pleasure while I was watching them. I was able to recognize that 1 or 2 weeks later.
Yes, finally I can watch films without a job point of view after 17 months had passed since I quit my job regardless of genre: comedy, science fiction or chick flicks.
I still don’t know that if we should seek out a job based on our interests, or if we should think of it as “just a job.” But now, I feel that I was the lucky one, who had an ideal job, even though making countless movie trailers felt like a bit of a chore.
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