﻿ OPINION: Why I feel YouTube, Instagram, Facebook have ruined the theatrical experience of movie trailers | Bollywood News


Updated Mar 28, 2019 | 09:00 IST | Shibaji Roychoudhury

Gone are the days when the first time you saw a movie trailer was in a theatre. With makers dropping trailers on social media websites, the experience of watching trailers has been ruined, I feel.

Watching a trailer in a theatre for the first time was quite an experience

Ask any ‘90s kid and he or she will tell you how they would look forward to going to a theatre to watch a movie, not just for the cinematic experience, but also to check out the trailers for upcoming films. People would reach a theatre 15 minutes before, just to ensure that they don’t miss out on the trailers before their film. Watching a trailer for the first time, on the big screen with a theatre full of audience members, laughing or gasping together used to be an unparalleled experience.

The feelings is all but gone in this millennial era. Today, studios or production houses drop the news of a trailer days before, and the eagerly anticipating audience clings to whatever device they have available at the time of the trailer drop. What used to be an event, an unmatched experience with fellow movie going audiences on the big-screen has been reduced to 11-inch laptop screen or worse yet a 6-inch cell phone screen.

Whether you watch a new trailer on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or even on Twitter, the first time viewing experience is never the same. Simple glitches like buffering due to bad network, small screen size making you miss little details in the trailer or the overall feel of watching it with hundreds of audience members, that feeling is all but gone.

Sure, we still see trailers before a movie in theatres, but never with that same excitement. Why? Because, we have already seen it several times on our phones and laptops. The charm of watching it on the big screen is lost in the process and instead of being excited for a trailer, it seems like a hinderance instead and we just want the movie to begin. Isn’t it?

The worst thing still is if I am watching a new trailer and constantly getting messages or I get a call while watching it. Annoying as it may be, that is the truth and happens to so many of us. Sure, I can go back and watch it a 100 times without interruption, but my first experience of that trailer is ruined completely, isn’t it?

Forget experience, even details in a trailer, we end up missing because of certain technical issues such as aspect size ratio. I recently realised that when I watched the latest Avengers: Endgame trailer on YouTube, because of the website’s pre-set aspect ratio, little details in the trailer, we didn’t even notice.

For instance, in the scene, in which, Captain America is leading the Avengers in their quantum realm uniform, he has his shield in his right hand, but because YouTube’s aspect ratio, we didn’t get to spot it. Similarly, in the battle scene, we see Ant-Man jump of a pencil top, but what we didn’t see is right before that, there was water underneath.  Things like these would never be a problem when you watch a trailer on the big screen.

But I understand why studios or production house had to resort to social media. Honestly, the number of films releasing every year has drastically increased and the makers have to do all they can to generate buzz for their film. In fact, forget trailers, the makers even drop stills of a trailer, or songs even before releasing them which completely ruins the element of surprise for an anticipated trailer or song. But that is a rant for another day.

Like I said, while I understand the nature of the competitive market that films have to face and why the makers have to use social media has their primary tool for the marketing campaign of their film, it’s just that I miss that feeling of waiting to watch a trailer for the first time in a theatre. Can you imagine if you saw the Kalank trailer or the Avengers: Endgame trailer in a movie theatre first and not on your mobile screen? Wouldn’t that be an experience.

The views expressed by the author are personal and do not in any way represent those of Times Network.