The recut trailer as networked object: Anticipation and nostalgia in the YouTube era

Abstract

Recut trailers have been uploaded to YouTube since its launch in 2005 and remain one of the siteâ s most popular forms of video. Recut trailers can involve a number of practices: some trailer creators shoot original footage for a film that will never exist, others splice together existing footage to bypass the typical path of feature film promotion, while some seek to change the genre of an existing film. The recut trailer adopts the form of an advertisement and yet does not advertise an end product. This study analyses recut trailers uploaded to YouTube in the period of 2005-2012.

This dissertation contributes to the limited literature available on the film trailer by arguing that the recut trailer should be considered as a networked object. I map the traces and residues left by the recut trailer on YouTube, as well as the spatial, temporal and textual connections that they make to feature films, cinematic space, and online cultures and practices. I argue that the recut trailer can be used to show how cinema has been negotiated into online and networked space, and the recut itself is a form of networked object.

I identify two modes present in recut trailers: anticipation and nostalgia. Recut trailers demonstrate a willingness in audiences to see a past film in the mode of anticipation. Simultaneously, recuts can also operate nostalgically, by playfully revisiting a past film or placing a contemporary film in a nostalgic mode. Finally, I consider the spatial and temporal conditions that help trailers circulate in networked spaces.

I situate my analysis in relation to previous negotiations of emergent technologies into new spaces, including historical practices of recutting in early American cinema and the adoption of cinema into the home. I chart the history of the trailer from independent trailer houses to drive-ins and into online spaces. This thesis contextualises the recut trailer in a longer history of recutting, arguing that recut trailers demonstrate how older media forms such as film are negotiated into new networked spaces, and reflect altered practices of production and consumption.