Saturday, January 22, 2005

Lisa Kernan's "Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers (Texas Film and Media Series) "

Lisa Kernan's new book on Movie Trailers is now available. I still have to pick a copy up but last Thursday, she read excerpts from her book and also discussed the publishing process at Melnitz Rm.1402. The excerpts she read have me intrigued and since she is also an instructor in the MIAS program, I think people show take the time to read it. The methodology she used to approach in the writing of this book is laid out in her introduction. Some of the ideas she spoke of were the role of movie trailers as it pertains to creating choices for the audience and also her use of rhetoric to explain the relationship between movie trailers and the audience. The book is broken down into 3 sections based on chronology as opposed to film genre. The excerpt she read was about the movie "Entrapment" starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. She mentions how the trailers run on star power and also the underlying relationship between the co-stars and how the superimposing of words and the cuts to specific images of the stars, for example, Ving Rhames, draws the audience in to help with their choice of viewing the film.

If anyone else knows of any other good film studies books please let us know.

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