JAWS BENEATH — a concept trailer

[thebutcher]

Hey guys! I just finished editing a trailer for the inevitable reboot/sequel to JAWS, which I called JAWS BENEATH.

After a series of deadly shark attacks rock the town of Herald Bay, Dr. Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) — now a professor of oceanography — is called back to sea by the local authorities to lead a crew of fishermen to stop the beast.

I don't event want a new JAWS movie. However, this is a look at what it could possibly look like, in the best circumstances. Since many different franchises are bringing back older actors to their most iconic roles (Harrison Ford in STAR WARS and BLADE RUNNER, Jamie Lee Curtis in HALLOWEEN, Jeff Goldblum in JURASSIC WORLD), I assumed a similar approach would be taken with this new installment.

Also, I wanted the trailer to blend together different genres such as suspense, action-adventure and horror, like the original movie masterfully did.

I would love some feedback if you watch it. Thanks!

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

Awesome work!  That was really well done. But please, no Jaws reboot...

 

[thebutcher]

Awesome work!  That was really well done. But please, no Jaws reboot...

Haha I hear you! But I actually find it very surprising that the franchise (that never should have been) has laid dormant for 31 years! I can't believe Hollywood has shown restraint so far.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

I'm sure that people have tried. Spielberg is probably very protective of the property

 

[TMBTM]

It was good fun watching it!
Sad thing is that this probably looks better than what they would do...!

There are one or two shots where you obviously see that Dreyfuss is younger or have a different look, and the various looks of the  movies used are sometime visible, but honestly it was greatly put together.
And trailers are f...ing difficult to do, so bravo.

 

[thebutcher]

There are one or two shots where you obviously see that Dreyfuss is younger or have a different look, and the various looks of the  movies used are sometime visible, but honestly it was greatly put together.
And trailers are f...ing difficult to do, so bravo.

Thanks! I don't think the general audience realizes how much thought goes into editing a trailer.

The varying look between the sources was hard to eliminate, but I did some color correction to smooth out the edges. And I tried to restrict myself to using only "cinematic" movies. No straight-to-DVD or SyFy crap!

 

[TM2YC]

Very, very believable. Great job.

I'd love to see you re-use this footage to make a vintage 70s/80s trailer version. Of course it's more tricky than a modern trailer because you need somebody to do that cool trailer voice e.g.

 

[SilverWook]

I was wondering if you used that SyFy channel movie Richard Dreyfuss appeared in! Nice job!

Speaking of reboots, there was a rumor that made the pages of Starlog magazine back in the 80's that Universal was considering going down the Airplane! type spoof route with Jaws. The working title was something like Jaws 4, People 0.  (IIRC, this was before Jaws: The Revenge.) I can only wonder what Spielberg thought of that idea!

 

[slekyr]

That was very cool.  That must have taken a lot of work.  I'm genuinely interested in your process.  How many different scenes from different movies did you use?  Did you have all of those scenes in your head or did you note things as you watched them over a period of time, etc?  Good job

 

[thebutcher]

That was very cool.  That must have taken a lot of work.  I'm genuinely interested in your process.  How many different scenes from different movies did you use?  Did you have all of those scenes in your head or did you note things as you watched them over a period of time, etc?  Good job

I started with a shortlist of movies involving sharks or "drama" on water (like surf movies). I figured I could get a few establishing shots of beaches or ocean out of them. I also wanted to involve Hooper so I looked at Dreyfuss's recent movies. Nothing released before 2012 since I wanted him to look his current age. I made an exception for 2009's POSEIDON because lots of shots of him were underwater.

While watching everything on the list (seen at the end of the video), I noted the timecodes of potentially useable moments. Trailers are edited very quickly so sometimes a single line or shot can be worthwhile.

After I had a collection of various shots, I imported them into Premiere. My basic narrative framework was:

1- Discovery of shark victim
2- Town reaction/news coverage
3- Hooper gets recruited
4- Various shark mayhem set to "Show me the way to go home"

But while playing around with the clips, some ideas grew. For instance, I saw some footage of fireworks so I added the beginning on the 4th of July. I was very lucky with the Dreyfuss footage: there were scenes of him teaching and resigning, talking to a someone showing him photos. I also managed to do an homage to the scene of him finding Ben Gardner's head, seen at the 2.00 mark.

It was also during editing that I thought of beginning the trailer with his speech from JAWS. Finally, some color correction and VFX on a few shots. So a combination of creativity, luck and many hours of editing!

 

[slekyr]