Chances are, one of the recent trailers made by Mark Woollen, left you feeling impressed. Woollen and his company, Mark Woollen & Associates, are the award-winning team behind recent trailers for films like Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, Chris Smith’s Collapse, Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop, and Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are.
All of these trailers provoked viewers to feel excited, but none of the excitement matched what happened a couple of weeks ago, when the first full trailer for David Fincher’s The Social Network was unleashed. Bloggers and audiences were wowed with the cinematic trailer for this now-anticipated film, and you may have Woollen to thank. Perhaps the most genius stroke, was the decision to use a choir’s cover of the Radiohead song “Creep,” as the trailer’s score. Music plays a very pivotal role in most of Mark’s trailers, which is probably one of the reasons why you can often spot him attending the SXSW Music Festival each year. He’s a very nice guy, and I wanted to ask him a few questions about his job, including the work on The Social Network trailer…
Me: A lot of people have been impressed by the choice of the “Creep” cover in The Social Network trailer. How and when did that come into play for the trailer?
Mark Woollen: The “Creep” cover was something I stumbled across several years ago. This Belgian girls choir that sang these cool covers. I’d listen to them now and again, and when we started working on The Social Network, the idea of “Creep” and that version popped in my head and from there the whole concept came together really fast, the song played well with the imagery, then the idea of taking the time to spend the opening of the trailer juxtaposing the song with Facebook images.
Me: From your impressive slate of trailers last year, if you had to pick three that you’re most proud of, what would they be? And why?
I feel really lucky to work on films by filmmakers I really admire. So far this year The Social Network has been a great experience. Last year it would be the trailer for A Serious Man. The Coens asked us to do something totally different, and we had so much fun using a guy’s head hitting a wall, as the bass line for an entire trailer. Where the Wild Things was also a great collaboration with Spike and had great music and footage to work with. And then probably In the Loop that movie is so fast and so funny, it was great material to work with.
Me: You recently launched iTrailers, which seems like a great evolution. Is that picking up steam?
Mark Woollen: i-Trailers debuted in May with Sex and the City 2, and the response and attention has been good. We’re about to launch an i-Trailer for Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World which is really going to show off how cool this idea can be for enhancing the trailer experience. The concept works for any genre, so you’ll be seeing a lot more of them for all kinds of movies.
Me: What are some other trailers we can look forward to from you, in the near future?
Mark Woollen: I’m sworn to secrecy. But this fall we’re working on some anticipated films that really deliver.
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