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As has been discussed, it is very difficult to incorporate context into a promotion. The goal of a promo is to grab the potential viewer's attention. However, revealing the story line takes a great deal of time and is seldom the most attention-grabbing feature of the show. What grabs viewers' immediate interest are scenes of exciting action, many of which are violent: car crashes, chases, fist fights and explosions.
Whenever a promotion does tell the story of a show or movie it has to be careful not to tell too much or give away the ending. This is difficult to accomplish. To create a promo with just the right amount of context takes great time and precision. It is far easier and more reliable to just feature two or three scenes of action.
The constant barrage of action seen in promo after promo raises concern. A viewer watching for an entire evening is typically bombarded with many more problematic scenes of violence in the advertisements and promotions than in the programs themselves. This bombardment usually contains only the violence and none of the important contextual elements such as consequences or punishment of the violence.
Some of the best examples of this problem can be found in advertisements for theatrical films about to be released. Many of the most popular and expensive theatrical films feature action and adventure. Many of them contain a large number of very graphic violent scenes that are part of the basic story. When these films appear on television sometime in the future, many of these scenes of intense violence will be edited out. The network faces the challenge of airing promotions for films in movie theaters that contain scenes of violence that would not be allowed in regular network programming. Some of the most talked about films of the past year fall into this category: The Specialist, Batman Forever, Die Hard 3, Judge Dredd, Waterworld, Braveheart, Rob Roy and First Knight, to name just a few.
Some promotions illustrating lack of context:
This promo is a very violent advertisement for the film. The only information the announcer reveals is that the film stars Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone and James Woods. The ad features a man falling out of a window with a gun in his hand, a building exploding, James Woods pointing a gun (as he says, "You lose, I win"), a picture of a detonator beeping and another large explosion. The only other information given is the date that the film opens. All of this fits into about 15 seconds. There is absolutely no context. The message of the promo is that the film contains big- name stars and much violence. This is a good example of a recurring type of short promo which features heavy violence with absolutely no sense of the story. Even fans of action films are unable to discern who is the good or bad guy or what the story is about.
This report has already discussed one promotion for the series Walker, Texas Ranger which features nothing more than Chuck Norris throwing punches. This is a promotion for one of the several Walker two-hour movies that ran during the year. It begins with enormous letters on the screen and a voice-over telling viewers that Walker: War Zone is an "Action Thriller, not in theaters and not on home video." Behind the block letters we see explosions, fires, a car crash, Walker fighting (kicking) and a shot of Walker with a gun. The only message is that this two- hour Walker will contain an escalated level of violence, even more than what is shown in the weekly series. This is a 10-second promo. While it does not have time to explain the story of this special Walker, it does cram in six scenes of intense violence.
This is a promotion for the theatrical The Dead Pool which ran on CBS. Ironically, it airs during the movie Boyz 'N the Hood, a very violent but contextually appropriate film that illustrates the senselessness of urban crime and gangs. Although containing much violence, Boyz 'N the Hood is really an anti-violence film. Boyz 'N the Hood is a serious piece of social commentary which is inappropriately juxtaposed with The Dead Pool promo which features glorified acts of decontextualized violence. The promo begins with a car flying at full speed over a hill, a man reacting in terror, several blazing machine guns shattering a glass elevator, a fight scene with one man kicking the other in the face, Clint Eastwood chasing someone with a gun, a car bombing, Liam Neeson with a gun, two men engulfed in flames, another car chase and Eastwood pointing a harpoon. Then, rather superfluously, the promo mentions that "Due to some violent content, parental discretion is advised." This coupling of contradictory messages diminishes and detracts from the impact of the prosocial message in Boyz 'N the Hood.
This promo contains just about every violent scene from the television movie Avalanche. Viewers see in succession the avalanche, furniture breaking apart and landing on terrified people, David Hasselhoff violently grabbing the daughter, Hasselhoff with a gun, someone falling down a mountain, the daughter opening a door and seeing the bloodied and frozen hand of a dead body, another avalanche with more injured and terrified people, Hasselhoff with a large shard of glass protruding from his abdomen, and the father threatening the wounded Hasselhoff with a metal stake while the daughter encourages her father to kill him, screaming, "Do it, do it, kill him." Although the promo does reveal that there is an avalanche, the real message is that this is a two- hour television movie filled with terror and violence. The promo uses almost every scene of violence to make the point.
This promo ran on Fox's owned and operated station in Los Angeles on 1/15/95 during the hour preceding a special two-hour episode of Melrose Place which aired at 8:00. It was produced by the network and similar ads ran on Fox the week before. The promo contains the following clips in succession: Amanda being grabbed and stabbed with a hypodermic needle, Amanda on the operating table while Peter screams to Michael to "cut her open, doctor, that's an order," a close- up of a scalpel about to cut Amanda, Jo punching Kimberly in the hospital hallway, and Jo being shot by a man holding a rifle and falling in slow motion as Jake screams in horror. Fans of Melrose Place, recognizing the story lines, will be able to understand the context surrounding the violence in the promo. However, viewers who do not watch the show will only see a constant barrage of violent scenes strung together without context.
This is a 30-second ad promoting Mantis and The X-Files. The first segment features a high- voltage killer who can travel though electrical wires. A woman reacts in fear as a television set blows up and sparks fly everywhere, Mantis shoots a ray gun at an unseen foe and the killer electrocutes a man with shock waves from his eyes. The X-Files segment begins with Mulder examining a dead body under a sheet as a police officer tells him the eyes and heart have been cut out. It continues with a series of eerie and unsettling images: several people uttering blood- curdling screams, someone swinging what appears to be a weapon and a woman holding a knife at head level with both hands and thrusting down into what we believe is a person on the ground. It is almost impossible to discern from either segment, especially the one from The X-Files, what the story is about. Instead, we are only left with a promise of violence.
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