Trailer Trash interviews Don LaFontaine, "father of the modern trailer."
Is "The Voice" something that you have to adjust your voice to do, or is that deep rolling bass actually close to your natural speaking voice?The thought-concept "context" just snapped free from surrounding synpases, and will never return home."The Voice" — or "Voices" — is actually very close to my speaking voice. Only not. It's hard to explain. It's my voice, only bigger. I don't mean louder, although that certainly is the case sometimes. I emphasize certain elements of my voice — adding an edge or a cushion of air, and then slightly over-emote. It's not enough to sound like over-acting in the context of a trailer, TV or radio spot.
"My job [back then] consisted of writing, directing, recording, creating music and effects 'beds' for the spots," remembers Don. "Mixing them, mastering, packaging, addressing and even schlepping the packages to the Post Office ourselves. As a writer, I was one of maybe five people in the entire business, Floyd included." Because Don hadn't learned the proper "rules" of advertising, he spent the next several years breaking almost all of them.But the profile never says which damned rules were broken. Pop culture's holy grail, reburied. Posted by nchicha at March 4, 2004 02:29 PM
These same broken rules would remain broken for the next forty years, eventually becoming the industry standard for how movie trailers are supposed to look and sound.