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A re-cut trailer, or retrailer is a parody trailer for a movie created by editing footage from that movie or from its original trailers, and thus are a form of mashup. They generally derive humor from misrepresenting the original film: for instance, a film with a murderous plot is made to look like a comedy, or vice versa. They became popular on the Internet in 2005.
The making of retrailers became possible with the availability of consumer-level digital video editing suites. The more sophisticated of these allow the editor to separate the audio and video tracks of a clip, allowing the original score or soundtrack to be removed — these contribute most to a scene's tone—and replaced with another. By placing clips of different characters (typically closeups) together in sequence, a relation between them may be implied, regardless of where each character is actually situated within their respective movie. All that remains is to include certain conventions such as voice-over narration, titles and credits, and the familiar MPAA rating system copy (the white-on-green introductory screen).
Then, a contest held by the Association of Independent Creative Editors led to the creation of a re-cut trailer of The Shining () in October 2005, which made the horror film appear to be a light-hearted family comedy drama about father and son bonding, adding voice-over narration and Peter Gabriel's song "Solsbury Hill" to augment the re-edited footage. The video, created by Robert Ryang from editorial house PS 260 in New York City, became an internet phenomenon, and made Ryang minorly famous, as well as winning him the contest. The video also jump-started the popularity of re-cut trailers for the internet community.
Soon after the Shining retrailer took the Internet by storm, a comedy group named Chocolate Cake City () created a re-cut trailer for the Back to the Future films, portraying the films' characters in a romantic homosexual relationship akin to the one by the main characters in the film Brokeback Mountain. The retrailer primarily used clips from Back to the Future Part III, which was set in the Wild West of the 19th century.
Brokeback to the Future was one of several re-cuts that emerged in late 2005 in which a homosexual relationship was suggested between two male leads. As Brokeback to the Future gained popularity in early 2006, other re-cuts were created that specifically parodied Brokeback Mountain.
SNL Digital Short Recut
The Lonely Island made a Saturday Night Live Digital Short (in which they use digital cameras and their parodic style and became famous for Lazy Sunday, Dick In A Box and The Shooting) involving a trailer of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto which featured Jewish racial slur similar to Mel Gibson's drunk incident. The trailer can be found on YouTube. Until Recently, The Second Digital Short Recut aired involving 2012 if Sarah Palin was elected as US President with Glenn Beck as Vice President based upon Keith Olbermann's remarks.
- Total Recut Online Resources for Fans and Creators of Video Recuts, Remixes & Mash-Ups