Why I don't watch movie trailers anymore.

Years ago I gave up on Hollywood marketing.  They basically show you the entire movie now in a desperate effort to get you to go watch their movie opening weekend.  Worst of all they'll show you all the best parts in an onslaught of marketing.  

My simple rule is:  If I already want to see it, I won't watch the trailer. 

One of my all time best movie experiences came on July 16th 2008.  My friends and I were at the midnight showing of the Dark Knight along with thousands of other New Yorkers.  Half way through the movie, every one of us started freaking out when we realized that the Batpod (Batman's bike) was actually INSIDE & part of the Batmobile itself!  Non of us knew this.  The audible gasps of joy and surprise in the movie theater could be felt from New Jersey.  It was a fantastic movie experience.

Two years later, I had already begun my habit of avoiding trailers.  I had spent many months avoiding everything about Iron Man 2.  The midnight showing was only 2 days away.  When suddenly… I'm checking out the front page of my favorite tech site, Gizmodo… and BAM!  I read a headline that said: 

"Watch It: the Iron Man 2 Briefcase Suit Scene."

I FREAKED OUT.  I was so upset.  Months of closing my eyes.  Ruined by a single headline.  So when I watched the movie 2 days later… I didn't have some brilliant movie experience when I saw a suitcase being driven to Tony Stark.  I already knew.  No surprise.  It was still cool.  But I knew it was coming.

I've avoided every Trailer/Review/Interview/Clip/Tweet/FB status relating to Avengers.  I couldn't be more excited to see my childhood comic books come to life.  And every single second will be brand new to me.  I am now evacuating the internet until after I see it on Friday to avoid spoilers.

To quote Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) on Jeff Goldsmith's brilliant creative screenwriting podcast:

"When I was going to school... In high school and loving movies I remember teasers truly teasing me... And I remember E.T. Was just 3 fingers going around a door & a date... & i feel like We've become such an impatient society... And we want our cake 2 years before its time to have our cake... that you're losing a lot of romance & ammunition out of making people have to wait... And making them want to know more... and anticipating something…"

Some of my favorite reactions to my TED talk.

 

This week marks 2 months since my TED talk at TED2012:Full Spectrum in Long Beach, California.

I've literally received hundreds (if not thousands) of incredibly heartwarmingly positive messages (only 3 negative ones so far), & made time to respond to every single one personally.  I received them primarily through Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, youTube, E-mail, & even TEDconnect.

As of this posting my 1 Second Everyday video has been loaded 1.3+ million times.

This morning I received a lovely thank you e-mail from TED curator Chris Anderson which included some of the feedback he received from TEDsters after my talk:

- I really enjoyed the One Second Video concept -- it has stayed with me.  

- The Kuriyama talk really stood out to me and I'm still thinking about it a week after TED.    

- Loved Cesar's concept and philosophy.  It certainly made me evaluate life from a different perspective and is a powerful idea.

- Cesar Kuriyama was amongst my top three TED Talks. Captured the best of TED: great techology with a personal story, socially significant and breathtaking personal achievement... just wonderful. What a great way to end the week.

- Cesar - his video is a wonderful diary: a digital diary.

- Cesar expressed a super idea

- Cesar's idea was amazing

- Cesar's talk was one of the ones I was most looking forward to. Loved his project and his video. 

- A nice end to the week. Cesar's idea was amazing

- Kuriyama was very creative. I've seen the same with pictures over the years, and/or over the days.. but with video..? no.. he was very, very creative.

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2 of my favorite tweets so far:

- Dewar's Whiskey: (right after my talk)

@CesarKuriyama #TED talk "recording one second of my life for the rest of my life" - the best idea we saw for managing a 21st century life

- Cassy Polimeni (last week)

When @CesarKuriyama's life flashes before his eyes, I wonder if it will be his own edit? Amazing project. 

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My favorite Facebook message comes from someone that understands exactly where I'm headed with the long term APP development of my project:

Since seeing your talk at TED I can't stop thinking about what it would be like if people all over the world started doing this. Not for the purpose of replaying one single life in fast forward. Rather, imagine that you could take a day when some monumental world event happened and tell the computer, "OK, give me 3 minutes of video from that day", and you would get that, not from the perspective of some biased news agency, but from the eyes of the entire human race. 

What if you could filter by country, or demographic. "What is the daily life like for a nurse in China" or let's say you were undecided on where to go on vacation, you could tell the system: "give me two minutes of Bangkok from the eyes of 120 people".

But more importantly, what if, after something like 9/11, you would be able to select a foreign country and see the people there, not burning flags in the street like you saw on CNN, but glued to their TV:s watching CNN just like you, shaking their heads in disbelief. And what if people in Palestine and Israel had a direct view into the lives of normal people on the other side of the border. Would they be able to continue shooting at each other when they realized exactly how much they had in common? 

If this concept spread throughout the world, we would no longer be able to demonize other countries or cultures. How would that affect us?

- Matti Jaeaearo

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And of all the people who've told me that they started their own... this is my favorite work in progress!

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Lastly, I get asked a lot when my TED talk will be online.  In Chris Anderson's e-mail he added this:

"We look forward to hosting the talk online within the coming months, though I can't give you an exact date yet when it will go live. "

A week from today I'm giving a TED TALK at TED2012!

This is literally a Dream Come True.

click on image for the full program guide!