Forum:Temporary forums/Trailers

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Opening post
On this Wiki, it has been long held that "trailers" cannot be valid sources as they don't tell narratives of their own, or some variation thereof. And yet, in the years since, the BBC has released what some editors have defined as "narrative trailers", type of trailer that presents an all-new unique narrative, but because these stories have been called trailers, they've been declared invalid sources, and the policy has never changed despite obviously needing to do so. In this thread, as for once I actually feel the most qualified person on this Wiki to talk about this, I aim to explain many things.

But not to say trailers should be valid. Trust me, let me explain, I'm going somewhere with this.

Context
I'm not sure specifically when trailers were invalidated, but I believe it was at a time when the only trailers that had been released by the BBC were those "Next Time" trailers that accompanied the 2005 revival of Doctor Who; now, it does make sense that these should be invalid, as they were often misleading and contained unique information. As Wikipedia : "Some trailers use "special shoot" footage, which is material that has been created specifically for advertising purposes and does not appear in the actual film." Obviously, as evidenced by the existence of this very thread, things have evolved and flat-out invalidating trailers seems to be a problem.

Currently, I am studying a Level Four Creative Enterprise course (equivalent to the first year of a degree) at college. Now, you may ask, "what the cruk has this got to do with trailers?" Well, the fun thing is, I've been studying brand marketing, and a lot of that is based around promotional videos. In fact, I'm making one. (Spoilers!) Now, I've done research into promotional videos, and there are over ten types of them. From this knowledge, I cannot help but actually cringe at how this Wiki covers trailers, and the frankly bizarre language that has been created to refer to things such as "narrative trailers".

Breakdown and reclassification
Trailers should remain invalid. Yes, you heard me. No, I'm not stupid. But then, at the same time, sources such as Step Into the 80's!, the 2009 BBC Christmas idents, Season 17, The Journey, The Universe is Calling, etc, should all be valid. In order to explain this seeming contradiction, let me first share some definitions of what a trailer actually is.

Now let's define something else. I'm sure you'll be able to understand where I'm going with this now.

It should also be noted that trailers (albeit under American law, I'm not sure about British) cannot be over two and a half minutes long.source

Now, all of this is to say: what we define as "narrative trailers" are not, by definition, trailers. They're branded short films. In fact, the term "narrative trailer" does not exist. We've made it up! Its roots are pretty clearly derived from "oh but Mr Admin, why can't this trailer with the Fourth Doctor and a Prime Computer be valid, it's got a narrative!" And bam, "narrative trailer" is born. In the real world, outside of this Wiki, these are branded short films. And you'll find a lot of what this Wiki covers, primarily webcasts, actually falls into the "branded short film" type. All of the Tardisodes, pretty much everything in Category:Big Finish webcasts, especially stories such as Dead and Buried, and so so so much more. The term "narrative trailer" doesn't even make much sense, as most actual trailers actually have a narrative. It's kinda the point, to give you a cryptic, greatly truncated version of the final film to drum up publicity.

You may be thinking to yourself, "but doesn't the BBC and Big Finish call a lot of these stories "trailers" in the YouTube descriptions?" Yes they do, but that doesn't mean they're correct. I cannot explain why they are so intent on not picking up a dictionary, but these things are not trailers, all I can do is explain they're wrong. Hopefully that is not arrogant of me!

However, branded short film is a bit of an odd thing to call a lot of, typically really short, little DWU productions which are like little scenes and what-have-you, so I believe we should go with a term a lot of Whovians (not just Wiki-folk) are familiar with: "mini-episode". We should call them "promotional mini-episodes". It has the same meaning as "branded short film", but uses terms Whovians are familiar with, which aren't Wiki-isms based around the ins and outs of our validity policies which in no way is actually relevant to our readers.

Proposal
Trailers should remain invalid. However, we reclassify all "narrative trailers" (i.e., all those that do not fit into the actual definition of "trailer"; this also includes things such as Campfire) as "promotional mini-episodes" and validate the lot of the them (unless if they fail another part of T:VS obviously). We should give them dab terms based upon our current conventions, so a promotional mini-episode released on YouTube would be "webcast", something on the telly would be "TV story", etc. Furthermore, by abandoning the term "narrative trailer" not just because it's made up and there are better terms that could be used instead, we have to remember if non-narrative sources are validated, then non-narrative promotional mini-episodes should also be valid, such as those Big Finish ones that have a character monologuing while footage of landscapes and stuff plays.

Obviously, this change essentially means that we are validating promotional sources, while keeping actual trailers invalid. This scope also allows us to validate promotional comics like Dr Who and the Turgids, On the Icy Edge of the Galaxy..., etc etc. Trailers are explicitly productions that contain little to no unique content and merely present a cryptic stinger of an upcoming release, and should remain invalid for now. Promotional mini-episodes are any production released that contains a large amount unique fiction and, by definition, is not a trailer.

Now, there are still those Big Finish trailers that don't contain unique audio but do contain unique visuals, as well as those DWM comic previews for the early Big Finish releases. As I feel that is altogether a separate issue from validating "promotional mini-episodes", their validity should be discussed separately.