The Golden Trailer Awards are an
awards show unlike any other. The Golden Trailer Awards recognize those who create
movie trailers and reward them for their rather unique art in a
gala award show.
That's right, it's the Academy Awards for previews.
The first Golden Trailer Awards took place on September 21st, 1999 at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in New York City. The first awards were hosted by E! spokesman and frequent game show host Todd Newton and with a jury of Hollywood directors and producers including Quentin Tarantino and Academy Award nominated producer Stephen Woolley.
Since 2000, the ceremony has been held every year with Kathy Griffin hosting in 2002, Dennis Miller in 2003 and Tom Green hosting just earlier this May.
The jury has also gained star power as the years go by with notable names such as Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro, Leonard Maltin, Paul Verhoeven, Ben Stiller and Pedro Almodóvar having been judges since the ceremonies first year.
The actual award given is a slightly slanted metal trophy with a golden trailer vehicle at the top. The categories vary from year to year, but as of last ceremony are as follows:
Best Action
Best Animation/Family
Best Romance
Best Independent
Best Comedy
Best Voice Over
Trashiest Trailer (Best use of sex (or the suggestion of sex) to sell a film)
Best Drama
Best Documentary
Most Original
The Golden Fleece Award (according to the Golden Trailer website this "This category is for The Trailer that does a brilliant job of selling a NOT so great movie. Entirely the result of resourceful editing this is the 'pièce de résistance' for the Trailer editor, the holy grail as it were because (off the record) someone (for example a studio perhaps) has asked them to make "a silk purse out of a sow's ear" and the trailer editor has most likely saved somebody's ass.")
Best Music
Best Horror / Thriller
Best Foreign
Best Independent Foreign
Best Trailer No Movie (This is strictly an independent category for fund raising trailers. For example: filmmakers who shoot scenes from a film and cut it into a trailer in order to raise the money to shoot the film. This trailer may represent an idea but the intent is to go from idea to a feature length motion picture. )
Best of Show
Winners of Best of Show since 1999 have been The Matrix ('99), Requiem for a Dream ('01), The Royal Tenenbaums ('02), About Schmidt ('03) and The Steford Wives ('04)
While The Golden Trailer Awards seem like something that can easily be scoffed at, it does shed light on what has always been a rather thankless job in film: Creating movie trailers.
Visit the Golden Trailer Awards website at http://www.goldentrailer.com/