Thanks for doing this series Scott (and mystery person). I'm very interested to read the next part – nothing annoys me more than trailers that give away too much! I can think of a few movies I avoided simply because of that. (But I guess it must work otherwise they wouldn't keep doing it.)

Am interested to know how much say a director has on the trailer. In many ways it seems the most important selling point for your film, it'd be weird to have little control. Even more so if you hated the proposed trailer.

i think the strength of Where the Wild Things are will be precisely its appeal to different audiences: the older ones for nostalgic reasons, the "hip youngsters" for it's director/style, and the younger ones for all the cuddly monsters and grand adventures. i don't see why that would hurt the movie. in fact, i think creating intrigue about a film is a much stronger marketing tool that spewing out all of the information before the audience has had a chance to buy the ticket.
i stepped into slumdog millionaire following my friends, not knowing what movie i was going to go see, and i enjoyed it so much more, without ever having seen any sort of ad for it. of course, this method isn't exactly common, but i think audiences are getting smarter than the marketing campaigns, and what they want is not to be talked down to.

If you are looking to promote your brand in a unique way or want to add that special touch to your gifting solutions, an ideal option is to use customized gifts like t-shirts, pens, mugs, bags which have your company logo imprinted on them.

This looks very professional and will create your brand awareness besides being the best way to add a personal touch to your special occasion or event.

Did Tarantino, Jarmusch, or Lynch know who their audiences were on their first successful scripts? I don't think so. Neither do I think the Hollywood marketing machine could handle those films, nor did they.

Jon, we're talking apples and oranges. If you want to write indie movies, you can do that. Maybe over time, you become your own brand like Tarantino. Great. I call that Sell Them Your Dream. But if you are talking about mainstream commercial movies, what the studios refer to as "popcorn movies," a certain amount of awareness of how they operate and the ability to put on your own 'producers cap' from time to time can be extremely helpful. I call that Write What They're Buying. You can read my post on that here. Not saying either way is right or wrong. You have to figure that out yourself. But best to be aware of what you're attempting to do and how to best go about doing it.

Ok. Thanks Scott. I obviously need to catch up on what's on GITS. I was even going to suggest, how about some kind of article on types of writers, indie versus industry, and so on. Thanks.