Benedict Coulter was the first editor to use rock and roll music to make “kick-ass” trailers.
In the mid-’80s, there were only a handful of people who cut trailers for motion pictures.
“Trailer editing is very musical,” he tells EW.
Tom Cruise and Benedict Coulter.Benedict Coulter
Coulter shares his memories of making trailer magic below.
There were probably about four or five companies in the whole country.
Now there’s about 75 to 100.
Alaxandre Poncet
That was my first job in Hollywood.
I was born in Paris and I came to Hollywood to be a musician.
It was just too hard.
So I got a job at this trailer company as a runner and worked my way up.
We kind of developed a relationship together.
That’s what happens.
Trailer editing is very musical.
It’s very base written.
When you watch people, you might see them moving to the rhythm that you’ve set.
Don and Jerry just loved my cutting.
“I got the full movie [to watch before cutting the trailer].
The crazy thing at the time, they sent you a black and white copy of the print.
You had 10 to 12 film reels for a movie, each at 10 minutes.
I remember seeing it and going, ‘Wow, this is really, really cool.’
This guy, Tom Cruise was really cool inRisky Businessbut was not a huge, huge star yet.
And it was my first introduction to director Tony Scott.
He liked the fact that cut trailers with rock and roll.
I had done that withBeverly Hills Copby using music from the Pointer Sisters.
“Most of the trailer editors at the time did not use songs.
They used traditional scores and conventional music.
Being a musician and coming from a rock and roll background, I wanted to try it.
Filmmakers really started to respond to it.
I loved that the pass by (where the man spills his coffee in the tower).
I thought that was just so cool to establish attitude.
And there was that incredible shot from behind the jet, when it leaves the aircraft carrier.
Just a spectacular shot.
Tony Scott was such an incredible visual director.
They came over to the editing room at Kaleidoscope and I presented it.
It was all on film.
I had an upright Moviola editing machine and I would present them the trailer on the Moviola.
Tom Cruise came a few days later, ‘cause they were just so excited by what they had seen.
They were jumping up and down.
I didn’t know that I had that talent.
I thought I was just a good musician.
