TrailerTime is the modern media company on the front end of the rapidly-changing television & movie business focusing on the value of trailers. Trailer Time, founded by Mohit Dangeti and Jamell Sirleaf, is a brand focused on promoting the newest television and movie trailers, reviewing them, discussing their history and significance, as well as examining the DNA of what makes them compelling, down to the genre level. With the onset of COVID-19, this entire industry is on the cusp of a material and dramatic shift; pre-pandemic, theater attendance was dwindling and now, due to the Coronavirus, most in-person gatherings, movie screenings included, are on hold for the near future. These changes do not spell doom however, just change. Television & movie streaming services have seen an increase in both membership and consistent viewership as a result of the work from home and quarantine orders. Honoring this trend, just recently Warner Brothers announced that their entire 2021 slate of movies will be released in both theaters and on HBO Max on the same day. This is indicative of the massive shift away from theaters and into streaming; Dangeti and Sirleaf believe this shift favors TrailerTime.
The need for a captivating and concise trailer, however, is constant and arguably more valuable in this new environment. With the increased popularity of streaming, while there is more opportunity to get a movie in front of a potential viewer, there is also more competition. TrailerTime recognizes this emerging problem and is providing a hyper-specific solution, trailer reviews on Instagram and Youtube. The founders are not only separating the signal from the noise by providing a pre-selected funnel of the most important and entertaining trailers to watch, but they are also providing interesting reviews as well as funny commentary for their viewers. Their thesis is twofold: 1) users of streaming services experience choice fatigue and 2) trailers, themselves, make compelling content.
Mohit Dangeti and Jamell Sirleaf, grew up throughout the streaming revolution. They have fond memories of watching movies in the theater (and getting there early in order to see the trailers) and they love the convenience of the streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBOMax, Hulu, et cetera. This means the two college friends lived through an era where movie-lovers were at the whim of their local movie theater to an era where almost every movie ever made is available to enthusiasts from their homes with just a few clicks. While this revolution in access is ultimately a huge win for the fan of film, users of these streaming services report that they sometimes spend hours simply searching for something to watch. This is precisely because there are too many great options on each app, not too little. Of course, these apps, more often than not, attempt to entice viewers to watch any given movie or show by either automatically playing the trailer or by making it easy to watch.
Now, with TrailerTime, movie-lovers have recourse. Instead of watching an unlimited amount of trailers, arguing with friends about what to watch, or reading long-winded reviews by industry writers, you can let Dangeti and Sirleaf can do it for you. The real-life friends already spend every waking hour searching for the best new trailers. This means that instead of jumping back and forth between streaming services, people can go directly to TrailerTime’s Instagram or Youtube accounts in order to see a curated list of the highest quality trailers for the newest and most anticipated content. Further, watching Dangeti’s and Sirleaf’s authentic repartee and their
knowledgeable discussions of the television & movie universe makes viewers privy to funny and compelling points. This is highly entertaining and can inform one’s movie search.
This touches upon the deeper aspect of TrailerTime’s work. Beyond helping with search fatigue, the college buddies behind TrailerTime are servicing a hole in the market by betting big on trailers. Recalling the excitement they used to experience upon watching an unexpectedly thrilling trailer in the theater before a movie, Dangeti and Sirleaf Believe that trailers are extremely captivating in their own right. Dangeti states, “I still get goosebumps watching amazing trailers even years after they come out.”
Not only is TrailerTime capturing the magical experience of surprise and anticipation upon watching a great trailer, but they are coupling it with honest feedback, thought-provoking conversations, and witty jokes. Dangeti’s and Sirleaf’s sincere friendship and deep obsession with the best new movies make them the perfect people to help movie-lovers re-experience their childhood excitement for new movies as well as provide information and entertainment for them about various movies.
Dangeti and Sirleaf are brilliantly combining two separate yet massively popular types of content, trailers and video podcasts, in order to create a new type of show. This means that individuals who love the television and movie industry have a whole new style of content to entertain them. The genius behind the show is its viral capacity. Tweets about a new movie or trailer, as well as the new trailers themselves, go viral all of the time. TrailerTime is able to anticipate and capture that virality by providing an access point to a new, potentially viral, trailer as well as the funny and interesting commentary around it.
Dangeti’s and Sirleaf’s lifelong passion for storytelling and film as well as their friendship informs their success. As Indian-American and African-American men, Dangeti and Sirleaf, are able to give a voice to oft-overlooked perspectives and viewpoints in an industry oversaturated with white men. Dangeti and Sirleaf are not only able to speak directly to their communities, but they are also able to provide a platform for them as well as other communities made up of people of color. While Dangeti and Sirleaf are proud to represent minorities in the movie commentary space, they are currently some of the only minorities in the trailer review space. Beyond trailer related content, Dangeti notes the lack of representation in movies themselves; Dangeti states, “Bollywood is so huge, but representation in American television and film is so small. That needs to change. I want it to change.” The college friends hope their content inspires other minorities to start their own trailer related as well as other types of TV and film content.
Dangeti fondly recalls his father’s passion for cinema as having a formative influence on his love for television and film. Dangeti states, “Watching TV and movies have always been a family ordeal for as long as I can remember.” Dangeti also remembers his high school English teacher teaching him technical knowledge about cinema on their free time. Cinema is not only ingrained in the DNA of all Indian people, it is ingrained in the personal histories of the TrailerTime founders.
TrailerTime’s ability to simultaneously inform people about new movies, curate the most anticipated trailers, as well as entertain viewers with hilarious and compelling commentary is precisely why they are making waves on Instagram and Youtube. Between helping users of streaming services decide what to watch and creating a whole new style of video content, Dangeti’s and Sirleaf’s TrailerTime is here to stay. Currently, TrailerTime focuses on new
movies and their trailers however, they are listening to the market and plan to add more content about new television shows and their trailers in the near future as well.
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