THX/"Make Your Own Trailer" Contest Entries

Background: In 2006, THX operated a contest for fans to create a trailer. Winners of the contest would get their trailer featured on the THX website and recieve a THX Director's Chair. Many entries were submitted, but ten were chosen and won, and as of 2018, only eight are easily watchable on YouTube (with one of the seven also being on Vimeo).

1st Trailer (Paul S. Gordon's entry)

Nickname: "A Good Idea"

Logo: We see a boy folding a paper airplane. Once he unfolds the wings, he swings the airplane twice while saying "VROOM!", hoping something interesting would happen. The boy is disappointed and throws the paper airplane on the table. A girl notices the boy's disappointment and says, "And now, I've got a good idea." The boy draws "THX" in a box with a blue crayon, and swings the airplane again, which starts the Deep Note, and we transition to the THX logo. The paper airplane flies in and out of frame, before hitting the THX logo and breaking it.

FX/SFX: Live-action, with animation at the end.

Cheesy Factor: The boy stops the airplane to reveal the THX logo, and the transition is a bit too late. Also, the paper airplane breaking the logo looks choppy. The final THX logo was obviously Photoshopped, and the airplane was video edited.

Music/Sounds: A simple piano tune is heard throughout, alongside the dialogue, some sound effects, and the Deep Note.

Availability: Created as a fan-made trailer. It has not been used in any THX-certified products or theaters but appeared on the company website during the climax of the contest.

Editor's Note: It's a cute logo.

2nd Trailer (Arron Dennis's entry)

Nickname: "Audience"

Logo: A film projector is shown before we cut to a shot of people sitting in movie theater seats, enjoying popcorn. The camera pans up from a back shot as we see the THX logo projected onto the movie screen. However, just as the Deep Note is beginning to get louder, the film shorts out and the projector breaks. The people in the audience are briefly left bewildered, but not before one of the audience members begins humming the Note. The people look behind them as we see a man and a woman humming the Deep Note. The rest of the audience begins to follow suit, and before you know it, the Deep Note begins playing again. A bucket of popcorn is seen shaking a lot, and the screen flashes white just as the projector begins to work again. We pan again to the movie screen, once again with the THX logo projected on it, before the THX logo appears without live-action.

FX/SFX: Live-action.

Cheesy Factor: Perhaps as a result of the logo file being in the JPG format, the background of the logo is white for some reason.

Music/Sounds: The Deep Note, the people humming, and a 'drop' sound effect.

Availability: See above.

Editor's Note: It's actually very endearing.

3rd Trailer (Wes Jones's entry)

Nickname: "Beyond Imagination"

Logo: On the black background, we see four lens flares of different lens types (Standard on the top-left, 35mm on the top-right, 70-300mm Zoom on the bottom-left, and 105mm Prime on bottom-right) in each corner of the frame, slowly zooming towards the center. Then, the screen flashes slowly, revealing the THX logo on the white background. The flares zoom outward and the logo fades out.

FX/SFX: Simple but effective animation. Done in Sony Vegas Pro/Movie Studio.

Cheesy Factor: Again, the background is white for some reason.

Music/Sounds: The Deep Note.

Availability: See "A Good Idea."

4th Trailer (Sarah Char's entry)

Nickname: "Big Sound"

Availability:The Trailer Itself is completely lost, no records of it appeared online nor on YouTube, as its existence is too confusing.See "A Good Idea."

5th Trailer (Mathieu Provost's entry)

Nickname: "Horror Sound"

Logo: TBA

FX/SFX/Cheesy Factor: Cheap animation. Also, the background is white once again.

Music/Sounds: Horror-related sounds and the Deep Note.

Availability: See "A Good Idea."

6th Trailer (Jason Jobe's entry)

Nickname: "Jobe"

Logo: TBA

FX/SFX: Simple animation.

Music/Sounds: Some heartbeat-like sounds at the start, followed by the Deep Note.

Availability: See "A Good Idea."

7th Trailer (Michael Swindler's entry)

Nickname: "Luminous"

Availability: See "A Good Idea."

8th Trailer (Javier Ariel Garza's entry)

Nickname: "Shards"

Logo: We see many glass shards flying to form the THX logo. Then, the logo flies out by a 3D transition effect.

FX/SFX: All CGI.

Music/Sounds: Corresponding sound effects, and the Deep Note.

Availability: See "A Good Idea."

9th Logo (Adam White's entry)

Nickname: "The Audition"

Logo: The text "Lucasfilm Headquarters 1982" is shown on a black background, before we fade into a door with a piece of paper reading "Lucasfilm Sound Logo Auditions TODAY" on it. We fade into a CGI audio-recording room as a man is seen behind the door window, saying "Okay, uh, welcome to the new sound division logo audition. Uh, basically we want the audience to know they're about to have the best possible listening experience. So, um, whenever you're ready, go for it!". We then cut to a shot of a chair and a microphone, as each one of the below scenarios occurs:

"HAL" is seen on the chair, saying "The following film contains sound of the highest quality". The man in the window says "NEXT!". The letters in "abc" jump around on the chair and babble like babies. The man says "NEXT!" again. "XYZ" is shown, with a zipper sound effect. The man sighs and says "NEXT!". "XXX" says "Hello there!" seductively. The man says "Yeah, not that kind of audition."

Then, we see the THX logo on the chair, as the man in the window says "THX, wha-what is that? Anyway, uh, let's hear it, whenever you're ready." The camera slowly pans onto the THX logo as the famous Deep Note begins to play. As the note ends, the logo shines and fades onto a white background, as we hear the man say "Uh, when can you start?".

Trivia: The first four auditions in the entry have a specific meaning to them. "HAL" is based off the robot from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the "abc" in all lowercase symbolizes childhood education, "XYZ" is an abbreviation of the common acronym "EXamine Your Zipper", and "XXX" is a web domain usually used for pornographic content.

FX/SFX: Mostly CGI, with some hints of live-action.

Cheesy Factor: For some reason, the logo fades on a white background, but should fade on a black background, as THX trailers do not have white backgrounds.

Music/Sounds: The dialogue and the Deep Note.

Availability: See "A Good Idea".

Editor's Note: This is a humorous trailer.

10th Trailer (Michael Rohlfing's entry)

Nickname: "Whoa!"

Logo: We see a male college student (Danny Zondervan) walk into what appears to be a dorm room with a bed, and a TV with a VCR/DVD combo under it. He places a glass of water onto the shelf of the TV, grabs a DVD case and puts a disc (with a blank white label on it) into the DVD player. The man then sits down on the couch and takes a deep breath (one can spot a green blanket and 2 posters reading "The Audience..." and "...is Listening" on it), and presses the play button on the player remote. We cut to the TV (notice how the brand logo at the bottom is covered in black tape), which now has the THX logo slowly zooming in as the Deep Note begins to play. The glass of water begins to shake (a subtle nod to Jurassic Park) and many pieces of paper fly onto the man. As the Deep Note gets louder as per usual, the couch begins to sway back and forth and the room gets very windy, when suddenly, the THX logo pops out of the TV screen and lunges itself towards the man, covered in purple lightning. The THX logo then swings right back into the TV, the force so strong it tears the man's shirt right off! The man says (rightfully) "Whoa!" in awe, before we cut to the THX logo on a black background.

FX/SFX: Live-action combined with CGI and chroma-keying as the THX logo appears.

Cheesy Factor: The THX logo popping out at the man has animation that is a bit choppy.

Music/Sounds: Sound effects corresponding to what is happening and the Deep Note, along with Zondervan's "Whoa!" quote.

Availability: See "A Good Idea."

Editor's Note: TBA

11th (bonus) Trailer (Jake Thomas McCook's entry)

Nickname: "THXphobia: Fear of Digital Audio"

Logo: In black-and-white, we see a metronome from various angles. We see the text "Thxphobia: Fear of Digital Audio". Then, in color, we see various walls with THX-hating messages scribbled throughout ("anti-THX", "THX bad", "THX kills", "hate THX", etc.). After that, we see sheets of music on a piano, being played frantically by a weird man with white hair, glasses, a tie, and a suit coat strangely without a shirt. The man is muttering gibberish such as "Analog smooth, digital is death, Lucas is a jerk (referring to George Lucas)," etc. Suddenly, there's a series of quick cuts back and forth between the man's face, the piano, and the metronome. Cut to the front door of the man's house (the windows also covered with scribbles) as the doorbell rings. The man gasps, stops playing his piano, and stops the metronome as he says, "They're here...!" The doorbell rings again as the Deep Note starts. The man says "Shining... chrome... pillars of fear!" Suddenly, his door begins to rattle violently. He sits in terror as his house and the various things on the walls begin to rumble and shake from the Deep Note. The man says "NO!" as he jumps out of his seat and mutters more gibberish. You can barely make out him saying, "George Lucas is a genius!" He quickly grabs his sheet music and his metronome as he opens his front door and shouts "By the power of analog, I compel you!" while holding the metronome up like a cross (possibly a reference to The Exorcist). We see the THX logo backwards outside his front door. The man stops in confusion, before the THX logo shakes and rotates around to meet the man face-to-face. He screams and falls backward as the environment turns to black and we see the THX logo as it fades out.

FX/SFX: Live-action combined with superimposition.

Music/Sounds: The waltz composition "Grande valse brillante" by Fréderic Chopin (which is heard in the beginning of the trailer), the man's quotes (some quotes may be hard to understand but they're printed in the comment section of the linked video), suspenseful music after the man jumps out of his seat, corresponding sound effects, and (of course) the Deep Note. After the man faints, the THX logo gives off a high-pitched giggle.

Availability: See "A Good Idea", but this was not chosen as one of the 10 finalists.

Editor's Note: This trailer's gloriously insane live-action-cartoon feel makes this an enjoyable watch, even to those with THXphobia.