A film trailer is a vital piece of marketing for feature films. Usually shown at the beginning of a film of a similar genre in the cinemas – but shown also on television and at the beginning of DVD’s and Blu-ray – they advertise up-coming films to attract the attention of their target audiences. Film trailers give a small snapshot of what will happen in the film to engage the target audience. For example a comedy would have fast paced editing with catchy music. In a horror the music would be
eerie and the editing slow and have de saturated light
The first promotinal trailer was not for a feature film it was actually a promotional reel for a musical produced by Nils Granlund which showed excerpts of production and raised awareness of it. Granlund also created the first trailer for a film in 1914 which was produced by for a Charlie Chaplin film. Up to the late 1950s film trailers were made by the National Screen service which was contracted by the film companies to create the trailers for upcoming films and the company lasted unti the 80's. The early trailers consisted of short clips showing the key features from the film alongside narration a big score soundtrack and screens with text and a cast run. An example of this type of trailer is one for the Casablanca.
As films started to change in the 60s so did trailers. The more liberal, freer, types of films would need to be adversed differently. The new breed of films spawned new trailers with new styles and new ways.
Andrew J Kuehen was a very influential film trailer producer. He changed the way trailers were made in his 1964 trailer for Night of the Iguana which is when he created Kaliedoscope Films. The company worked for decades creating some of the biggest film trailers for the biggest films and film makers of the time including many Speilburg films for example Kuehen produced the original trailer for 'ET'.
Trailers tend to have a linear pattern so they dont confuse the audience. They start with equilibrium and end up with disequilibrium resulting then in equilibrium. Some people suggest the best bits of the film are put into the trailer. Some trailers also include sequences that are not in the film. This is most famously seen in the six minute trailer for Hitchcocks 'Psycho' in which the whole trailer is shot post-production and even included a different actress for the main role. However some things are in the trailers from the original film. An example of this is 'Spiderman' in which there is a scene of criminals near the World Trade Center , where the film was released soon after the terrorist attacks when the area was still very sensitive.
The 1960s film trailers
Still used bold flashing words
tried to build on famous actors' names
used narration to summarise the story
often showed the ending of the movie in order to reveal an exciting effect
The 1970s film trailer
were still long, but tigthened a bit
revealed less of the story but still showed many key or spoiler scenes
enjoyed teasing us with mis-edited scenes often out of order (1950s) 3d glasses
The 1980s film trailer
more abruptly edited
told very little about the movie
often included scenes that were cut from the final edit of the film
no spoilers and instead total mystery about the endings
began to reveal in catchy tag line.
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