Trailer (film)

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Movie trailers, or previews, are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature programme) begins.

Trailers normally consist of a series of selected shots from the film being advertised. Since the purpose of the trailer is to attract an audience to the film, these excerpts are usually drawn from the most exciting, funny, or otherwise noteworthy parts of the film but in abbreviated form and without producing spoilers. For this purpose the scenes are not necessarily in the order in which they appear in the film. A trailer has to achieve that in less than two and a half minutes, the maximum length allowed by theaters. Each studio or distributor is allowed to exceed this time limit once a year, if they feel it is necessary for a particular film.

Some trailers use "special shoot" footage, which is material that has been created specifically for advertising purposes and does not appear in the actual film. The most notable film to use this technique was Terminator 2: Judgment Day, whose trailer featured elaborate special effects scenes that were never intended to be in the film itself. One of the most famous "special shoot" trailers is that used for the 1960s thriller Psycho which featured director Alfred Hitchcock giving viewers a guided tour of the Bates Motel, eventually arriving at the infamous shower. At this point, the soft-spoken Hitchcock suddenly throws the shower curtain back to reveal Vera Miles with a blood-curdling scream.

The people who create trailers often begin their work while the movie is still being shot. Since the edited movie does not exist at this point, the trailer editors work from rushes or dailies. The trailer may be created at the agency while the movie itself is being cut together at the studio. Thus, the trailer may contain footage that is not in the final movie, or the trailer editor and the movie editor may use different takes of a particular shot.

Some trailers that incorporate material not in the movie are particularly coveted by collectors, especially trailers for classic films. For example, in a trailer for Casablanca the character Rick Blaine says "OK, you asked for it!" before shooting Major Strasser, an event that does not occur in the final film.

Contents

[edit] Parts of a trailer

Trailers tell the story of a movie in a highly condensed, maximally appealing fashion. In the decades since movie marketing has become a large industry, trailers have become highly polished pieces of advertising, able to present even poor movies in an attractive light. Some of the elements common to many trailers are listed below.

  • A green band is an all-green graphic at the beginning of the trailer, usually reading "The following PREVIEW has been approved for ALL AUDIENCES by the Motion Picture Association of America," and sometimes including the movie's MPAA rating. This signifies that the trailer adheres to the standards for motion picture advertising outlined by the MPAA, which includes limitations on foul language and violent, sexual, or otherwise objectionable imagery. Trailers that do not adhere to these guidelines may be issued a red band, (which used to be blood red) which reads "The following PREVIEW has been approved for RESTRICTED AUDIENCES ONLY by the Motion Picture Association of America," and may only be shown before an R-rated, NC-17-rated, or unrated movie. The MPAA also mandates that trailers not exceed two minutes and thirty seconds in length, and each major studio is given one exception to this rule per year.
  • Usually studio logos are featured near the beginning of the trailer. Until the late 1970s, those were put only at the end of the trailer. Often there will be logos for both the production company and distributor of the film.
  • Most trailers have a three-act structure similar to a feature-length film. They start with a beginning (act 1) that lays out the premise of the story. The middle (act 2) drives the story further and usually ends with a dramatic climax. Act 3 usually features a strong piece of "signature music" (either a recognizable song or a powerful, sweeping orchestral piece). This last act often consists of a visual montage of powerful and emotional moments of the film and may also contain a cast run if there are noteworthy stars that could help sell the movie.
  • Voice-over narration is used to briefly set up the premise of the movie and provide explanation when necessary. Since the trailer is a highly condensed format, voice-over is a useful tool to enhance the audience's understanding of the plot. Some of the best-known voice-over artists are Don LaFontaine, Andy Geller, Hal Douglas, Mark Elliott, George DelHoyo, and Ashton Smith.
  • Music helps set the tone and mood of the trailer. Usually the music used in the trailer is not from the film itself (the film score may not have been composed yet). The music used in the trailer may be:
    • Music from the score of other movies
    • Popular or well-known music, often chosen for its tone, appropriateness of a lyric, or recognizability
    • "Library" music previously composed specifically to be used in advertising by an independent composer
    • Specially composed music, which may include knock-offs of recognizable (but expensive to license) songs
  • A cast run is a list of the stars that appear in the movie. If the director or producer is well-known or has made other popular movies, they often warrant a mention as well.
  • Most trailers conclude with a billing block, which is a list of the principal cast and crew. It is the same list that appears on posters and print publicity materials, and is the same list that usually appears on-screen at the beginning of the movie.
  • Sound Mix Many Movie Trailers are presented in Dolby Digital or any other Multichannel sound mix . Is very probable to hear dramatic explosions and music in multichannel sound during a movie trailer.
  • Video resolution Movie trailers are presented in the same resolution as the feature film. In HDTV Channels (such as Universal HD) movie trailers are presented in HDTV and Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound.

[edit] Creation of a trailer

Studios may create trailers in-house or may "farm out" creation to one or more advertising agencies. Agencies that specialize in creating trailers are known as trailer houses. Depending on the amount of influence the filmmakers have with the studio, they may or may not be involved in the creation of the trailer for their film. Some choose to closely supervise the process, when possible. They usually don't get involved until a version of the trailer has been approved by the studio internally.

The producers and editors of a trailer will be given material from the studio to work with, which may include the movie itself (if it has been edited together yet), rushes, and/or computer graphics shots (as they are created during the film editing process).

The trailers that are seen in theaters have been through an extensive process of revisions and approvals by a variety of studio marketing executives. The revision process often includes information from market research conducted at locations all around the country.

Movie trailer editing benefits greatly from the use of a non-linear editing system.

Beside creative and unique trailer creation, there are several experimental approaches to generate movie trailers automatically using artificial intelligence. University projects like SVP (University of Bremen, Germany) analyze the movie and try to create a trailer based on typical structures and rules of trailers.

Trailers that want to have an MPAA rating must submit the trailer for their comments and official rating. This process may take days to weeks. In addition, the trailer must go through TASA certification to regulate sound volumes across theaters.

[edit] Commercial considerations

Studios can usually attach a trailer to the print of another of their films, so that the theater will show their trailer directly before the film. (Usually, exhibitors choose the other trailers that show before a given film.) To maximize the audience for certain trailers, studios often work to attach highly anticipated trailers to films that they expect will draw a large crowd.

This practice can also affect when films are released. An extreme example of this is Miramax's decision to delay the North American release of Hero by two years, mostly so that they could widely advertise the film before Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill.

This advertising is especially valuable as it can be carefully targeted. Movies appealing to one age group or demographic will have trailers for films targeting that same group.

Trailers have spread to other media as well. Trailers for computer games have especially become popular.

[edit] Criticism of trailers

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Movie marketing copy is often accused of being clichéd. The creation of trailers has been honed over decades to a very precise art, and certain clichés are useful because in a very short space, they are the most efficient way to communicate a given idea. Record scratches that stop the music to deliver the punch-line to a joke are a very common feature of trailers, but they are continually used because they remain effective.

Trailers are also criticized when they incorporate shots that do not exist in the actual movie. When the trailer is edited from rushes this is practically unavoidable. In extreme cases, scenes may have been shot that were later cut from the release version of the movie, but may still exist in the trailer. Usually these scenes are similar in tone or content to material that does exist in the movie.

In other cases, trailers may use stock footage to convey, in shorthand, a concept that takes longer to explain (or is less visually dynamic) in the movie. In still other cases, shots or dialogue may be rearranged to create situations or exchanges that do not exist as such in the movie. Often this is done to mask a perceived shortcoming in the movie while maximizing the potential of the footage.

How much to give away in a trailer is a controversial question. Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis argues that a trailer should tell everything about a film, since, he claims, audiences will not want to pay to see films unless they know exactly what they are paying for. Many filmmakers disagree and believe that a trailer should show no more than is needed to convince the audience to see a film. From a studio marketing perspective, the most interesting, funny, arresting parts of the movie should be in the trailer -- the theory being, showing only less interesting material will attract less of an audience.

[edit] Awards for trailers

Every year there are two main events that give awards to outstanding movie trailers: The Key Art Awards, presented by the Hollywood Reporter, and The Golden Trailer Awards. While the Golden Trailer Awards allow only trailers to be entered in the competition, the Key Art Awards pick winners in all creative parts of movie advertising, from trailers and TV spots to posters and print ads. The yearly Key Art Awards ceremony is held at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.

[edit] Trailers that break form

  • The Minus Man trailer is a "special shoot" that features no actual movie footage. It consists of two unnamed characters discussing the movie.
  • The Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny trailer features Jack Black and Kyle Gass attempting to record a voice over for a trailer, but stumbling on the opening line ("this summer" to "this fall" to "this thanksgiving" to "November 22" to "some time this year coming up soon"). Also both the lines they use in the voice over and the voices they affect both satarize the typical voice overs found in movie trailers
  • The trailer for Monty Python and the Holy Grail also satirizes trailer forms yet at the same time advertises the film. The trailer functions over a background and auditions voiceovers for the trailers with the first three rejected until a Chinese man is selected for the voiceover. He then goes on to say that while movies like Seven Samurai, Ivan the Terrible and Bergman's The Seventh Seal were landmarks, the Monty Python film is barely comparable concluding by stating that audiences could do worse than the film. The trailer ends with an advertisement for a Chinese restaurant.
  • The trailer for The Aqua Teen Hungerforce Movie Film for Theaters opens with a list of things that do not appear in the film, including "A mythical kingdom", "A child with a secret", "A galaxy torn asunder", and "A secret, mythical, ancient, hidden, tomb... guy... who runs the tomb". Near the end it names its crew with such undignified titles as "From the 1st assistant director of the 2nd unit of Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth".

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Movie trailers

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