Trailer (film)

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"Trailer" can also mean: extra blank film at the end of a film strip for winding it off in a camera or projector; extra blank film at the beginning is called "leader".

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.[1] 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 program) begins.

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Prior to the 1960s, trailers were mostly created by National Screen Service and consisted of collections of slowly edited scenes, often without narration, but with large graphic words splashed across the screen. Those that did have narration used stentorian voices. In the mid 1960s, Andrew J. Kuehn revolutionized the trailer industry with his independently produced trailer for Night of the Iguana, using provocative voiceover by an actor (a young James Earl Jones). Film dialogue was used to tell the story and fast paced editing coupled with dramatic music created a whole new art form. His format was so successful, he began producing this new form of trailer with partner Dan Davis.

Kuehn opened the west coast office of Kaleidoscope Films in 1971 and Kuehn and his company dominated the trailer industry for the next three decades. As Hollywood began to produce bigger blockbuster films and invest more money in marketing them, directors like Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone and Barbra Streisand began to depend on Kuehn and Kaleidoscope for their ability to create the best trailers theater-goers could see. Kuehn is responsible for trailers ranging from The Sting to The Exorcist, and Taxi Driver to Superman and Titanic. He is famous for creating the line "Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water," for the Jaws campaign.

Kuehn alumni include leading trailer makers and marketing creatives. Top trailer vendors like Cimarron, Bacon O'Brien, The Ant Farm, Aspect Ratio and Trailer Park have all been run by former Kaleidoscope creatives. Michael Camp headed the trailer department at Paramount, Tom Kennedy at MGM, and top editors Greg McClatchy, Jeff Werner and Vince Arcaro all started their own successful trailer companies. Bob Harper began his career as a messenger at Kaleidoscope before becoming a producer and quickly Vice-Chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Top industry trailer composer John Beal credits his career success to his thirty-year collaboration with Kuehn.[2]

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. Another common technique is including music on the trailer which does not appear on the movie's soundtrack. This is nearly always a requirement, as trailers and teasers are created long before the composer has even been hired for the film score — sometimes as much as a year ahead of the movie's release date — while composers are usually the last creative people to work on the film.

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.

Trailers tell the story of a movie in a highly condensed fashion that must have maximum appeal. 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.

  • Studio production logos are usually featured near the beginning of the trailer. Until the late 1970s, they 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, Peter Cullen, Patrick Ibizugbe and Ashton Smith. Classic voice-over artists in movie trailers of the 1950s and 1960s included Art Gilmore, Fred Foy, Karl Weber, and Bob Marcato. Prior to the voice-over, Hollywood trailers were renowned for clichés such as "Colossal!", "Stupendous!", etc. Most trailer voice-overs are performed by men with very deep voices: there are hardly any featuring female voice-overs.[citation needed]
  • 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. Hans Zimmer's music has been the most used in trailers.
    • "Library" music previously composed specifically to be used in advertising by an independent composer
    • Specially composed music. One of the most famous Hollywood trailer music composers is John Beal, who began scoring trailers in the 1970s and, in the course of a thirty-year career, created original music for over 2,000 movie trailer projects, including 40 of the top-grossing films of all time, such as Star Wars, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Aladdin, The Last Samurai and The Matrix.
    • Songs, 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 also usually appears on-screen at the beginning (or end) of the movie.
  • Sound mix: many movie trailers are presented in Dolby Digital or any other multichannel sound mix. Dramatic explosions and music in multichannel sound are therefore likely to feature during a movie trailer.
  • Video resolution: movie trailers are presented in the same resolution as the feature film. On HDTV channels (such as Universal HD) movie trailers are presented in HDTV and Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound.

These rating cards appear at the head of movie trailers in the United States. For information about the MPAA ratings, go to Motion Picture Association of America.

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 (that 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 Amityville Horror carried this banner.)[3]

A yellow band is a yellow graphic that reads "The following PREVIEW has been approved ONLY for AGE-APPROPRIATE internet users by the Motion Picture Association of America" (for example, the trailer for Halloween). 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.

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. Most of prominent trailer cutting companies, Aspect Ratio, Trailer Park, New Wave Media and Buzz Image Group, have their editors work on Apple's Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer.

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) analyse 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.

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.

Occasionally, when films in a series have been made back-to-back, a trailer for the next installment will be added at the end. For example, Back to the Future Part II featured a trailer for Part III, and The Matrix Reloaded included a post-credits trailer for The Matrix Revolutions.

The concept of the trailer format has spread to other non-cinema media as well. Trailers for computer games have especially become popular.

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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. This was especially evident in What Lies Beneath, where Harrison Ford's character reveals an affair to his wife. This trailer was widely criticized for revealing a major twist in the film. Many filmmakers disagree with Zemeckis 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.

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.

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • The Comedian trailer satirizes voice-over clichés.[4]
  • One trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy satirizes many of the most common features of movie trailers.[5]
  • The Minus Man trailer is a "special shoot" that features no actual movie footage. It consists of two unnamed characters discussing the movie.[6]
  • The Strange Days trailer consists of Lenny Nero (the main character played by Ralph Fiennes) speaking directly to the audience, advertising his "business", which is the selling of experiences, and dubbing himself "the Santa Claus of the subconscious".[7]
  • The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind trailer is another that is constructed to initially appear to be a commercial for a product instead of a movie advertisement.[8]
  • 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 satirize the typical voice overs found in movie trailers.[9]
  • 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 voice-overs for the trailers, with the first three rejected until a Chinese-speaking man is selected for the voice-over. 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 Toys features Robin Williams dressed in character, in an expansive grassy field, urging filmgoers to see the film. This was parodied by The Simpsons episode "Burns' Heir", when Montgomery Burns, dressed as Williams did, relayed his search for an heir (before singing Let's All Go to the Lobby.)
  • The trailer for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon 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 "An ancient, mythical, secret, kingdom tomb...guy, that...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".
  • The trailer for Snakes on a Plane describes how the movies of the summer will have "huge stars, swashbuckling pirates, elaborate codes, incredible superheroes, and animated adventures. But there's one thing we guarantee they won't have... Snakes on a Plane". Several short scenes are then shown.
  • The trailer for WALL-E begins with an introduction by director Andrew Stanton saying in the summer of 1994 there was a lunch where he, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft talked about the films that would follow the almost-complete Toy Story. Their ideas evolved into A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo. WALL-E was their last discussion that day, and then a short teaser begins.
  • The trailer for Cloverfield notably does not give the name of the film, leading to rampant Internet speculation about the film's plot.
  • The trailer for Layer Cake features renowned chef Marco Pierre White literally demonstrating how to make such a cake, whereas the film's title is a metaphor for the organized crime it depicts.

  1. ^ Gfactor (2007-11-06). Why are they called "trailers" if they're shown before the movie?. The Straight Dope.
  2. ^ ajkfoundation.org: Andrew J. Kuehn, Jr. biography
  3. ^ IMDb.com Amityville trailer
  4. ^ movie-list.com: Comedian trailer
  5. ^ hitchhikers.movies.go.com: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trailer
  6. ^ IMDb.com: The Minus Man trailer
  7. ^ movie-list.com: Strange Days trailer
  8. ^ apple.com: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind trailer
  9. ^ YouTube: Tenacious D in: the Pick of Destiny trailer

dTrailer.com - online trailer library

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