The History of Film trailers

History • Going back to the 1910s, the first ‘theatre’ had only one screen, unlike the multiplexes

we’re accustomed to today. A feature length movie along with a short film and cartoons would play continuously and you could watch it as many times as you wanted.• The first trailer made (in New York City) was in 1913 by Granlund. He had made a short

promotional film for a Broadway play named ‘pleasure seekers’. The idea of showing ads between films was a hit and was first used in the Leow theatre.• Around the same time in Chicago, William Selig, would engineer another way to get

audiences to the movies. Selig noticed the popularity of print serials in newspapers so he approached a Chicago newspaper, to adapt a film version of a print serial. The result was a 13 episode serial. This was the second film serial made which had introduced a new device to film marketing.

• Each week a new instalment would debut along with an article in the Chicago Tribune, continuing the story. What made these series attract people was leaving a cliff-hanger and a title inviting people to come back the following week. • This made the idea of a trailer popular, so at the end of every film, a

promotion for upcoming attractions would play. • Most of these promotions were produced by the theatres themselves but by

1916, the movie studios themselves began officially releasing for upcoming movies. • However, there was little money in the trailer making business, so the movie

trailers were basic and simple. They were normally short clips of the film and had some text overlay such as the cast of stars.

Conventions• At the beginning of every movie trailer, it includes a variety of titles, such as disclaimers which displayers which audience

the film is suitable for, followed on by the producers and distributors of the movie.

• The basic conventions of film trailers include establishing the plot e.g. if it takes place on a plane, a small town or at a school etc. It then introduces the characters, who are they, if we like them or not and also what problems each character is going through in the movie. Audiences normally enjoy it when trailers include popular movie stars,and what the movie is actually about.

At the ending of each trailer you get a view of quick clips from the whole movie (attention-grabbing footage) e.g. a war or dramatic scene, which brings the audience in, making the audience want to watch the movie.

Music and sounds

• Music is one of the main features that a trailer should include. They show the pace of film, genre and often the budget. Some movies ask music artists to create their own soundtrack to the movie. The bigger the film budget, the bigger the artists on the soundtrack. • Including non diegetic noises e.g. sound effects which is added for the

dramatic effect, such as horror movies. Most horror movie trailers add dramatic sound effects to create an intense atmosphere.• Voice overs are also important, they guide the audience through the film plot

and characters. A voice over can either be an external voice which is added on top of the footage, or the voice over can be sections of dialogue from the actual film.

End…• At the ending of the trailer, the movie name is shown and then followed by

the release date. This is essential as it attracts a large audience to the opening night of a film release. The trailer date shown is normally a week (or couple of weeks) before the film is released, and so audiences are already planning to see the film, rather than forgetting about it by the time the date comes around.