The key to making a good trailer: let the movie speak for itself

The key to making a good trailer: let the movie speak for itself

Jul 20

Trailers are designed to get bums on seats. They are designed to capture your attention, give you a gist of the advertised film’s content, and drill at least one memorable moment into your brain so you’ll remember to go and see the advertised film when it’s released in a couple of months’ time.

You will know within seconds of a trailer starting up who the intended audience is. Bright logos and shots of cities accompanied by tinkling, upbeat music, and perhaps a chirpy voiceover, means the trailer is intended for women:

Gruff voices, threatening music, and sharp fades to black accompanied by a low-frequency GONGGG sound indicate a trailer made for men:

Alternatively, if the trailer has audio but no picture, or if it’s cut like a music video with no dialogue but plenty of visual pizzazz, then it is probably Oscar bait:

Finally, if the trailer involves yelling, screaming, and is generally obnoxious right from the start, it’s probably for children:

Sticking to the same formula for every new trailer is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because the audience knows the beats, knows that the best joke / action money-shot will be right at the end, and knows to look out for a rundown cast members’ names in the 30 seconds leading up to the final frame. It’s a curse because – if the movie’s not strong enough to begin with – its voice will be lost in the over-edited Hollywood trailer formula, and will come off hollow or unimpressive.

So how should studios go about selling their movie to an audience hip to their manipulative techniques? There are a couple of options. They can subvert the techniques, pulling the rug out from under you; but this technique is unreliable, especially if the source material is weak, as here:

They can rely on the strength of the film’s ideas to carry the trailer despite hitting all the usual beats, like the first Inception teaser, which relied on GONGGG and fade-to-black, but backed it up with some jaw-dropping imagery:

But the best way to sell a movie to me is to just play me a scene from the first reel. It should give me an idea of the look and feel of the film, the tone of the performances, and the direction the plot’s going to go in, but it should still pack some mystery, so as to not spoil the entire experience for everyone. Here’s a recent example of just such a trailer:

A sure sign that a movie’s no good is that the trailer has been cut to ribbons, while showing me a single scene bespeaks quiet confidence on a studio’s part. The trailer for Eva nailed this for me. While the concept seems a bit naff (Bicentennial Man, anyone?) and the cinematography is borderline wank, I still wanted to see where the movie went after this scene, and that’s the best thing a trailer can do: make you want to see the finished film when it comes out.

If I’m going to be your captive audience for two minutes, make sure every second counts. Go out of your way to show me something special. Don’t rely on fades-to-black, heartbeat sound effects, underwhelming money-shots, up-tempo guitar jangling, or pack-a-day smoker’s voice to sell me your movie. Let your movie speak for itself.