What makes a successful film trailer

Eleanor Binley

What makes a successful film trailer

Why have codes and conventions…

When making a trailer there are certain guidelines that are essential to stick to in order to make a successful trailer. Over the past few decades trailers have developed and changed to suit technology and also different audiences.

Film production logos

Film production logosWithin the first part of a trailer a film production logo will be shown, the reason for this is because the production company’s reputation can benefit the film trailer. If people enjoy the film they are most likely to watch another film that is produced by the same company. By including a film production logo also creates an idea of the type of the film that that trailer is trying to sell. For example people will see a DreamWorks logo and know that it will have a big budget and they mainly have a reputation of making family friendly films such as Shrek, Hook and Kung Fu Panda.

Film titles

Film titleThe film title is in every trailer so you know which film it is you want to watch and sometimes the producers and creates will feature the film title at the end of the trailer too. The font, colouring and backdrop are also good indications on what type of movie it will be. For examples…Kick ass and Were the millers look more comedic and light hearted because of their bright colours and friendly font whereas the conjuring is evidently a horror shown by its dark back ground and ominous white font.

British Board of Film Classification

BBFCAny film released within the United Kingdom is awarded an age certification by the British board of film classification and the age is shown towards the end of a film trailer. The use of a BBFC provides a guideline for the target audience age, for example if the film is awarded a U certificate it’s a family friendly film involving no violence or explicit content. Films that are U rated normally attract children. The low film certificate also means that people younger than the age certificate wont be lead onto thinking they can go watch the film in the cinema.

BBFC continued…Film certification is also very important because it can hint at the content of the film. If a film has a 15 certificate the audience can guess that there may be moderate to higher levels of violence, sexual scenes and bad language , so if the audience doesn’t enjoy that type of film they wont go to watch it. Age is only a rough guide, just because you are 15 years old you shouldn’t feel pressured into watching that age film, it may come with time and maturity to become comfortable with watching a film of that age certificate.

Social Media

Social mediaA new convention of film trailers is to add a website URL, twitter hashtags or accounts to follow. This encourages the audience, mainly younger audience members, to find out more of the film and see if many people are talking about the trailer. By people talking about the film trailer and seeing it on social media creates a word of mouth effect. The popularity of twitter means that millions of people from all around the world can tweet about a new film coming out which can spread the word gaining the interest of millions of other people.

Character Introductions

Character introductions

An important feature of any film trailer is character introductions. The importance of the actors popularity is irrelevant because an audience gets pleasure from films by connecting and relating to characters by their individual similarities for example if their is a young female character who is prominent people for the target audience who are young and female connect to the character and are more likely to go and watch the film.

Character introductions continued…However if the film has famous actors and audience have enjoyed previous films that they have been in they may go watch the film because they enjoy that actors work. If the actors are famous then they will often be accompanied by a caption with their name so their reputation will benefit the film.

Music and voice overs

Music and voice oversMusic is a key feature and can either make the trailer or break it because they show the pace of the film, the genre and sometimes the budget, for example a film may ask an artist to specially make a soundtrack for the film but the bigger the budget the bigger the artist is on the soundtrack. For example Adele is a major artist and sang the main theme tune for Skyfall the James Bond in 2015, the film had a large budget and even though the song for Skyfall came out before the movie and the trailer the public expected a fantastic film just due to the high standards of the artist Adele.

Music and Voice overs continued…Voice overs are an important guide for the audience through the film plot and the 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. Cartoon characters are a good example of a voice over.

Name captions

Name captionsIn every trailer there will be name captions, these can be actors names, directors names or producers names. This is an important feature because the audience need to see if it’s a director or a producer that they are fond of. Directors like Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton have particular filming styles and having their names on the trailer allows the audience to decide if they like that directors type of films or not. However often on a film trailer the captions can be deceiving to the audience members and example of this would be ‘ Endorsed by

QUENTIN TARANTINO’ and people will see his name assuming that he is the director when he actually just commented and viewed the film and said he enjoyed it, as falsifying this can be it is a clever way of attracting a large audience.

Time length

Time length On average a film will have more than one trailer made with different sections of the film edited together. There is always an official full trailer however which lasts between 1 and half minutes (1.30) to two minutes but often you will find especially in horror, action or thriller films they have shorter trailers to help build the tension of that genre.

Release Dates

Release dateThis is essential for attracting a large audience to the opening nights and viewings in the cinema. The release date is shown on trailers a couple of weeks before the film is released giving time for a wide audience to have seen it, but close enough to the date that people plan to see it soon, rather than forgetting about it by the time the date comes around. The release date is usually shown at the end of the trailer, like the film title so that the trailer grabs the audiences attention then gives them the information they need to go and see it.

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