What Makes an Effective Movie Trailer?

Making an effective trailer for a film can be considered as important as creating a good film. In some ways it is even tougher because you only have a very limited time, often of 2-3 minutes, to sell the product to the audience. A trailer is traditionally something which draws the audience in, gives the questions without answers and is also extremely eye catching. Every shot should be chosen with extreme precision and it all should be strung together deliberately.

The term trailer comes from the fact that these clips of future films used to be shown after the end (or trail) of a feature film screened within cinema. This concept did not last long as people often left after the film had ended and therefore missed the actual trailers, counteracting the point of showing them. They therefore were chosen to be place before the film, however the name remained unchanged. They are very popular on DVD’s or Blue Ray, shown before the film starts, however, often have the option to skip. Recently film trailers have been marketed through new media, specifically social media such as YouTube. Movie trailers are often shown before YouTube, however, if it is a theatre length trailer it often has the option to skip after a few seconds. 

Trailers are supposed to show the story of the film in a high condensed fashion to achieve maximum appeal from it audience. Since film making has become such a large and competitive market, trailers have become highly polished means of advertising. The first thing a successful trailer should do is make the audience want to know the rest of the story, this is often achieved through the use of leaving cliff hangers. A director will often explain parts of the narrative without giving away the film outcome so that they audience is left with speculations which they can only decide upon after watching the actual film. The layout of a trailer is not difference from the narrative of the actual film. It is split into thee parts; a beginning (where the story is laid out), a middle (developing the story more, often including lots of action and some of the best parts of the film) and finally the last part ( often including some kind of signature music, a last emotional montage of images of the cast which leaves the audience with questions in their mind).

Voice over narration is often a key convention of an effective movie trailer. However, these are used limatedly as an effective trailer should engage the audience through character dialog,