How to trailer a movie?

Parts of a trailer

Trailers tell the story of a movie in a highly condensed, maximally appealing fashion. 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.

The red band trailer title card for the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

• Trailers, when shown in the United States, usually feature a green band, which is an all-green graphic shown at the beginning of a 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, which reads "The following PREVIEW has been approved for RESTRICTED AUDIENCES by the Motion Picture Association of America," and may only be shown before an R-rated, NC-17-rated, or unrated movie. 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. When the trailer is shown in other countries, a similar message from the country's rating body replaces the green band.

• Usually studio logos are featured near the beginning of the trailer. Many trailers before the 1970s did not have this practice. Often there will be logos for both the production company and distributor of the film.

• Voice-over narration is used to briefly set up the premise of the movie and provide explanation when necessary, often using stock phrases such as In a world where... or ...beyond imagination! Since the trailer is a highly condensed format, voice-over is a useful tool to enhance the audience's understanding of the plot. Among the best known voice-over artists are Don LaFontaine, Andy Geller, Hal Douglas, George DelHoyo, and Ashton Smith.

• Music helps set the tone and mood of the trailer. Nowadays 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 (often Requiem for a Dream or Carmina Burana)
  • Popular or well-known music, often chosen for its tone, appropriateness of a lyric, or recognizability
  • "Library" music previously composed specifically to be used in advertising by an independent composer
  • Specially composed music, 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, has won significant awards such as Oscars or has made other popular movies, they often are mentioned as well. Depending on the fame of the director or producer, they may be specifically named or merely identified in a format such as "from the [award type]-[winning/nominated] [producer] of [famous movie], and the [director] of [other famous movie]".

• 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 is the same list that usually appears on-screen at the beginning of the movie.

• The title of the film may be prominently shown and/or told, but often it is only a non-outstanding text in a billing screen shown for a very short time. An extra chance to be able to read the title is the web address, which is usually also in this billing screen: it usually more or less contains the title.

A red band card on the trailer for the film trailer for The Happening

Creation of a trailer

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, such as Trailer Park, Inc. and Aspect Ratio, Inc. in Hollywood, CA, or Open Road in Beverly Hills, CA . 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. Many choose to closely supervise the process, when possible.

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.

Commercial considerations

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 can also affect film sales. In the lead-up to the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, fans of the franchise would buy tickets to see films that would have the theatrical trailer before the feature presentation, yet would leave before the presentation begun.

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.

Trailers have spread to other media as well. Trailers for computer games have especially become popular. Notably, the pre-release marketing campaign for Halo 2 featured several trailers attached to major box-office releases, and the game itself was treated as a Hollywood blockbuster. Partially because of the hype, Halo 2 broke every major pre-release sale record for video games.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.