The main objective of a movie trailer is to entice viewers in a short time frame. The average length of the trailers I watched was 2:30 minutes. A trailer attempts to captivate audiences through different permutations of shot length and transitions, pacing, music and sound effects, narration and typography. After viewing eight trailers from varying genres, only one thing is clear: there is no magic combination of cinematic techniques that will make a movie trailer appeal to all audiences.
Although no rules exist for making a great trailer, certain techniques do lend themselves better to particular genres. For instance, in action movies such as Olympus Has Fallen (Antoine Fuqua 2013) and Star Trek Into Darkness (J.J. Abrams 2013), the shot lengths are about 2-4 seconds long, but once the trailer reaches the scene that incites all of the action to come, the shot length quickens rapidly to less than a second. Lasting 2:31 minutes, Olympus Has Fallen is the longest trailer while Star Trek Into Darkness is the shortest at 1:58 minutes. Although they differ in length, their quick pacing has the same impact of giving the viewer a glimpse of heightened chaos.
The animated film Monster’s University (Dan Scarlon 2013) has the most playful shot transitions. It uses left swipe shot transitions accompanied by a whoosh sound that makes it seem like the viewer is flipping a page to see the next scene of monsters. Hannibal (Scott Ridley 2013) has slow fading shot transitions at the beginning of its trailer. This slow fade leaves the viewer with overlapping images which, in horror films, has a haunting effect. Surprisingly, the Holocaust drama Schindler’s List’s (Steven Spielberg 1993) heart wrenching scenes are extremely fast paced and rival action movies’ shot pacing.
The 90’s comedy There’s Something About Mary (Peter Farrelly 1998) uses sound effects usually found in cartoons which lend to the goofy tone of the trailer. The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann 2013) uses music that crescendos in synch with rapidly paced shot transitions, leading to a climax that the viewer can only see once the movie hits theaters. Olympus Has Fallen has a swelling bass that gets louder as the pandemonium of gunshots, helicopters, and destruction increases. This use of music heightens the viewer’s senses and demands their attention.
In Gremlins (Joe Dante 1984), the narrator’s voice makes the music seem like background noise. The narrator dictates each shot, saying what is about to occur on screen. He even speaks over any dialogue in the shot. This use of narration leaves little to the viewer’s imagination. On the other end of the spectrum, Schindler’s List has no narrator, and instead relies on music and images to dictate the trailer. Without a narrator and almost no dialogue, the viewer’s focus is on the emotion conveyed through the images on screen. Monster’s Ink uses the most typography out of all the trailers I watched, with tag lines like “There’s a little monster in all of us.” The typography in Hannibal is limited to a few words on screen at a time. This technique leads the viewer to the next shot in which the rest of the sentence appears, creating a sense of mystery.
Stephen King’s IT recut trailer as a family film relies heavily on typography to explain the story. This recut trailer uses type 13 times in 2:51 minutes. Without the accompanying type, the reassembled dialogue gives no indication that this is a movie about a hero clown. In fact, the type specifically says the word “hero” to indicate that this is an uplifting movie. IT is also the only recut trailer I watched that uses audio synchronization. In one shot the clown’s face is on the moon and the voiceover clearly doesn’t match the clown’s moving mouth. The use of audio synchronization in this trailer, while minimal, is unnecessary as it gave the trailer an amateur quality.
The Ring trailer recut as a tear jerker uses minimal typography, with only 7 shots of type. This trailer relies on uplifting music that resembled “Chariots of Fire” to offset the depressing shots and instead portray a story of hope rather than desperation.
The R rated Willy Wonka that you’ve never seen.
Finally, Willy Wonka’s trailer recut as a horror film has 9 instances in which type appeared. The type explained very little other than the fact that Willy Wonka was a “disturbed man” and that someone would die. This recut trailer relies mainly on a brilliant sequencing of scenes in which Willy Wonka is very clearly a deranged man shown through his original dialogue and facial expressions. As I saw shots of Willy Wonka flash quickly across the screen in tune with piercing chords, I realized that this is the best recut I’ve seen. I started to wonder if Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was really a horror film all along.
Trailers: Olympus Has Fallen, Star Trek, The Great Gatsby, Monster’s University, Gremlins, There’s Something About Mary, Schindler’s List, Hannibal
Recut Trailers: IT (scary movie converted to a family film), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (family film converted to a horror movie), The Ring (scary movie converted to a tear jerker)
COMM 2302 (Spring 2013) 