I watched Dan Skinner explain how the style of a trailer is affected by a number of factors including where it will be seen, who by and for how long.
For example:
- The teaser trailer
- The main trailer
- TV spots
- Using graphics
- Trailers in the digital age
THE TEASER TRAILER
By watching Dan Skinner talk about the teaser trailers to a film, I was able to understand that they are produced with little dialog so that the story is not made clear to them and also are also very short, around 10 to 30 seconds. This is done to focus on the visuals and action in the film to excite the audience and create a buzz. By doing this, the audience will get a good first impression on the film and it will make them want to go and watch it.
THE MAIN TRAILER
After watching the clip of Dan Skinner talk about the main trailer, I was able to infer from it that main trailers are much longer, around 2 to 3 minutes which gives the audiences more of a sence from the film. Main trailers often have a 3-act-structure to give the trailer a beginning, a middle and an end to ensure the trailer is telling a story. The beginning of the trailer will set out the location and set the scene and get the audience familiar with the characters. The middle bit will set out the story and the problems that will need to be solved due to the antagonists. Finally, the end bit to the trailer usually includes a montage to put lots of different shots from the film in the get the audience excited. As well as this it may include who the director is and what other films they have made so audiences are able to make associations with other films they like. This is a piece of marketing that will appear online to sell the film.
TV SPOTS
TV spots come after the main trailer so therefore the audience have previous knowledge of what the film is about. TV spots are much shorter and more there to create an impression. They appear on TV, online and also on demand services such as Netflix. Production companies would aim to include the most impacting one-liners and action-fill shots. TV spots have a very set duration, unlike main trailers. Therefore there is such an art in picking the best clips and one liners to leave the most impact on the audience. Some TV spots are only 5 seconds long.
USING GRAPHICS
There a two main types of graphics used in the trailer. Copy or copyrighting graphics will help to tell the story in the trailer if it is quite complicated. Or to point out aspects of the films that the distributors or producers think are important. The other type of graphics are Pedigree. These might come from studios with a long heritage such as universal or paramount (The Big Six). For instance, if a film was by Universal you may go and see it, as well as this they talk about the director and writer and the other films they have worked on.
TRAILERS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
A lot of time and care is spent on making sure that the trailers offer the most immersive experience as the sound gets moved around the space that you are in, this is likely the be in a cinema theater. Moreover, the pictures on the cinema screen are very big and of good quality so your attention is drawn towards it. The speaker on your phone or laptop operate in a different way to how speakers in the cinema do as they may not be as good as including all the frequencies in the trailer. To get around this problem, they have two trailers, one for in the cinema theater and one to be viewed through phones and laptops. With social media sites like Facebook or Instagram, they are able to cut the widescreen trailer frame into a square format. This predominantly suits sites like Instagram, however bits of the picture would have to be cut off in order to fit into the frame. They cut the picture very specifically so that the main piece of action is in the centre of the frame. This is how the digital age is changing the way we put film trailers across.
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