Extended Practice: Developing a Trailer

How do make a trailer for a film that's less than three minutes long without giving away the entire story? Well, I feel I gave it a pretty good shot and feel it actually reveals less than most trailers I see for modern movies today. This was something I wanted to keep in mind. I think that many film trailers I see today give away too much of the plot of a film. Why do film studios do this? I think because they literally think the viewer is too stupid to take in that 'less is more' idea, so if they are not given the entire plot of a film in a trailer they won't go see it, I think film studios think that if they don't put all the funniest gags in their comedy film trailer, people won't see it, or the biggest explosions, or best lines etc. I however with some film studios believe that in fact, audiences are far smarter than studios and production companies give them credit for and will actually see a film they know nothing about.

When a film trailer is given the time and attention it deserves it becomes to me a film/work of art within itself. My favourite ever film trailer was for the movie Cloverfield (2008). In this film trailer, a party in an apartment in Manhattan is happening before a massive explosion. Everyone floods into the street and then the head of the Statue of Liberty crash lands right in front of the camera.

The trailer gives nothing away and does the unthinkable. It has no title, just a date. But to me when people saw this they were not put off, it's not like no one would see this movie because they are given a date. Instead what I think it did was arouse excitement and intrigue.

Another film trailer I wanted to look at which heavily inspired me when working on the trailer for my film was The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. 

This trailer gives very little away and I think it is very effective at doing it's job of intriguing the viewer. The film comes after the TV series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And anyone who's seen that series knows it's incredibly upbeat and positive, this trailer is not. It has zero said words in it and the only audio we hear is the track Gymnopedie no. 1. 

It gives nothing of the story away, in fact we the viewer have no idea what is going on, even if we've seen the entire series, but that doesn't matter because we are carried so effortlessly by the visuals and soundtrack that we want to see it regardless of having no idea what it'll be about and maybe we want to for that reason. But after having seen the film, I can tell you while the trailer does not give away the story, it captures the tone perfectly, as does the Cloverfield trailer. A good trailer needs to capture the tone of the movie it's promoting. I think you are doing the viewer a disservice if you show them the entire film in the trailer, just like you are doing them a disservice if you present them with a certain tone in the trailer, then the film be a completely different tone.

I wanted my trailer to present two things, things start out good, we hear a bang, things are not good. I present this with footage that represent the good at the start, and footage that represents the bad at the end before ending on the Cops and Daughters title card. I feel it is a successful trailer. It gives nothing away of the story apart from we as the viewer assumes it's about a cop and his daughter, and the dad may have shot someone and things may go bad. That's it. I was inspired by the Gymnopedie no. 1 trailer music to do a similar thing to my own of maybe just having a piano cover such as or even I Giorni playing over but in the end decided to use an exert from Markus' score because if I used a soundtrack that wasn't featured in my animation I feel I'd again be doing the viewer a disservice. I feel that the trailer is very successful and I'm glad that I received positive feedback about it. Eleanor did mention to me that I do show the first ten seconds of my film in the trailer completely how it appears in the film. I felt like this was a good point but felt I needed to make sure it made some sort of sense narratively, even in a trailer. However, the footage in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya trailer makes no narrative sense yet I still want to see the movie, so this is something for me to consider although I do like my trailer. I might opt to make two trailers.