What makes an effective trailer?

Creating a good trailer is vital, as it is the producers chance to sell their film to their targeted audience and a potential niche audience. This could be considered a challenge because a trailer is between 2-3 minutes long, therefore it can be quite challenging to have to pick the best clips and shots without revealing too much about the film.

The term ‘trailer’ comes from the fact that, trailers use to be shown after the film had ended, however, this did not prove successful as people would leave the cinema straight after their film, therefore they wouldn’t see the advertisement for up coming films. As a result the trailers were changed around and put before the film. The main way in which trailers

are marketed are through social media, especially sites such as YouTube.

The trailer should be able to speak for itself and not scream to you that is it ‘THE BEST MOVIE YOU WILL EVER SEE’ because that does not appeal to an audience member

The trailer should not give away to much information. Some trailers do this and it makes the audience member want to wait until the film comes out on TV or Netflix. We should have an understanding of the plot but we should mainly be left with enigma codes which act as an incentive to want to watch the film.

Music that compliments, reflects the mood and is not too over dramatic. This is because the music can make or break the trailer.

The overall mood and emotion of the film needs to be captured so that the your potential audience feel want to watch the film.

Dialogue between characters, for example, if it is a comedy, the dialogue would become funnier/horror, more scary and creepy.

It should be ORIGINAL.

Make use of the best and most exciting bits.