The Effectiveness of Movie Trailers
Permalink for this paragraph 0 Last week, I found our lecture in Cofrin lab particularly stimulating, not just because I have a certain soft spot for film, but also how interesting it is to note the thought that goes into the trailers we watch to entice us to watch movies. Before Cordell’s thorough examination of film trailers and the effects they have on audience, I had my own pre conceived notions on what makes a good trailer myself, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, audiences can act in sometimes odd ways toward a movie. Nevertheless, most of the time, these trailers do an adequate job of instantly gratifying audiences and making them want more. First off, movie trailers aim to represent the genre the movie is as a basic fact. More often then not genres are also prescribed with certain scores that complement them (in other words, the music sets the tone for what kind of movie it is and you can often tell what genre a movie is within the first ten seconds of that trailer). Thirdly, trailers fill that minute thirty second frame with specific clips they know will interest a given demographic. these specific clips are often emotive and strong. Fourthly, the beat changes in the film trailer help the score to connect with the audience and make a deep meaningful effect. And finally as Cordell strongly noted, there is a cost to every movie, and the important thing is to flaunt it. If a trailer efficiently implements some of these aspects, it should do its job.
Permalink for this paragraph 2 Hopefully, some of this incite is also what you were thinking, but these are some of the generalizations I have come across based on my cinematic experience. I mean what audiences want is an experience they are not likely to see in the real world, they want to be captured within a place unfamiliar to their daily life.
This is wonderfully said! I can’t imagine how difficult it is to try to make a trailer (although it’s probably similar to those introductions). There’s so many questions to answer: how much to show? Show enough to get the audience interested, but not enough to give away the whole movie. And to try to convince people that it is worth their time and money to see something completely different than what they’ve seen before, without knowing what to expect? Talk about challenging.
I find that if a trailer is particularly funny, the movie is going to be lame because they have given us the best part already! I agree with both of you, movietrailers have a very fine line to walk on. It definitely makes sense to show the film’s problem or conflict and associated cost, but I think a trailer should show the bare minimum.