Codes and Conventions of a movie trailer.

There are several different codes and conventions of a movie trailer, for example, montage, parallel editing, non-continuity editing, the title of the movie, the cast, the release date, an open narrative, the institution who created the movie and usually a song to go with the trailer. But how are these Incorporated into the trailers?

Montage editing is very common in all film trailers, as it packs in as much footage as it can in a relatively short space of time. This makes the audience try to paste together all the very short bits of footage they have seen, incidently, wishing to see the film to see if there prediction about it was correct. Another form of editing which does this is non-continuity editing, as it doesn't show the film in the narrative it was meant to be viewed.

The sound, sometimes a soundtrack depending on what type of film the trailer is promoting, is always used. For example, a Rom-Com would use a song from the charts at the time is used to help relate to the audience, as the genre Rom-Com is aimed at everyone so popular music is more likely used. This means that the sound can help determine the genre of the film. Furthermore, voice-overs are also commonly used in movie trailers, which help compress the small amount of narrative within the the trailer.

Another common convention of a movie trailer is to have the title shown. This, obviously, lets the audience know the name of the film. Also, members of the cast are usually shown on movie trailers. This lets the audience know the actors starred in the film, so if a member of the audience is a fan of a particular actor, if that actor is starring in the film they have more reason to go see it.

Audience Research

I went around and asked 20 different people questions about who my film trailer should be aimed at (10 male and 10 female). The questions i asked included What gender it should be aimed at, what age range and which Demographic group it should be aimed at. My results are as followed...

When asked what age it should be aimed at 14 out of 20 people said that it should be aimed at people who are 16 and over. insistently, i will attempt to make my film trailer appeal to a more mature audience. I will do this by maybe adding mild graphic scenes to my trailer. I will also maybe include some taboo language without it being to explicit.

When asked which gender it should be aimed at, 20 out of 20 people said it should be aimed at both genders, so i will attempt to keep the gender balance in my trailer even. I will do this by casting both men and woman and try to keep away from any offencive gender stereotypes.

When asked what Demographic group it should be aimed at, 12 out of 20 people said that it should be aimed at all groups, so I will attempt to make my film trailer appeal to every different group by doing several things. One thing being getting reviews off broadsheet newspapers to aim at the A and B group, while keeping plenty of action within the film trailer its self to appeal for the lower groups who wouldn't be to interested with the reviews and comments.

History of film trailers.

The first ever film trailer was a trailer for the musical "The Pleasure Seekers" which was aired in a movie theater in November 1913 down Broadway. The Crater of this trailer was Nils Granlund who then began to adapt it so several of his motion pictures. early trailers seemed to always include key scenes from the film with large captions which explained the Film's story up and including the cast until the 1950s. An example of a a trailer like this is "Reaching for the Moon" written by Edmond Goulding, as seen in the video below.



In the 1960's montage trailers started to become popular which featured sometimes no text and quick pace editing. An example of this new wave of film trailer is "Lolita" by Stanley Kubrick, which does feature text but also features quick pace editing.



As the years went on, more and more people become well known just on their production of film trailers, for example Andrew J Kuehn become well fairly known for his trailers and went on to open Kaleidoscope Films in 1968. Film directors such as Steven Spielberg began to employ him to create film trailers for them. Most film trailer companies where all once ran by Kaleidoscope Films, such as Trailer Park, Ant Farm and Motor Entertainment.

To this day the fast pace, quick editing has always been used in most film trailers, and is likely to stay this way for years to come.

Brief

A promotion pack for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options.

• A website homepage for the film;
• A film magazine front cover featuring the film;
• A poster for the film.