Trailer Me Mind

Today I just want to quickly highlight some trailers I have been looking at and what I noticed, liked, and dislike about them.

The Short Term 12 trailer is what that I really enjoyed. It did not give away the whole movie and leaves the audience still wanting to see it. They used typical conventions with the time of the trailer being 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Like a lot of trailers, the transitions are ones that use kind of a fade in and out as opposed to harsh cuts. I fully understood what the movie was about, the genre, and the main character which is exactly what I am going for.

The Edge of Seventeen is a perfect model of what I do NOT want to do with my trailer. First off it is 4:44 sec long which is waaay too long. I feel like the audience would quickly lose attention even if what is being shown is interesting. Especially since I am targeting Gen Z with an 8 second attention span, having that long of a trailer would not benefit me. Another thing about this trailer is it basically gave away the whole movie plot. This can make the viewers feel that they do not need to even see the movie now because the trailer revealed all of it.

Room the movie has two trailers. One of them shows more of the intense moments of the plot. We get a clear idea of the storyline and what the audience can expect to happen. It is more suspenseful. The second trailer (linked here) is more emotional. It shows how being in Room had an effect on both Ma and Jack. We got to understand their relationship better and how much Ma loves Jack. I really like the approach they took with both of these trailers because like the movie, it is not all about their great escape but more on the effect being trapped in the Room with a child so young has. Jack now has to learn how the world works and it is Ma’s job to try her best and teach it to him. So overall, the idea of having one trailer be more suspenseful and intense while the other more emotional is a route I will definitely consider taking.

Deadpool released two different trailers, one of them clean the other restricted (each one is linked if you click on the words). The restricted one features more curse words that were blipped out in the clean version, but they still show pretty much the exact same content and shots. What is interesting about this was how they marketed it because at the end of the clean version they have the main character say that there is a more restricted Red Band version but “make sure you ask your Mommy.” The word restricted intrigues the audience because it is something they are not supposed to watch but want to anyway. This technique allows the audience to want to go and see both trailers and see what makes it restricted. Although my movie is clean considering I am also targeting Gen Z, the idea of the trailer reaching out to two different audiences is really smart.

That is all for today guys! I just came back from a State Thespian festival so I didn’t have time to storyboard so look forward to that this week and the beginning of my website creation!

Until next time,

-C