Analysis of trailers

From my research into movie trailers I have realized they exhibit similar qualities to the opening couple of minutes of films, they both give a taste of what is to come in the rest of the film e.g. an action sequence or comical situation. Another feature they share is the questions; in trailers it is very important to get the audience asking questions as the urge to find the answers will convince them to go and watch the film, similarly if questions pop up in the opening couple of minutes the audience is immersed into the film and the experience of watching that film is likely to be enhanced.

Movie trailers can have a big part to play in a films success therefore producing a good, interesting advert and broadcasting it correctly is very important. To make a good advert you should give a taster of the scenes to come, with an action movie trailer you expect to see a bit of a punch up, someone in distress and a few explosions, as well as this there needs to be suggestions into the plot of the film but its important to make sure too much isn’t given away. With the previously mentioned the audience should be interested in the film but may not be convinced they have to go and see it, this is where questions become effective (especially if the film is a sequel or prequel) as they take it from a film trailer to a film from which you can learn the answers to the questions you as an audience member have asked yourself; a perfect example of an advert like this is The Dark Knight Rises, the advert featured clips of action and gave us an idea into the plot, although many of these ideas we were questioning as there were no answers at all. Broadcasting a trailer correctly is extremely important and many factors should effect when and where the trailers should be broadcast, the two main factors are budget, and target market. There is very little point in broadcasting a trailer for An 18 cert movie on a kids channel; the audience of the trailer would not be able to see the movie if they wanted to but its likely they would not understand concepts of the trailer, equally if you advertise a kids film at 11 o’clock at night the chances are kids (the target market) aren’t going to see the trailer. Budget effects how your trailer is broadcast also, if you have made a film with your mates on a budget of 10 pounds then it is pointless in putting an advert out on prime-time tv for the film, but if your film has a huge budget and is projected to gross millions worldwide then advertising in a small town newspaper probably wont cut it. Avenger Assemble nailed this by broadcasting the trailer for the first time during the superbowl, which over 100m people where watching, the thirty second slot reportedly cost $6m, which is a huge amount of money but not a lot to invest when the film grossed over $1.5bn worldwide.