The Background Scoop on Movie Trailers

We see them at the beginning of movies now, but the post-feature term movie "trailer,"  was coined in the 1920s. The name comes from originally being shown at the end of a film screening. However, theater owners and film studios quickly discovered patrons leaving before the trailers played, so they were shifted to the beginning of the show. Film Trailers would be more accurately described as previews or coming attractions. Although no longer used as originally intended, the old school name stuck.

The most basic definition of a trailer is a short film shown, along with the main cinema feature, to advertise the content, place, and time of an upcoming movie.

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The Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) critics see good trailers as shorts that, "take key points from the film, edit them together sharply, with the right music... [but] don‘t show too much." Good trailers will also create excitement about the film in a general audience, yet still appeal to the genre's fan base. That's quite a bit to accomplish in the typical two minute length.

Trailers are very popular to select audiences, and have merit as a collectible art form.  Speaking to the continuing interest in them, AWFJ said in 2009 that movie trailers became the third ranking most downloaded type of Internet video (first are news clips, number two are user-created videos). One  critic compares trailers to full-length movies as being like a haiku is in relation to a novel; stripped down to only the most essential images and narrative content. An added bonus for movie memorabilia collectors and film genre fans is that trailers will often have scenes and dialogue that were not included in the original release.

Trailers even have their own "Oscar"-style recognition coming from The Golden Trailer Awards. The awards rely on audience opinion, with those participating voting for traditional categories such as, "Best Action," "Best Romance," and "Best Horror" trailers. Categories unique to the awards include, "The Golden Fleece Award" for best trailer for a bad movie, and "Trashiest" or most exploitive trailer.

Although some trailers end-up being better than the movie, from the studios' and exhibitors' perspectives their marketing function is primary. Critics don't like too much plot to be given away by the coming attraction, but studio research shows that more detail is better for getting audiences back to the theater to see a new film. Spoilers in trailers don't seem to matter, probably because most audiences don't give the trailer their full attention, or don't have good recall of a one-time viewing of a trailer. Individual movie-goers remember one or two of the most appealing details.

Studios will also produce a series of trailers for a single film cut to appeal to a specific demographic in the audience. Trailers for a female audience coming to see a chick-flick will emphasize relationship. Trailers for the same movie that are pitched to male audiences will show lots of action and skin. Trailers are also cut to reflect the age appropriateness for the audience in the theater at the time by dialing up or down on the explicit material.

Critics believe that trailers can have quite a bit of economic clout. Although they are not a quick fix for badly made movies, well placed-trailers can bring attention to lesser known films, possibly even making or breaking a movie's success. For recent indie productions like "Juno" and "Little Miss Sunshine," trailers did much to sell the films to larger audiences.

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Info from Wiki & AWFJ (2008-05-09)