Film: Tease tactics
A film trailer is a valuable device in marketing a motion picture and has been for just over a hundred years. Indeed, the first film trailer is believed to have been an epilogue following a 1913 Coney Island screening of the cliffhanger serial, The Adventures of Kathlyn, that urged the audience to return for the next instalment to find our whether the heroine would escape her perilous predicament. Originally, all trailers played after a feature – hence the name ‘trailer’. They were initially a collection of crudely spliced film stills that gave a brief sneak peek and were designed to get people back for next week’s show (this was at a time when going to the cinema was a weekly occurrence).
Trailers today are a huge industry, one that even has its own awards ceremony; The Golden Trailer Awards. The product today can involve scenes that don’t appear in the original film and are intended to flow well themselves, to work as their own mini films. There are big studios and independent production houses churning out these marketing campaign pillars and, like pretty much anything in our media age, hundreds of websites dedicated to critiquing them. As Joseph and I lamented in PostFeature whilst reviewing Nightcrawler a few weeks ago, a trailer can spoil the viewing experience by giving too much away.
If the sound of a ‘trailer after the film’ is familiar then you are probably acquainted with the Marvel movie style ‘hidden’ teaser that tends to pop up halfway through the credits and gives viewers something to get really excited about – often it introduces the baddie for the next film or lets us in on the secret that our beloved, but dead, character hasn’t quite passed over yet …
Along with these teasers comes a very modern form of trailer: the oh-so-important viral video. These trailers are made for the internet, they are created with the intention that they will be shared through social media, and they are probably part of a series. They favour music over dialogue and story details are considered unimportant as these special, soundtracked “silent” trailers (which range tonally from melancholy or creepy to hyperactive anxiety) pique interest whilst giving absolutely nothing away.
Starting this week, and for every week of the new year, PostFeature will be showing you a new trailer every episode! We’ll be getting you excited for what is to come and seeking out all of the important videos that you just can’t afford to miss. Some will be the new stylised montage (although, I will try to keep Joseph to a minimum on that …) and others will be in the old fashioned “here is part of a story, watch the film to see the ending” format – but I absolutely, 100% promise, NO SPOILERS.
Jessica Kellgren-Hayes
Follow me: @latestjessica
