You’re sitting in the cinema, waiting to see a movie. The commercials finish. A studio’s logo comes up. Music pipes in. And then you get it .
The trailer.
It might be for a movie you’ve been hanging out for – the new Star Wars or Harry Potter or something. You’re going to watch this movie regardless. But now you’re seeing actual footage from it. Images flash across the screen. Effects blare from the speakers. The film’s score reverberates through the cinema.
Or perhaps the trailer’s for a movie you know very little about, if anything. But now the trailer introduces you to an intriguing premise. And, oh, that actor you like is in this. And the turn of events are interesting. Maybe this movie wouldn’t be a bad one to see. It’s certainly one you’ll look out for now.
Surely you’ve been in either of these situations. You might even be somebody who simply enjoys watching trailers. I know I do. A good trailer is an art form itself – an insight into a film that introduces us to the following:
- that this story exists
- the characters involved
- the story that takes place
- what’s at stake
- who’s responsible for the story (e.g. director).
The trailer is a story in its own right. It teases us into wanting to know more, and then hooks us, without divulging any spoilers that can ruin the actual experience of watching the movie.
Well, that’s what the trailer should do. Unfortunately, due to Hollywood’s schism into franchising, a lot of movies are now exercises in CGI and follow a simple formula, lacking any substantive storytelling. With that being the case, often trailers become advertisements for the movie’s existence, and don’t tell you very much about what’s going on, or try to build any real story or intrigue.
If you trawl through YouTube you can see the way the trailer has evolved over the decades, and the different forms they’ve taken. Of today’s studios, Pixar and Marvel usually perform a brilliant job in generating buzz from their trailer. The trailer for Marvel’s Iron Man 3 was amazing in creating a misdirect, so that the audience went into the film with preconceptions the story could then eschew. Compare that to the early Batman vs Superman trailers, which gave away too much – Batman fights Superman, a big monster shows up, and they band together against the common enemy. Way to undermine the Batman versus Superman conflict. It’s important that the right balance is found.
We’ve accepted the existence of the trailer as a means of promoting movies, but now it’s also becoming an increasingly valid method of promoting books. But whereas a film offers a catalogue of visuals and sounds to draw on to build the body of its storytelling, a book can only rely on its story. That means everything else has to be built around it – music chosen (if any), and images created from scratch.
But the same logic applies, because what we’re trying to do is exactly what we’d do for a film – and that is to introduce the audience to the following:
- that this story exists
- the characters involved
- the story that takes place
- what’s at stake
- who’s responsible for the story (e.g. director).
If you have a book that’s about to come out, or have one that’s out, think about how you could use a trailer to help create buzz around it.
It’s certainly something we’re also trying here at Busybird.