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First EVER Movie Trailer
The first movie trailer was in association with American film theatre. The first film trailer/ promotional film was for a musical called The Pleasure Seekers. -
First Motion Picture Trailer
Later on, Nils Granlund used a slide technique to create a trailer for an upcoming movie which starred Charlie Chaplin. -
The National Screen Service
The National Screen Service was founded in the 1920's and dominated the world of production and distribution of movie trailers in this decade and for the following couple. As well as this, in the 1940's they signed deals with other major movie studios in order to produce and distribute posters and other paper advertising.
Examples of film trailers made by the NSS include "Casablanca (1942)" and "I am a Fugitive of a Chain Gang (1942)" -
First Trailer With Sound: The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer was released in 1927 and was the first trailer that included sound. Previously, trailers had had a very basic layout. Simply being snippets of the film with some text overlay. -
Reign of NSS Ends
After dominating the world of film trailers for 3 decades, the reign for the National Screen Service ended when directors of films decided to change the way in which trailers were put together. -
Trailers Ruin the Film
As the idea of montaging clips from the film into a trailer emerged and expanded, it led to an outrage sparked in an audience as directors would make the mistake of displaying very important clips of the film and, in hindsight, ruining the film for the audience. -
"New Hollywood"
New Hollywood is also referred to as the American New Wave which is the movement in American film history where a younger generation of producers began to influence the kind of films that were produced, the way they were marketed and produced and the way in which major movie studio approached film-making.
During this time, film trailers started to break down. A major influence Stanley Kubrick changed movie trailers making them textless and montage trailers with quick editing. -
The Blockbuster Era
The first ever Jaws film was first released on screen in 1975. The main reason for the films major success was due to bold visuals. During the opening weekend for the film it made $7 million. This was all due to the fact that the trailer contained strong bold visuals. This marked the beginning of the blockbuster era. -
Innovation of Movie Trailers
In the 1980s, trailers began to include the combination or narration, score and music in order to create and provide the perfect trailer. Music and movies were incorporated to work correspondingly together in order to create the best possible trailer. Each individual scene of the trailer was edited and chosen specifically in order to have the most effective impact as a trailer. This was the beginning of a new type of trailer being released. -
Targeting a Specific Audience
Before the 1990's, film trailers were created to appeal to mass scale of the public, aiming at a relatively large audience. Directors felt that by doing this they were likely to get more hits. However, this began to change after the 90's as market segmentation began to take place where film trailers began to appeal to specific audiences. This is when they took aspects such as gender, class etc. into account. -
Modern Movie Trailers
The creation of modern movie trailers took on board some aspects used in older trailers. The use of big bold titles had worked effectively in the for a large amount of time which led to directors and producers keeping this aspect. Over the time, CGI's and newer technologies have been integrated into trailers a lot more and have become a lot more life-like. In modern trailers you can still see the root of the trailers just with modern aspects. There is a clear visual of evolution in trailers. -
Trailers Today (Part 1)
In this time trailers are the heart of movie promotions. They can sometimes be the be all and end all that decides whether an individual is willing to go and pay to see a movie. The amount of comments and hits a trailer gets is the perfect indicator to what the reactions of the film are going to be. Films such as the Emoji Movie (2017) were cancelled purely on the fact that the trailer was not effective enough and profit would not have been made based on social media reviews. -
Trailers Today (Part 2)
This is the perfect example as to how important the trailer is to the success of a movie. Films/ film franchises such as Fast and Furious invest a lot in their marketing and promoting which leads to their trailers being exciting and thrill-seeking, leading to positive reviews and a willingness to watch the movie. -
The Future of Trailers (Current-Unknown)
Based on the current history of movie trailers, it is predictable that they are only going to become increasingly more important for movies and become a lot more dramatic and interesting. This being due to the advancement in digital technologies.