WHAT ARE TRAILERS?
There are several elements to a marketing campaign for a film, from the trailer itself to posters in the street or on public transport, to online and viral marketing. The marketing campaign is designed to raise audience awareness and interest in a film in advance of, and during, its cinema release.
There are several elements to a marketing campaign for a film, from the trailer itself to posters in the street or on public transport, to online and viral marketing. The marketing campaign is designed to raise audience awareness and interest in a film in advance of, and during, its cinema release.
The trailer for a film is a method of advertising, and uses short clips of the film alongside music and titles of either actors or directors as a way to showcase the film to audience and generate buzz without giving too much of the story away.
I answered a Qustionnaire about the purpose of film trailers from the FilmScape website and then looked at the trailer for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) several times. From watching the trailer, it was clear to me the genre of the film (historical fiction with elements of fantasy) and the trailer conveys typical genre conventions such as high-production values, with extensive VFX, battles, quests, royal families and their enemies, romance and danger. It is a story I am familiar with as it is based (if loosely) on the Arthurian Legends of the Middle Ages, though it is almost consistently updated with new features to keep audience suspense, which is very much the case of this trailer which evokes mystery to both people who are familiar with the legends and people who aren't.
The trailer uses persuasive tactics such as Intertitles which creates excitement for the film through text such as 'from the director of Sherlock Holmes', which is persuasive as the director of Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie) managed to create a world based off a classic well knwon story and update it for modern audiences, which proved very successful at the Box Office and spawned a sequel 3 years later in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), thus proving he could adapt a story. Intertitles are also used to depict the cast, for example 'Charlie Hunnam', an actor well known to both British and American audiences through his roles in Sons of Anarchy and Vikings, which is persuasive to an audience who like to see films with actors they are familiar with.
