The History of Trailers

Trailers have been a constant part of advertising films before they came out. This type of media is very popular and normally gives audiences a first look at a film that is coming out. This trailer can sell the film or kill the film in most peoples eyes. Trailers have been a part of the film industry and this media since the 1910's when the first trailer was released for the Pleasure Seekers. One of the very first trailers was for the original Snow White film. This took everyone by storm and made everyone very excited at the prospect of watching this film. The original theatrical trailer for Snow White was released in 1937.

The next trailer after this was Gone with the Wind in 1939. At this point more and more people where being pulled in by these trailers. Gone with the Wind started a trend of voice overs on the trailer. The majority of the trailer was the voice over describing the film and what speech there was it was very little. There was also the introduction of the actors names on the trailer this started another trend as these names became household names as the main actors started to be treated like stars.



In 1942 Casablanca trailer was released. This was another film trailer in which got a lot of attention. What however was used in this trailer and not seen in previous trailers was shots that appeared in the trailer and not in the actual film. This is also a very common thing that is used frequently nowadays. This also contained a lot of speech and natural shots from the film with a soundtrack over the top. There was a very little voice over in it but that was it. As you can see from previous trailers that trailers adapt through the years in different ways.



In 1950's the Cinderella trailer was released.  The Cinderella trailer takes the side of more narration than actual voice and sounds from the film. There is a soundtrack that plays nearly throughout the trailer but there are parts in which there is voice acting that is heard. The film is also in colour.

The 1960's brought a very famous and is one of Hitchcock's most famous films, Psycho. This trailer was a trailer that hadn't been seen before and hasn't been done since. Trailers are really only 1m30s-2m30s long. With this trailer it was more of a documentary/walk through rather than a trailer and it was a trailer that lasted 6m 31s. This at the time was a brilliant idea and this enticed the audience to as well as going to watch the film but they might want to go to the setting that they shot it.

In the 1970's the Star Wars franchise started with A New Hope trailer being released. It was released in 1977 and started a craze for the now massive box office hit that it is. The now household name back then had special effects implemented into the trailer which nobody had seen before. This trailer started the popularity that it now has and this is the case with most films nowadays.

In the 1980's Terminator was introduced. The Terminator trailer came out in 1984. Terminator was a trailer that lasted over 3 minutes. This is because this was one of the biggest releases of the year and they felt that this would make money. This trailer has also taken on close to what we see now. However the voice over is still there. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also mentioned a lot showing that he is the big name actor and is the main selling point of the film on the actor front.



In the 1990's the Forrest Gump trailer was released. The Forrest Gump trailer is once again over 3 minutes. This is done as they felt that this would be a big hit and would sell a lot and it has turned out to be that way. This still has a voice over but the 90's was the last time the voice over was present as the move into the 21st century meant that the voice over was gone in the majority of trailers.

During the 21st century different types of adaptations of trailers have taken place. One is Inception. Inception trailer was released in 2010. Like I said in the previous paragraph the voice over was erased from trailers and it was only dialogue and action being shown during it. Inception used a lot of CGI in the trailer for this as trying to get the trailer across and the idea about the film is very difficult with this film therefore it had to be as clear as possible. This is another adaptation of trailer as their are more cuts in the trailers now than back then and this is a prime example of this.





The other is The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug. This trailer was released at the start of 2013. This trailer was released a whole year before the film came out and with film trailers they normally start releasing trailers about 4 months before but this was nearly a whole year. This is what the present trailers look like and what I will have to base  my trailer on. The layout of film trailers now are also very quick with cuts being made around areas in which are useful and could give the audience information about the plot of shown anymore.

This is a progressive chain of trailers showing how trailers have adapted over the years and they will continue to adapt. I will be focusing on the current crop of trailers for inspiration of my trailer.