The Film Trailer/ Teaser Trailer

Film trailers are between 2-3 minutes long. They have about 100 cuts in them. They are designed to make the audience feel both:
- The pleasure of the text, the audience recognises familiar conventions and narratives.

- Suspense in the audience, by the use of Enigma codes. Who is the killer? What happens next?

The film trailer itself tends to be structured in the following way; this structure is not ‘set in stone’ and can be moved around to have a greater effect:
- The distributor company logo
- The production company logo
- The narrative establisher, a series of longer sequences which establish the fundamental storylines of the film.
- The stars or the USP (the unique selling point) often stars or directors. Horror movies traditionally don’t always use well-known stars because the audience feel more uncomfortable with actors they don’t recognise and they don’t make them feel secure. In the trailer for the horror movie Scream, the director Wes Craven is the USP because he famous for directing the cult horror movie Nightmare on Elm Street.
- A series of quick, exciting, suspenseful sequences from the film, this is the convincer in that is should create enough suspense to ensure that the audience decide to go and watch the film.
- The conventions of the genre will appear all through the trailer.
- The black and white film listings
A teaser trailer is a lot shorter, under 2minutes of footage. It is created for effect and not to give too much away about the film, it keeps the audience intrigued, they use lots of cuts and not always cuts that are used in the film, these cuts would be specially filmed for the trailer. The USP is featured in the trailer to create a even more of a intrigue and get the audience interested.