History of Trailers

History of film trailers

Film Trailers have changed drastically since their creation.  One of the earliest trailers known was in 1937 when Snow White was shown which was produced by Walt Disney.  You can see from these trailers they are different from the trailers of today because they mostly rely on text and voice over.  Also they were normally about 3-4 minutes long.  Within the trailer it contains no actual footage from the film and it relied on external content.

Another famous trailer is the 1960 Psycho trailer.  The full trial is about 6 minutes long now this is very different from the trailers of today because they are normally no longer than 2 minute, this trailer is special because at the end you see the director of the film giving a tour of the set you will hardly ever see that in a trailer today, in this trailer no animations or CGI are used.

A modern day trailer like Captain America: The First Avenger in 2013 is completely different to earlier trailers.  This is because throughout the trailer a different voice over is used, this is due to the fact it gives the trailer more intensity and power, and with this makes the film feel more real and life like, however with previous trailers they would use just a bold voice over with no effect.  Also which is a noticeable change is the speed of the trailer at the start then changes into different jump cut scenes; also the difference in sound gives the effect that they are actually in the film.

In 1994 the advancement in trailers took a step forward when Forrest Gump was created this is because it gained the ability of creating a setting real such as the scene of the war zone, with this it also showed that trailer did not need the help of a voice over and also large text to help it promote itself and it could exploit the new technology and this then helped the new era of film trailer promotion.