History of film trailers

Film trailers

Film trailers initially were a collection of film stills that were sold too early theatre exhibitors to be present the first sightings of a film that would later be released in cinema. These would almost be sneak previews towards the final production, to try and engage the viewer to watch the final product when it was later released, which would usually be around half a year later.

The first film trailer was shown in American film in 1913 from the film ‘The pleasure seekers’. This was a promotional tool towards releasing a film, and ensuring that the target audience were interested in seeing it from the previous trailer when the film finally came out. Later on, Leow adopted the idea of this as it was seen as ‘an entirely new and unique stunt’. "Moving pictures of the rehearsals and other incidents connected with the production will be sent out in advance of the show, to be presented to the Loew’s picture houses and will take the place of much of the bill board advertising".

Trailers were shown ‘trailing’ the feature film.  This at the time was seen as ineffective with people leaving straight after. Exhibitors then changed the way that they approached making a trailer so that it was only one part of a program which included short bursts of the film, or newsreels. Nowadays, people have expanded on the idea of this, and a trailer is a vital part of preparation towards the release date of a film as it acts as an indicator as to how successful then film is going to be and the interest that has been payed towards it.

Until the end of the 50s, trailers were made by ‘National Screen Service’ and involved the merging of some of the major events and scenes from within a film, as a form of advertising people and engaging the target audience. Most trailers had narration. In the early 60s, trailers often became textless, involving quick editing and a range of different techniques were becoming poplar. Stanley Kubrick and his montage of trailers for films such as Lolita were inspiration towards other people and also short films such as ‘Very nice, Very nice’ which was created by a Canadian film visionary.

Over the course of the proceeding years, as animated films were becoming more popular, outstanding and distinctive voice actors were used increasingly more often not only for movies, but also trailers, commercials and promos. This helped to draw people in with famous people and celebrities that they were already aware of and were popular amongst all ages. An example of this was Don Lafontaine who was the voicing behind many many commercials throughout the whole of his career. His first voice over was in 1962 for a movie trailer. He became the voice of movies.