History of Trailers

Snow White (1937) - Snow White as a film is a milestone in filmmaking as it is the first feature length animated film. However its trailer is far different from those of today. For example, what is most striking about the trailer is the lack of any actual footage from the film; the most we get are the films cels which are there to showcase the production. The trailer also takes an extract from time magazine, showing a positive review. Towards the end of the trailer Walt Disney himself introduces the audience to the characters. So this trailer as previously stated, is radically different from those of today

Cinderella (1950) - The first noticeable difference between this trailer and the previous one is that footage from the film is actually shown in this one. Also in this trailer is super imposed text, which only appeared at the begging of snow white, also the trailer for Cinderella is considerably shorter than snow white

Gone with the wind (1939) – The trailer for gone the wind is much longer than the previous trailer, being 2 minutes 30seconds. This trailer like Cinderella also uses super imposed text, but much more than Cinderella particularly in the beginning and end of the trailer, it also carries on the theme of a voice over throughout. However unlike the previous trailers gone with the winds trailer also includes dialogue extracted from the film. This trailer, unlike the previous two, puts more of an emphasis on advertising the films cast. Finally, what’s also worth mentioning about this trailer is that there are scenes in the trailer that aren’t actually in the film and are for purely promotional purposes.

Psycho (1960)-  Pyscho’s trailer break some of the patterns so far. The trailer consist of no actual footage from the film, but simply of the director, Alfred Hitchcock, touring the set, coincidently similar to the second half of the snow white trailer. Because of this the whole trailer is 6 minutes long, far exceeding any off the other trailers so far. Also unlike all of the other trailers so far, this one is in black and white.

Star Wars (1977) - This trailer is significantly different from the previously examined traditional trailers due to the absence of super imposed text, aside from the iconic title of the film which appears throughout the trailer. This trailer is the first that begins due look the most like modern trailers today, using scenes taken from the film with dialogue from the film giving exposition as well as showcasing action. There is also voice over in this trailer, which still gets used today, but not often for action or sci-fi films, this is the only aspect of the trailer that feels outdated.

Forrest Gump (1994)-  Following the star wars trailer, this trailer looks even more like modern trailer consists of mostly dialogue from the film, the only voice over coming in at the end, mainly to advertise the actors.

Inception (2010)- as an example of a modern trailer, the inception trailer uses no voice over whatsoever and is composed completely of dialogue from the film, even being the first trailer looked at to coin the ‘cover line’, the line in which the dramatically climbing music pauses for. Also interestingly, this trailer is the first in a while to have expository text on the screen, however instead of being super imposed; it is now spliced between the scenes show