What Makes a Great Trailer?

It’s summer, the season of the blockbuster. But I don’t want to talk about summer blockbusters. I want to talk about the things that make you want to watch them.

After leaving the movie theatre with my friends a couple of months ago, the subject of trailers came up. I asked, innocently enough, if there were any awards for them. None of us knew for certain, but we agreed if there weren’t there certainly ought to be.* ‘Cause come on, who doesn’t love a good trailer?

A bad one certainly isn’t going to draw in as many crowds. A great deal of editing and selection goes into them, which takes skill and artistry. So it stands to reason we can find some sort of criteria for what makes a good trailer. I can think of one thing I really don’t like in a trailer, which is when they give way too much away. I’m sure we can all recall trailers we’ve seen that were basically a two-minute plot summary; we almost don’t even need to see the real thing, and when we do, our suspicions are confirmed.

That’s not to say that bad trailer equals bad movie. I thought the King’s Speech was a great movie, even though its trailer was far too generous. By the same token, there are some amazing trailers to some very mediocre films out there. (And then there’s the occasion when the trailer sets your expectations low, and the movie hits the mark.) But even though they merely serve as a window into the world of the movie and not the movie itself, I believe they can be evaluated as self-contained piece. It may just be the cheap thrill of an advertisement (but let’s admit it: there are some fantastic commercials out there). You might also call it a simple pleasure.

So now, just for fun, here is a (by no means definitive) list of of some of my favourite trailers that I can recall. Some are recent, some are a few years old, and some are upcoming. Enjoy!

Watchmen 

I did enjoy this movie, although I didn’t care for the directing style, and felt a lot of the dialogue just didn’t transfer well from page to screen. But my first real introduction to the movie was through the trailer. What worked here was the almost complete lack of dialogue or voiceover, plus the sombre and menacing “The End is the Beginning is the End” by the Smashing Pumpkins playing throughout. It gives you brief moments of things to come, but it’s all out of order, so unless you’d read the book beforehand, you probably had no idea what the story was just by watching the trailer. And that didn’t matter one bit.

Delicatessen

For some reason I wasn't able to post the video directly on here, so a link will have to do. But trust me, it's worth it. This trailer tells us almost nothing about the story. It establishes the people who live in this world, and their, um, daily rhythms, but no conflict. And yet somehow it doesn’t need it. These two minutes are enough to make you say “What the...what?” and you’re sold.

Super 8

After establishing the characters through brief lines of dialogue, the second half focuses almost exclusively on the characters’ reactions in light of the frightening and wondrous; this trailer keeps us guessing till the end, and effectively captures the spirit of mystery and adventure the way an homage to early Spielberg should.

Across the Universe




I can’t express in words how excited I was when I first saw the trailer for this. In a way it ended up committing the sin of telling the entire story in chronological order, but since the movie rambled on like a series of loosely connected music videos, the trailer was almost more effective in telling a clear and succinct story. This is a perfect example of a trailer I loved for a movie I did not care for.

Funny Games




This is one movie I haven’t actually seen. The music choice might be a bit over-used, but there’s something about Edvard Grieg’s mischievous and iconic “In the Hall of the Mountain King” set up in sharp contrast to quick snapshots of terror and violence and bold, red captions. It's essentially a full-scale assault your senses, but your inner masochist kinda likes it.

Tree of Life

This trailer is rich in imagery and sublime music. The movie is a sprawling, two and a half hour odyssey (one critic aptly described it as “impressionistic”), and unless you’re a hard-core Terrence Malick aficionado, it’s not the kind of film you can watch over and over again. The trailer, on the other hand, is (and I have found myself watching it multiple times). Whatever you think of Malick’s latest opus, the trailer itself is very effective in drawing you in. 

The Great Gatsby

You can always count on Baz Luhrmann to take bold risks with the stories he tells. The trailers opens with scenes of Jazz-era New York, underscored with contemporary music that captures the spirit of the affluence of the 1920’s without being slavish to the form. A brief narration (Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway) sets up the premise, and then we see shots of the main characters, and (unless you read the book in high school) from there we can piece together who loves whom and that shit’s gonna hit the fan, though we might not know exactly what and how.

The Dark Knight Rises

How could I talk about trailers and not mention this summer’s most anticipated movie? I’ll concede that this trailer works so well in part because of the anticipation built up over the last four years, but I dare you to watch this trailer and not pee your pants a little. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 




Okay, maybe it’s not always possible to judge a trailer entirely separate from the story it inspired. The fact that The Hobbit is one of my favourite books definitely made me enjoy this trailer more than if I’d never read it. But once again, even though I do know the story, the trailer is mercifully lacking in exposition. An old wizardly fellow named Gandalf invites a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins on an adventure, and then he lists thirteen dwarves, and then they start singing. There is a brief montage as the music swells, and just a touch of dialogue, and it’s enough to give you goosebumps. However the actual movie turns out, this trailer certainly did its job.

So that's it for now. What are your favourite trailers?

*As it turns out there are awards for trailers, called the Golden Trailer Awards. If you’re curious about their selections, check out their website.