Types of Film Trailers

Film trailers take many various formats used by film companies. They all have different purposes and reasoning behind them. The bigger the film and/or company, the more likely they are to use a variety of these formats as these bigger films and companies can afford to do so with their funding.

Teaser Trailer

A teaser trailer plays a part in the 'teaser campaign' within a film's advertising campaign, which allows for hype about an upcoming film to kick-start. This campaign is particularly challenging as it is small and anticipates to a much larger, covert campaign of the film. A teaser trailer therefore tends to be released long before a film's release date (sometimes even years away) in order to 'tease' the audience. It is also much shorter than the film's official trailer and sometimes contain certain scenes or sounds that are not even featured within the final film itself. These trailers are often made whilst the film is in production or editing process and are usually products of a big budget film, such as the Divergent series (video above). Their purpose is simply to inform audiences that the film be out in the near future and create a hype for the release.

Theatrical Trailers

These trailers are considered to be the film's 'official' trailer and is the trailer that tends to be shown during the adverts in the cinema. These trailer tend to be screened during films of a similar genre in order to receive a similar audience to generate profits. They are usually between two to three minutes in order to convey certain aspects such as the plot and the characters. They also show some of the 'best bits' within the film, without giving too much away, they use to most action packed scenes in order to create anticipation.

TV Spot

This is a very short (around the 30 second to under a minute mark) that is designed purely for TV distribution, before and/or during the film's release. These TV spots act as the advert shown on TV for the film and enable companies to get their desired target audience.

From this research, I now have a much more clear idea and understanding of film trailers in general. The reasoning behind these different trailers and why companies may use these trailers when advertising their film in order to obtain their target audience and make their film a success.