Tuesday, 16 October 2018

Genre of my Trailer


Genre of my Trailer- Link

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The Evolution of Trailers.

The Evolution of Trailers


I recently made a blog about the history of film trailers and noticed that they are vastly different to what they are now. I found it fascinating to see how, over time they evolved to become what they are today.

As I mentioned in my history of trailers blog, originally trailers were displayed after the film. However they were soon used before films as it was much more effective from a marketing standpoint, as it drew more people in to watch the film. Most trailers were made by the NSS (National Screen Service) up until late on in the 50's. These trailers were made mostly up of clips from main scenes and were accompanied with loud voices and bold text, usually crediting the actors.

However, the arrival of "New Hollywood", the format for trailers changed. They became more like montages of the film, showing more, shorter clips. This was very popular and much more similar to the trailers that we have today. However many of these still contained voice-overs.

Trailers remained like this for a while, whilst still continuing to adapt slightly with the times. For example, during the 80's and the 90's, ominous or dramatic voice-overs were all the rage and every major blockbuster had one in it's trailer. However, nowadays people would find this cliched and in a modern context would only be used ironically.

Probably the most recent change in trailers is the effort in not revealing spoilers for the film. In the past trailers would often give away the ending of a film, take Castaway by Robert Zemekis. The trailer showed us Tom Hank's character off the island and back home, which straight away ruins the ending of the film. However nowadays, studios will go above and beyond in avoiding spoilers. Some studios go as far as to edit the trailers so they are different to the finished product and do not reveal too much.

Altogether, throughout the last century trailers have changed drastically, and with the increasing use of technology and the internet, they will probably go on to evolve even more.