A trailer is a vehicle or container used to transport cargo. Trailers come in various shapes and sizes. They can be loaded onto trucks and cars. Some are equipped with ramps for easy loading and unloading of vehicles. Some are designed to transport vehicles, while others are designed to transport furniture, equipment and machinery. Trailers can also be pulled by horses or camels.
In recent years, trailers have become a significant part of the movie marketing process. They are often released ahead of the film’s theatrical release, and they are usually screened in movie theaters before the main feature. They are also broadcast on TV and distributed over the Internet.
Trailers are now a major component of studios’ marketing strategies, allowing them to reach a wider audience for free, release “red-band” trailers that cannot be shown on television, and develop extended campaigns including teasers, countdowns, and footage-less promotions announcing the trailer’s release. Online sandboxes like YouTube have also given editors freedom to play with trailers, giving them the Honest treatment and creating fascinating recuts, such as turning Mary Poppins into a horror movie or The Shining into a feel-good comedy.
The earliest trailers were ad-supported montage sequences that trailed movies at theaters and studios. They were originally created by Nils Granlund, the advertising manager for Marcus Loew’s theater chain in 1913, who spliced rehearsal footage into a promotional montage. By 1919, Herman Robbins had established the National Screen Service, a company that theaters and studios could outsource their trailer creation to.
As film trailers became more prominent, they began to reflect the idiosyncratic styles of individual directors. For example, in the title sequence of the 1957 film The Ten Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille filmed himself directly into the frame to emphasize his authority as the film’s director, while the trailer’s stentorian narrator, Don LaFontaine, popularized cliches such as “In a world… at a time…”
A trailer is often accompanied by music that heightens emotions and intensifies anticipation. It also contains a brief rundown of the film’s cast and crew. Act 1 of a trailer is usually exposition, but it can also include dialogues that encourage the viewer to question the characters or the story’s premise. Act 2 introduces conflict and a sense of dread, while act 3 builds to a climax.
As a result, the trailer has emerged as an art form in its own right, with companies and editors dedicated solely to their construction, vast websites maintained to catalog them, and its own awards ceremony. The trailer has even found its way into the mainstream of cinema, with directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez experimenting with the genre by releasing fake trailers between their double-billed films. These meta-explorations have generated their own cult followings on YouTube.