- When it comes to creating a trailer,
there are important questions that need to be answered.
How much do you show?
What exactly do you tell?
Because, just like each film is different, each trailer
needs to be different as well to represent this.
[mellow music]
[film reel clicking] [blipping]
[mellow music]
I'm Jessica Fox and I'm a Creative Director
at Mark Woollen & Associates
and these are the questions that we ask ourselves.
Creating a trailer is a very collaborative process.
Filmmakers bring their work to a studio
and it's the studio's job to work with the filmmakers
to create a vision of how that film
is going to be released to the public.
Maybe this is in theaters, maybe it's online,
maybe it's in the fall, maybe it's in the summer.
Filmmakers and studios then bring in agencies
and it's the job of all of us working together
to create a trailer, a first look at this film.
When deciding how to best represent a film in trailer form,
we often sit back and look at what the film made us feel.
Is this a film that's best explained
through a story to allow the audience
to understand what's happening in the movie
or is this a film that's best explained through its style?
In either case, we pick the elements
that are going to work best to support
the narrative that we think is the strongest in the film.
[mellow music]
Some of the advantages when you have
a film that is completely finished
is you get a real sense of what the director's vision is.
You're hearing the music, you're seeing the pacing,
you understand what the tone is.
And then you try your best to replicate that tone
and evoke that in the trailer you're working on.
- [Birdman] You were a movie star,
remember? - Shut up.
- [Birdman] Now you're about to
destroy what's left of your career.
Listen to me: let's make a comeback.
[funky music]
[exploding]
[screeching]
♪ Crazy ♪
- You're becoming a trending topic.
♪ You're crazy ♪
- I got a chance to do something right, I gotta take it.
- But inside an agency, there's also
a collaboration that happens.
From creative directors and producers,
who help to oversee the process
and create what they think the story should be,
to editors who are in there with the material figuring out
exactly how to make each shot and each dialog work,
to assistant editors who mine through
all of the material you have in order to
catalog and organize everything for editors to use,
to music supervisors who help to select
that perfect piece of music or sound design.
What to show and what to leave behind is a tough one.
You wanna make sure that you're showcasing
some of the best assets the film has to offer.
Oftentimes, this is pedigree.
Your cast, your director, sometimes your producers.
This information is important to let the audience know
that you're gonna be seein' some of
your favorite people involved in this film.
This information's also important to help elevate the film.
Big names associated with films tend to imply bigger budgets
and you can expect perhaps more of a bigger spectacle.
When it comes to story, just how much do you tell?
Well, you wanna tell enough so
the audience understands what's happening
but ideally you don't wanna tell so much
that everything feels completely wrapped up.
This can sometimes be tricky in stories where
there's a lot of suspense and the audience
is left to wonder: will they or won't they?
Will someone escape?
Will this thing happen?
- [Curtis] When we take the engine
[dramatic music]
and we control the world.
- When is the time? - Soon.
[suspenseful music]
- Essentially, you wanna tell enough of a story
to get an audience's interest but you don't wanna tell
so much that they feel they've already seen the full film.
[film reel clicking]
Another element that can help decide
what gets into a trailer and what stays out
is relying as what's known as quadrants.
[mellow music]
Quadrants break down your audience demographic
into categories based on age and gender.
Typically, a film, and those involved in making the film,
would love to hit all four quadrants.
At a very base level, when thinking
of quadrants, there are four basic ones.
There's younger males, younger females,
older males, and older females.
Of course, there are certain films whose prime audience
falls into one or two of these quadrants,
but most films would love to get as many people
from each quadrant as possible interested.
And that's where marketing comes in.
Certain genres appeal to certain demographics more easily.
So, action films, big blockbuster films,
your large franchise films, typically find
a comfortable home in younger audiences,
specifically younger male audiences.
Not to say everyone doesn't enjoy them,
but that's where you're getting
your bulk of people interested.
So, then whatta you do if you wanna show that
this movie has more to offer than just something perhaps
a younger male audience would be interested in?
That's when you might choose to include
information in a trailer that's
specifically targeted toward a different group.
For instance, in an action, adrenaline-filled movie,
if there's a love interest, that might be
of interest to a different quadrant.
Including that might broaden your appeal.
[dramatic music]
- [Quentin] Whatta you want, Peter?
[dramatic music]
- I wanna go back on my trip with the girl
who I really like and tell her how I feel.
MJ, I-- - Am Spiderman?
[dramatic music]
- No, of course not.
- I mean, it's kind of obvious.
- Just as audiences are ever-evolving, so is
the way to measure and categorize these audiences.
So, quadrants are just one tool and by no means is it
the only thing that studios and agencies look at
when deciding how to market a film.
[mellow music]
One way to determine who is most interested
in seeing your film is through audience testing.
Sometimes there are plot points or characters
that are introduced later in a film,
but because of their importance,
it feels necessary to include them in the trailer.
This could be because the character is a well-known actor
that's going to help elevate the movie
or the plot point is something that
helps promise more to the film.
Maybe a sense of hope in a movie
that seems very dark and depressing.
[dramatic music]
- It cannot be.
[gentle inspiring music]
- I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide.
- Another example of a way to frame a trailer
is to actually make it two trailers
at the same time, known as companion pieces.
In doing so, you might tell
one person's story in one trailer
and another person's story in another trailer.
These two trailers could, in theory, live separately,
as you would be getting a full story
in one trailer and a different but full,
complete story in this other trailer.
However, when put together, they give a greater sense
of what the film has to offer and also promises the idea
that you're going to seeing a story
from different perspectives.
[gentle music]
♪ I've been ♪
- [Nicole] What I love about Charlie.
♪ Loving you ♪
- [Nicole] He loves being a dad.
It's almost annoying how much he likes it.
♪ A little too long ♪
♪ I've been ♪
- [Charlie] What I love about Nicole.
♪ Loving you ♪
- [Charlie] She's a great dancer, infectious.
- If you have a story that has a love interest,
also has a lot of action, has a bit of drama,
has some suspense, you might cut multiple television spots,
each one focusing on one of those elements.
Taken as a whole, they're all true to the film
and they're all part of the greater picture,
but you can individually select where
each one of these television spots go
so that spot is getting to the audience
that's going to be the most receptive to that message.
So, when there are so many stories to tell
and so many different ways to tell these stories,
every decision is very deliberate.
A lot goes into thinking about how this best serves the film
and how this is going to fit into
the two and a half minutes you have
to show the audience what the film has to offer.
So, when we're speaking about quadrants or testing audiences
or working from completed films or working from dailies
or telling the story in a teaser or a trailer
or a tv spot, the options are limitless.
What do you include, what do you leave behind?
The answers are as diverse as the films.
[mellow music]