Conventions of Film Trailers

At the beginning of the Superhero movie trailer there is an image featuring classification advice, and this is usually relevant to the country the trailer is filmed and screened in. Soon after this the film production logo and the name of the film is displayed. This is evident in the film trailer for Captain America- The First Avenger and the film trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Most film trailers feature voice-overs to help the audience understand the narrative. Some trailers use the main character as a voice-over to help convey the narrative; and this creates a connection with the audience and the protagonist as they can understand how they feel, and by what they say you can sometimes understand the character; and possibly sometimes relate to the character. Editing of the trailer is created specifically to reinforce the narrative, and to help the audience understand the central plot of the film, the clips on a film trailer are sometimes not in the order they're seen in the film and that is because the clips help convey the story. Editing includes the use of fast cuts to show different parts of the film within a short amount of time. This holds the audience’s attention and keeps them entertained.  These fast cuts are often driven by the music which is used, for example, these trailers begin with slow music in the background and then the first shot fades in slowly, but as soon as the music speeds up more fast cuts are shown on screen for a shorter amount of time. Another key convention of film trailers are the use of captions. This gives the audience more information about the film, including the stars this is done purely to attract the audience; especially if there are big stars in the film it makes the audience want to go and see them in the film. Other text gives information about the producers/directors, tagline, the title and release date which are often shown at the end of the trailer. The style of text is different according to the genre of film, the tone that is going to be used in the film and it is usually accompanied by a musical beat. Music is also essential in trailers as it can suggest the genre, style and plot of the film.