Evolution of the Movie Trailer

 Normally, when I want to watch a old movie, I look it up on YouTube. This is because as time goes by, many movies become public domain, and are available in good quality for free. If I don't get that, I only get the trailers. This brings me to the topic at hand today. Wednesday I did commercials, so today I think I'll cover the movie equivalent, known as the movie trailer.


Trailers came into existence around the same time as the motion picture itself. Early trailers for silent movies were, as you can surmise, completely silent, and they also showed stills of the movie rather than full clips of it. Beginning with the advent of talkies, as well as the evolution of the motion picture, trailers were being made by the National Screen Service and were made with a very similar style.




Watching old movie trailers, I've noticed a definite parallel to sitcom openings, what with the characters always seeming to look at the camera  when their name pops up. The text on the screen being quoted from movie critics is something still happens today. All in all, the art of the trailer has not changed too drastically since its conception.


The 2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer
Fittingly revolutionary 

People like Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock flipped the script for movie trailers around the 60s, and gave them a flavor all their own, so to speak. Gone are the stock music of the old trailers, and the text and narration has been kept to a minimum, with more of an emphasis in showing any especially technical aspects of the film, without sacrificing the viewing experiences with the overuse of spoilers. The use of sound is now largely important in a movie trailer. Before, the music was largely the same across all trailers, from horror movies to romance, the score has always been very similar. Nowadays, you can tell a horror movie trailer just by listening to it. Every genre, every company has their own unique style of trailer making, it's almost as much a calling card as the film itself. 


Trailers are still a big part of the movie world, but perhaps not to the same degree anymore. There are still times where you go to see a movie in theatres and have a trailer for a movie play and it piques your interest, but with the internet and such, it hasn't quite served the same purpose. Of course, trailers keep you interested in a movie leading up to its release, we can see this in the YouTube views of well awaited films. That has and will always been one of it's main goals. I don't want to keep using the "We're a little late, so good night folks," line when I don't know how to end a blog, but I'm going to anyway. Good night, folks.


I hope to see you Back There

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