You'd show some of those things, not all of them.
You wouldn't give the big reveals away. No major plot points.
In essence, a trailer should be a brief synopsis of the film, not a whole give away of the story in two minutes.

Mark

IMHO, most trailers I've seen are exactly that.

Then that's good then. (8+)

Mark

I think I'd include something of the following:

1. Setting the background (ie. snippets of plot taken from the first 15-25 minutes of the film, maybe?)
2. Something that gives a sense of the genre of the movie; dark and mysterious, fun and lighthearted, generic fast-paced scene or whatever
3. An example of a sharp-witted line, or someone crying at some sort of deeply emotional event (not providing any real context, just showing the line/reaction/emotion/whatever)
4. A demo of any CGI/special effects/what-have you; a generic explosion, maybe a line by Gollum if it were LotR for example
5. Not much else

A trailer doesn't need to be more than a couple of minutes long, and I think in most cases it can be a good deal shorter. It just needs to give a flavour of what the film's about.

Can I ask what trailers you've all been watching then? Cos even the extended Capt. America, that one some of you have been avoiding, did exactly as you've described.

From what I've snatched of it, Sucker Punch looks like my kind of thing and I hope to see it big-screen. There was a preview on TV last night and all 3 of us watching had pretty much the same impression of awesomeness. Maybe it was the booze, but there's only one way to find out.

OT, I actually rate Kermode's reviews. He seems to be on my wavelength a lot of the time. Obviously not always, because that would be too freaky. He isn't my clone.

A trailer should last no longer than 60 seconds.

As above, demonstrate the theme/type of movie, a tag line, a fraction of a scene - if it's comedy, a single joke/punchline is enough. The plot line should be very basic IMO.

Increasingly, you can piece together the plot, figure out any twists, see all of the jokes and action in a trailer. Why would I then pay to watch the crap bits of the movie that stitch together all of the good bits seen in the trailer?

I think there's too much context in a lot of the scenes included in the current trailers. Show fewer clips and have them as standalone bits, not one leading to another leading to another and describing the plot.

Okay, I'm probably not going to watch the movie so here's the official SP trailer:

clicky

It starts off okay - it shows she's in an asylum and she has to escape.

My criticism - too long/showed too much of the action. I want to be pleasantly surprised when I see the good scenes, not think "oh this is that bit in the trailer". I'd have skipped the last twenty seconds or so and taken out the dancer scenes. It was enough that she had to be in an asylum, had to escape and did it by closing her eyes.

It had some funky music. Didn't have some witty comment/remark (that I noticed) and didn't give everything away. Those were the bits I liked.

You can also get effective trailers which consist of just one sequence, setting the tone of the movie and giving away very little. One I like is Super 8.

The follow up trailer is a bit more traditional and much less interesting.

See, I can't really understand people saying they've seen most or all of the film in a two minute trailer.
We're not talking about ad breaks, we're talking about at least 90 minutes of film.
Does nothing really happen in the other 88 minutes?

I think the Sixth Sense trailer included the boy looking scared, Bruce Willis looking confused, and some dreary music. So yes, I think a trailer can tell the whole story.

I'm certainly not saying I've seen all the film; I just don't like being told (or provided with sufficient details to work out) large portions of the plot from the trailer. I know there's lots more to a film than the plot, but for me one of the most enjoyable things about watching a film for the first time (especially when viewing it at the cinema) is not knowing where the film's going to go.

If I've seen a trailer showing a clip of a fight scene followed by a shot of mountains of dead bodies of one side and a few victorious soldiers of the other then I'm going to draw some conclusions and I'll be reminded of the outcome when I see the scene "for real" as part of the film.

Basically, show just enough to keep people interested - there really isn't any need for even a 2 minute long trailer to my mind, unless it's done to be suspenseful and a build-up etc. You sure as hell shouldn't need one for an action film or comedy. Maybe they're so frightened of the plot for whatever reason that they overcompensate?

Another factor I'd consider sometimes would be what I call the 'Fight Club effect', where the trailer has nothing to do with the story and on it's own basis completely misleads the customer*

* Of course there's often multiple trailers, but who's to say you'll catch a 'good' one?

It's not applicable to all trailers but there tend to be ones that show a lot of action, especially behind-the-scenes type stuff, promotional related stuff etc. When Casino Royale came out, the ads pretty much showed everything. The only "new" thing was the parkour type stuff. I'd already seen the "big scene" which was the car explosion in the adverts and promo stuff.


+1. Sometimes it's annoying when you know the plot and you just basically watch the film to see the plot acted out. It becomes really frustrating. For me, I tend to think "when is xxx going to happen?" or "here comes xxx" - where xxx is the scene that I've seen in the trailers/ads/promo stuff.

Some of the best films I've watched are ones where you know nothing about what happens - you don't really remember the trailer, the advertising wasn't particularly prominent and you can't remember the review from your source. That's when you're more hooked into the film.


I remember the Fight Club trailers and wanting to watch it but the huge twist was just a mind-f**k.