Ever wonder how you can make your movie trailer more entertaining so you’ll get the most people wanting to see your film? Want your audience to say “I have to see that film!”.
The video tutorial below shows you a step by step approach on editing a Hollywood-like action trailer. Before any editing begins, you want to know the type of people that will be watching your film. You want to essentially find your niche market. What do those people do? What do they think about? What are their personalities like? A trailer is a marketing tool to get people to watch your film. Otherwise we wouldn’t be making them! It’s normally better to find someone that is not involved in the production to edit the trailer; to get fresh eyes on it. When thinking about your trailer, think of one main storyline to focus on. Don’t introduce too many themes, stories or ideas. The movie will explain that, just get them to watch the trailer first. Trailers are normally between 30 and 120 seconds long.
“Editing a trailer is an ART form much like the film.
There are no regulated rules. Go creative!”
Once you know your niche group, it’s sometimes easier to edit backwards starting with the music first, like what I’ve done in my tutorial further below. You may want to find a popular genre or piece of music that your niche group listens to, so they can relate. When you finally start the editing process, use different contrasting clips in the trailer. You want to have clips of anger, excitement, sadness in your trailer to show your film’s richness. You want to set the tone and rhythm as well. Think about whether or not you will be using title cards or any voice overs. Try to use your film on its own to tell the story and capture the audiences attention if you can instead. If you decide to go with title cards, a good rule is that you don’t want to use too many of them (normally no more than 3). The audience may have a harder time following along.
Create a Movie Trailer in 3 Acts:
Act 1:
Meeting the characters
Act 2:
Developing the problem for the characters.
Sometimes there will be “the drop”. Where it cuts to black on a drum beat, then…
Act 3:
Escalate, escalate, escalate, but never resolving the issue.
Again, the government does not regulate the way trailers are cut, so there is no wrong answer. Whatever way you decide on going, make it fun, emotional, and entertaining for the audience. Make them relate to your film. You want your audiences to be interested, that’s the objective of a trailer! Ask yourself, what will make someone have to see your film? Some editors put weaker clips in the trailer afraid that it will ruin the story. I’ve given a thought on that and decided that I will put my best clips in because I want to draw them into watching my film whichever way I can, that is the ultimate goal of why trailers are made isn’t it? I want to show that my work is worth their time.
In the mean time, happy cutting!
Trailer Editing Video Tutorial
*Resources from this article were taken from these following links. Please take a look below for more detailed information:
1) How to Edit a Trailer for your Movie
2) The Art of First Impressions
3) How to Edit a Trailer that will get Your Film Noticed
4) Secrets of a Trailer Guru