The History of Trailers

In November 1913, the first ever trailer was shown for the film The Pleasure Seekers and ever since then, trailers have been developing and changing into what we are familiar with today.

We can see how different trailers used to be by looking at Snow White (1937), the Disney animation, for which the trailer is shown above. Straight away we notice how the trailer begins with text, 'The show thrill of your lifetime... Nothing ever like it!.. In multiple technicolour!'. The use of superlatives throughout this trailer, (in text as well as the voice over) is a characteristic of the earliest trailers. As well as this, no actual footage of the film is shown, which would be considered unheard of in any modern trailer. Another unusual characteristic of this trailer is the clip of Walt Disney himself in the middle of the trailer, explaining who the characters are. Introducing the main characters is an important part of every trailer, however this manor of doing so is very unusual, and is only found in older trailers such as this one. Even jumping 2 years to 1939, the trailer for Gone with the Wind had developed quite a bit since Snow White. This trailer starts off very similar to the Disney one, with text using superlatives like 'The most memorable event in the age of motion pictures', however, it moves on straight into listing the cast of the main characters and who their characters are. This is clearly a lot different than Snow White - the director has not introduced them here. Also, in contrast to Snow White, the entire trailer is made up of clips of film.

Skipping just over 20 years, we see that certain trailers started to become extremely experimental. The trailer for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho still stands as one of the most famous and unusual trailers of the 20th century (shown above). In this trailer, we are escorted around the infamous motel in which the story of Psycho takes places by Alfred Hitchcock himself. It is unusually long at 6 and a half minutes, and the scene at the end, where the curtain is pulled back and the girl screams is very famous. Here, we get a taste of the genre of the film (which we weren't entirely sure of previously). The title shown at the end is also quite revolutionary, as previously, we had seen the title of the film at the beginning - leaving it until the end almost creates a sense of mystery. 

Another example of experimental trailers in the 60s, is the trailer for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964). The extremely quick jump cuts means that this trailer has around 136 cuts per minute, and the large amount of text included in this trailer is more uncharacteristic for a trailer of the 60s. It is also unusual, as the text is usually filled in by dialogue from the film of certain characters. This is a technique that had never been done before, and it still stands as a very experimental development in trailers. 

In 1977, another inspirational trailer was created for the first Star Wars film. The special effects were considered very ahead of its time, as they played a very major role throughout the film. There is still a loud voice over for this trailer, which was still quite common, and there are still a lot of clips from the film, usually show casing the special effects. A screen shot of the trailer is shown above. 

 

Over the next decade, trailers developed more in terms of sound and visuals - soundtracks to trailers started to include licensed songs and special effects had improved greatly. By 1996, Titanic was released. This showed just how far technology had come. The trailer for the film A Night to Remember (1958) which is also about the sinking of the Titanic, shows a lot of primitive special effects, and also features a loud voice over, and clips of the black and white film. This is greatly contrasted by the 1996 film trailer, with the good CGI, and full colour. The images above show the difference in the special effects used for each film and trailer - 'A Night to Remember' featured a hand made model of the ship, where 'Titanic' featured a ship created using CGI. Also, in contrast with the Disney version of Snow White, the trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman released in 2012 shows much improved CGI (in fact most of the trailer relies on CGI) and the jumps cuts within it oppose the slow transitions of the 1937 trailer. The theatrical trailer is shown below, and the differences are made clear. 

Overall, throughout the past century, trailers have developed significantly (along with film itself), and the progression of the trailers has even led to their own awards ceremony - the Golden Trailer Awards, which are presented each year for the best trailers.