History of trailers

The first trailer to be shown in America was for the musical 'The pleasure seekers' on November 1913. Untill the late 1950's trailers consisted of key scenes from the film and included narration and text explaining the story line. Some trailers such as 'snow white and the seven dwarfs' consisted of the director/producer giving a small explination on their film. They also played the trailer at the end of the films, however this was soon changed due to people leaving when they came on.

In the 1960's trailers suddenly became more advanced using quick editing and montage trailers. Andre Kuehn was one of the first to introduce high contrast photography, fast paced editing and a provocative narration by the famous James Earl Jones. This was the first incarnation of this type of trailer which was to change trailers for good.

Gne with the wind 1939:

• Uses alot of various transitions
• Dominated by text
• Introduces each actor then tells us their character name
• A lot of jump cuts used

Casablanca 1942:

• Black and white
• Uses a lot of various transitions
• Jumps straight into the trailer
• Voice over/ commentry of film

Cinderella 1950:

• Only twenty eight seconds
• Animation
• Completely dominated by text
• Not many clips from the actual film

Psycho 1960:

• Full trailer featured director (Alfred Hitchcock)
• No clips of film
• Description of film from the director
• Tour around the set