codes and conventions of teaser trailers

Teaser trailers are the shorter, snappier versions of a full film trailer. They serve to grab the attention of an audience and to make people want to keep finding out more about a piece. By lasting for around 40 seconds on average, very little of the narrative is given away and as a result there is a sense of mystery about the film, further leading on the audience to go and watch the film.

Teaser trailers are the primary trailer and can be posted months, even years before the final piece is released. This allows the producer to put in scenes that may not even be in the final film which gives away even less of the narrative and the content of the full feature film.

The end of the trailer is used to show off the production company and the important information to promote the film. The information given is to whet the audiences appetite for the film, making them more likely to want to find more out about the film, to research and to ultimately want to see the piece. This is most probably in an attempt to boost the viewings on the opening weekend, to try to make a final push to break limits and to achieve awards.

Some directors make the decision to not include actual clips from the film to generate more curiosity around the piece. In the teaser trailer for "The Dark Knight", Nolan utilises audio from the film to create a trailer that doesn't rely on any visual clips of character to start hinting at the plot and drawing viewers in. By not using clips from the film, very little is giving away and for the majority of the trailer, our sense of sight is deprived, causing us to listen in on the speech. This is particularly effective as the tone of the film is mysterious and the tension and curiosity created is immediately generated, achieving the desired effect.

Our trailer was to inform the audience of genre and to touch on the narrative, whilst not releasing the full plot of the final film. We did this by a combination of shots from the build up of tension and the act of the assault at the start of the trailer, against the ending shot being from the climax of the piece. With a careful choice of symbolism throughout we aimed to let the audience into the mindset of 'Grace' whilst not giving away too much information.

Unlike Nolan, we decided to include no audio from the final film and instead focused on a non-diegetic soundtrack that is a slowed down version of 'You're the one that I want' from Grease. The lack of speech in the piece creates a tense atmosphere as the trailer becomes hard to watch under the knowledge of what our protagonist has gone through from the start of the piece.