Digital Filmmaking For Kids For Dummies

PROJECT 6

Planning Your Film Trailer

A good film trailer is short, emotive (that is, it builds emotions and feelings), and leaves the audience wanting more. A film trailer needs to introduce a few basic facts about the film — its genre, the basic story, and any significant details about the characters — to the audience in a very short space of time, and it needs to do this in a way that’s interesting and creative in order to motivate the audience to watch the full version of the film.

Film trailers are normally created after the film has been shot, but you will be filming your trailer first. Sometimes filmmakers create a trailer to build interest in their film before it’s even made. Creating a trailer before the full film is a great way to see how the story and characters work together. Making your trailer first will give you ideas for the story of the full-version of your film, as well as help you choose what to include and what not to include. To get to the point of filming your trailer, however, you first need to do some planning and preparation.

When creating your film trailer, you need to think about the full version of the film. You may not have developed the story yet but imagine you are presenting your idea to someone who will fund the making of the full version if your film. What will captivate them? How do you introduce your characters? How do you get the story across without giving too much away? Think about a trailer you’ve seen recently: What was good about it? Watch ...