History of Movie Trailers

1910

• In 1910 Cinema’s were very minimal, only usually including one screen.• People would pay 5 cents and sit in the theatre as long as they

wanted. The films would play in a continuous loop and you watch these as many times as you desired.

Timetable

1913

• Considered year zero of the movie trailer. Nils Granlund made the first promotional film for the Broadway play “pleasure seekers”. This showed actual rehearsal footage.• Col. William Selig adapted a print serial “The Adventures of Kathleen”

into a film version. This was however the second print serial to be made. Each week there was a new episode and then the story would be continued in the Chicago Tribune. This was when the term Cliff- hanger was introduced.• At this time trailers would be shown at he end of a film and were

usually created by theatres themselves.

Timetable

1916

• By 1916 the movie studios themselves began to officially release trailers for upcoming films.• Despite this they were still pretty basic, including snippets of film with

some text overlaid such as the actors names and name of the film. This was due to very little money being in the business.

Timetable

1919

• The national screen service was started in 1919 by Herman Robbins.• They opened up an office in New York that took movie stills and

added in titles, then sold these trailers directly to theatres. Many studios happily signed deals to submit their films to the NSS to be made into a trailer.• The NSS dominated the business from the 1920s to the 1960s

creating a template style trailer with specific stylistic patterns like screen wipes and fly in titles.

Timetable

1927

• The 1927 film “The Jazz Singer” was the first ever movie trailer to use sound, causing a massive breakthrough in the business which they used to entice their audiences. • The trailer also used direct address in it.• These creations successfully created a new template for the industry

and other future trailers that would be made.

Timetable

1940

• It wasn’t until the 1940s when the National Screen Service tightened its dominated on studio trailer production.• Several innovations associated with classic Hollywood films were also

introduced including; the use of third person narrative and tile that flipped up onto the screen from below the frame.

Timetable

1960

• In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock directed the film “Psycho” and was just as famous as the people starring in the film. He didn’t want to make a trailer showing a load of clips that might give the film away and not do it justice.• Therefore he created a six and a half minute trailer that offered a

personal tour of the bates motel and the sinister looking house in the hill, complete with his gallows humour style hints to the gruesome events to come in the film.• This was a successful and unusual trailer due to Alfred Hitchcock’s

popularity and celebrity status.

Timetable

1962

• This was the time when Stanley Kubrick experimented with fragmented cutting styles in the trailer for the film “Lolita”. • This again created a new template for future trailers.

Timetable

1964

• “Gun fighters of casa Grande” was the first ever trailers to feature the tones from Don LaFontaine, who later set the standard for the trailer voiceovers and invented the phrase “in a world…” This eventually kicked off evert third trailer made after 1983.• This was the year that Kubrick also came back strong with the trailer

for “Dr Strangelove” which was said to be one of he most bold and brazen pieces of film advertising over made.

Timetable

1967

• “Bonnie and Clyde” was the first ever trailer to feature an anti-hero as censorship became lenient. • Also in he film “ The Gradute” more emphasis was placed on the

music.

Timetable