Most people who have studied the media or film are aware that the term ‘trailer’ came about due to the fact trailers came after the feature film people had come to watch. However there is much more to trailers than just this.
The first trailers started out as advertisements, initially for products but evolving into advertisements of other productions. By the 1930’s trailers had changed significantly and Professor Wheeler Winston Dixon once wrote that they “would showcase the stars, the special effects, whatever the film had to offer. And they would offer tantalizing glimpses of the movie, rather than a complete narrative rundown”. Durning this time the National Screen Service (NSS) met with major film studios and set the standard for how trailers and posters would be regulated for the next two decades.
In the 1960’s and 70’s, no longer controlled by the NSS’s 
rules, trailers began to become more experimental, often playing with or completely opposing the rules set out the the NSS. This became the norm for trailers, that is until the ‘JAWS’ trailer dropped in in the mid 1970’s.
The JAWS trailer demonstrated a new way of advertising a film. The trailer was almost a three minute mini movie, which revealed plenty of narrative and led the audience
to know exactly what they were letting themselves in for. This informs us that big money blockbusters can be held responsible for the “reveals to much” format modern trailers take.
Due to the huge sums of money put into movies and trailers in modern society, distributors feel they need to justify these big sums by showing the audience exactly what they’re in for and also show off the impressive locations, special effects and key narrative twists.
I have done further research into the history of film trailers and my finding are documented below:
A2 MEDIA ADVANCED PORTFOLIO 
Leave a comment