1. Today’s Schedule LG: How do trailers work and when are they released?
Minds On (15 Min)
What Makes a Great Trailer?
Action
How and When (Teaching Trailers)
USPs
Group Activity: It’s all about timing
Consolidate
Results “It’s all about timing”
USP: Steps for determining a USP

2. How and When
Teaching Trailers

3. What makes a trailer great?
-action
- interest based scenes
- music > popular
- actors actresses
- directors
- company (Marvel)
- comedy
- text

4. Note: How do trailers help fill theatres?
Marketing campaigns may use a film’s genre to gain our interest, playing on elements that are familiar to an audience
At the same time, a marketing campaign also must show us how a new film is different to others in the same genre
This is known as the Unique Selling Point (USP)

5. Note: Unique Selling Points
The USP is what separates one film title from another released at a similar time or in the same genre
The USP could be many things, for example:
The innovative use of special effects
An unusual mix of genres
A popular actor/actress

6. USP (s)? 1 Unusual mix of genres historical and horror/action 2
special effects
tree exploding, explosions, animated setting

7. USP (s)? 1
25-40 times
USP is actress 2

8. USP (s)? 1 The USP is reviews from critics 2
awards from film festivals

9. Note: When are trailers released?
Most trailers are produced at the same time as the film is being edited
The timing of a trailer campaign is very important
It must be shown far enough in advance to generate excitement, but not so early that people forget about the film before it even comes out

10. What is the best time of year to release trailers?
Summer?
Fall?
Winter ?
Spring?
Break up into groups of 4
Compile a list of positive and negative aspects to releasing a movie in each of the 4 months
Try to think like a marketer and consider every detail/factor

12. Summer
For the big budget movies looking to break records the  summer season is from June to late July. 
Summer movies are marketed as events for a reason: kids are out of school, many parents are taking vacation time, etc. 
There is more money to be made because there are more butts to fill the seats. 
And marketing a movie as an event means that these people (us) don't want to miss out on something wonderful that everybody is talking about.

13. Winter
November through December are the key months for distributors looking to market their films for the upcoming award season. 
There is a demographic (target audience) that loves cinema and awards contenders. 
The films are usually coming from the major studio epics and dramas looking to win awards

14. Spring
In recent years, May  has been the beginning month and August is basically the last leap for studios now. 
While May is during the school year, studios understand the psyche of movie lovers, making them think that they're getting an early start to the UPCOMING summer blockbuster season. 
So while the weekday grosses won't be as grand as during the true summer months, they're betting on those first two weekends to recoup their costs.   

15. Fall Not a lot of advantages for producers in the fall
However, this does not mean that big blockbusters will shy away from this time period
If a movies seeks to set itself apart from others this is the season for it
Lower competition and higher percentage of “superfans” of a particular movie
Fans who would line up so see the movie regardless of when it was out

16. Reference
Ken Miyamoto, Working screenwriter, former studio reader/story analyst, former studio liaison, President of the WSF (

17. Unique Selling Points
Your Task: You are a film producer and you need to decide what Unique Selling Points You are going to use for your film trailer. However, you do not have enough time and must write instructions for your co-producer to do this.
You must write step by step instructions (min. 5) to determine which USP should be used in the trailer (with explanations why)
Here is a rough concept of the film you are doing the trailer for

18. “Grave Digger”
John Smith is haunted by nightmares of his parent’s death. Unaware that he is asleep, John sleepwalks to the local graveyard every night and begins digging up graves. When he wakes in the morning, he is covered in dirt and has no idea why until one morning he wakes up beside an open casket…