30 seconds to a successful film: How to make a compelling movie trailer

The other day I wrote about The 9 things you need to do if you really want to be a film maker. The very last item, Making a Bad Ass Trailer, may be most important item on the list.  In fact, despite my continuing mantra of finish the film that I keep harping on, making a bad ass trailer may actually be more important than finishing the film itself.  The reason I say this is I’ve had friends get work, or offers of investment purely off of a really awesome trailer for films that were not yet even finished.

A trailer only needs to be 30 seconds.  There has to be at least 30 seconds of really awesome stuff in the hours and hours of footage you shot.  Make everyone want to see your movie.  Make the movie seem larger than life.   If someone sees your movie and is disappointed because they had high expectations from the trailer…so what!  At least they saw your movie.  You can accomplish this by doing the following:

• Study other trailers - Watch the trailers of big movies.  What makes you want to see a movie?  Think about it…its just a 30 second advertisement.  What makes you want to see a movie in those thirty seconds?  What immediately turns you off?
• Sell the sizzle - Put the really cool shots in the trailer.  Put the really cool lines of dialog.  Do not explain the plot. People in marketing always say, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak”.  The sizzle is the really cool stuff that makes your movie look awesome.  The steak is the plot.  All you want is for people to kinda get the gist of what is going on.
• Build curiosity - I’ve talked about this in a previous article: The cloverfield method of marketing.  Lets say in your movie a witch casts some crazy spell that awakens a giant evil crocodile that comes out of the lake and attacks some campers.  The trailer should basically be cool shots of a witch doing a creepy thing and some campers being attacked by something.  You are telling your audience, “Something attacks some kids, and its scary”.  That’s all they need to know.  Furthermore, the less they know the more it builds curiosity.  I definitely would not show the crocodile, or give any hints as to the fact that its a crocodile attacking.  You want the audience to ask “What is attacking them?  What is that witch doing?” If they ask those questions, then the only way to have them answered is to see the movie.

Remember, there is nothing more important to your filmmaking career than getting the most people possible to want to see your film.  You must convince your target audience that your movie is worth investing their valuable time (and hopefully their valuable money).  There is no better vehicle to do this than a really great trailer.

Thinking about distribution? Check out FilmSpecific.com

I can’t recall exactly how I first found out about Stacey Parks, but wherever it was I instantly signed up for her newsletter. Something sparked my interest in her news letter that made me comment on her blog. She contacted me shortly thereafter and sent me a link to her new website, Film Specific. It’s something you really have to check out.

Stacey’s background is as a foreign sales agent, and she is currently employed as a sales executive for BBC worldwide. She’s also recently written a book: The Insider’s Guide to Independent Film Distribution

For the past month I’ve had the opportunity to check out Film Specific and in general I was impressed with what I saw. In the free section there is a 10 Part Distribution Crash Course that is an excellent primer on how to think about distribution, and make plans even before you start shooting.

When I first logged on last month, the info was a little sparse…but alot has changed in a month. There is a reasonably good amount of articles, even in the free section.

The member area has some very useful and unique information. The featured article archive, and ezines have some excellent articles. The case studies section is good, but as of right now there are only a few of them. I’d like to see more. The TV sales projections is just a short list of estimated figures, but if you know what to do with that its worth the price of admission on its on.

Unfortunately, two of the parts I was very interested in seeing, the distributor and sales agent profiles, as of this writing are a bit sparse. I think that those two sections were a bit too ambitious of an undertaking, as it just tends to be hard to get information from distributors on what they are looking for (because the answer is ‘what will make us money’).

On the technical side the site is pretty well organized. The only real negative thing I have to say about it in a technical regard is that the member section has a javascript pop-up when your session is about to time out. It takes priority over your screen and makes it your active window. As a person who tends to keep a few hundred websites open at once, I found this to be pretty annoying. If I’m going to time out and be logged out…then just let me log out.

But negative website comments aside, I think Film Specific is a good resource for indie filmmakers who new to the world of distribution. I also intend soon to purchase her book, as well as another one of her e-books, so look for a review on that to come soon.