Researching Into Teaser Trailers

The aim of this task is to research into a number of teaser trailers, and then comparing and contrasting them. For this coursework piece my group for this project consists of the following people: Jay Coleman, Holly Killick and Christopher Ogori. To develop our understanding on teaser trailers and learn about the conventions, we found many examples of teaser trailers on a variety of sites. These included www.youtube.com and www.imdb.com. We watched the teaser trailers for Toy Story 3, Superman, The Dark Knight and 2012. From this, we discovered that most teaser trailers are significantly shorter than your regular trailer; they usually create enigma and suspense, allowing the audience to raise questions about the film and be eager to keep an eye out for the trailer and then the film.

We noticed that different genres determine how the teaser trailer is presented and what it consists of. For example; Toy Story 3 lacked showing of the narrative and storyline (possibly due to the film not have been completed yet) and just introduced characters that the audience are familiar with, as they are we known characters. New characters are also introduced, raising suspense and suspicion from the audience. However, the teaser trailer for 2012 was based on just the setting and soudtrack to create suspense and get a feel of what the atmosphere is to be like in the full feature. Both teaser trailers created an enigma through lack of narrative and storyline.