When you watch a movie trailer, do you listen to the music?

If you thought the average Hollywood studio just used the film soundtrack for trailers, think again. A good trailer is a “two minute advertisement” and a trailer score has to suit that marketing promo. The action and dialogue might become the core part of the trailer, but the pacing and conveyed emotions are often dictated by the music

What is the importance of music in a trailer?

What does it add in terms of enticing the viewers? The music chosen for a trailer, along with visuals edited together, form an important basis for branding the film’s identity. However, unlike the visual component, the music accompanying the picture can originate from any source, and very rarely is drawn from the film’s soundtrack. Music is integral in creating the aural impression the producers wish to convey to a potentially paying audience. In the space of two minutes, the music interacts with the visuals to create an advertisement style that reaches out to the intended demographic. With the popularity of fast-cutting, MTV-style editing most prevalent in trailers today, it is crucially important for the music to be able to support and sustain the energy presented in the visuals. For example, in presenting the next summer blockbuster, because there is not much time to “set up” a music track, trailer producers usually gravitate towards either fast-paced, explosive action cues, or huge sounding epic orchestral cues that caste the subject matter in a heroic light.For a romantic comedy, the music chosen will usually instantly convey the “two people from different backgrounds in conflict then coming together” formula with either a light orchestral track or a catchy and evocative pop song. Often times, several TV spots will be produced for a film, each utilizing different styles of music to reach a different demographic, i.e. the male under 25 crowd by using a power metal track, or the female audience by accenting the relationship between the two main characters. For each targeted demographic, the music alters the face of the visuals and presents the film in a different, marketable way.

The recent hot trend is what is called “hybrid”. This incorporates cinematic elements such as orchestra and choir, along with contemporary electronic arrangements found in modern rock, techno and urban music. The reason is that this still identifies the film as a uniquely cinematic experience worth seeing in the theater, yet shows that it is hip, cool and trendy. This is especially true for the more action-packed, CGI effects driven films.Big name bands are always sought after for use in a film’s marketing materials, and the cost of licensing many bands has gone down over the past two years, in concert with the sales declines on the retail record side. Usually, but not always, if a band song is used in the film, the producers will seek the right to utilize the material in the marketing campaign. Trailers are advertising, and famous songs and bands are always in demand in order to tie in a familiarity for the audience, and also to kind of deceive the viewer into thinking they will hear that song in the film.

Organization and the Best of Documentary Film

The best documentary films do not have an implicit organizational structure from the beginning because they usually do not have a script. Instead the best documentary films are an exploration into a subject and set of characters and a collage of different pieces of media, all sewn together into one project. This can be a little overwhelming for a documentary film director as he begins to look at what he has and how he is going to create an actual film out of it. To do this effectively you must put together an organizational strategy that takes you through pre-production, physical production, and post-production. Here are a few tips to help you organize your documentary film.

Documentary Pre-Production Tips

The best organizational tips for documentary film comes in pre-production. Just as in narrative film pre-production, you will want to as much as you possibly can during pre-production. This does not just mean making content, finding sources, and working out contractual agreements. More than this you should research the documentary subject, and all associated subjects, as well as you possibly can. This way you can find the root of your story and ideas so you can then chip it away from the general whole. You may come into documentary pre-production with a general idea of the topic, but you are not sure exactly what you want to do with it. Here you need to look through the information, see what stands out, and how it connects to your own ideas and things you would like to express. This will help you organize your efforts and guide you during the production phase. This does not have to be absolute as you are also going to find an even more precise way when in production. A good tip to follow is get an idea of who may be the characters, what larger “human truths” or ideas may be in this story, and what you are going to want to go after.

Shot Lists

Shot lists may be important to organize your documentary production, but only in so much as they will not restrict you. If you are going into filming without any idea of what you may want to get then a shot list is going to be critical. Over all you should have a general idea of what kinds of things you would want to get out of each documentary shoot. Make a physical list of some of these images that you want and keep them in a binder along with interview questions, curiosities, and photo release forms. This is going to be more important on later shoots where you have a much clearer idea of where your documentary project is going and what you are going to need for that. A good tip to follow is to try and create a shot list of a whole host of shots that you may not even need and then over shoot around them. This will allow you to have more than enough in the editing room, though this is going to make post-production complicated.

Documentary Outline

The documentary outline may be the most crucial organizational and story based piece in your project. This outline will lay out the film you want to create in your editing phases. If you are doing a more historical documentary then you can actually try to prepare a fairly complete outline during the pre-production research phases for your documentary film. If you are doing a more character driven, emotional, or abstract piece you can do this once a lot of things have been shot. It is good to have a general idea early on and you may want to jot some things down so you have something to look at when preparing each shoot. Before you get into heavy editing it is good to have a fairly air tight documentary outline, though this can change when you are actually editing.

Editing Your Documentary

Documentary film is going to use a lot of footage, both shot by your production team and found, when putting together the project. This means that organizing your editing space may be the most important organizational element in your production. After you import and capture your footage break it up into small sub clips that are labeled so that they can be clearly seen as to what they contain. This is especially true for interviews where each question and answer should be included in its own sub clip. Use tape log notes and clip labeling to indicate the quality of the clip and what’s on it.