Features of a Teaser Trailer

A Sense of Mystery

With a teaser trailer, the film is advertised without giving too much away and because of this, it usually means there is footage shown that isn’t necessarily in the actual film. You can often find that teaser trailers are full of quick cuts so that in theory, the trailer is only giving the audience hints and therefore serves its purpose of teasing and intriguing the target audience. Teaser Trailers can also be made before the film is actually finished and a good example would be the teaser trailer for The Da Vinci Code, as it was released before a single frame of the movie had been shot.

The Length

You normally expect a teaser trailer to be around 30-60 seconds long and because it is so short, it successfully grabs the full attention of the audience. They are also usually shown long before the film comes out and these teaser trailers therefore complete their job of ‘teasing’ the audience and adding hype to an upcoming release. A Teaser trailer like The Dark Knight is just under a minute long.

Vague Release Dates

The date of the film release is not always specific and this is again because the director’s aim is to leave the audience on edge. Instead of a date like ‘the 18^th of November,’ the teaser trailer will just say ‘November’ or ‘Coming Soon’ which follows shortly after the appearance of the title of the film which means that the two important bits of information in the trailer are the lasting thoughts in the audience’s minds and will therefore most likely remain in the audience’s minds until the film is shown.