Differences between teaser trailers and main trailers

Teaser trailers and theatrical trailers are often confused for each other in although there are clear differences of the two. Teaser trailers are, firstly, a lot shorter than any other type of trailer. They will generally be between 60-90 seconds long and have a much lower amount of information than that of longer trailers. Their purpose and intention is to create a ‘buzz’ around the film and begin popularity to increase eventual sales. A lot of the time it is not uncharacteristic for these types of trailers to use footage that won’t be in the eventual film as generally they are released half a year before the actual movies debut meaning shooting would not have been completed. But this simple gives the creates of the trailers more leverage in how vague they wish to make it as they are not restrained by issues such as plot explanation.

Theatrical trailers are, on the other hand, a lot longer averaging around 3 minutes, that have the clear intention of marking out a developed plot and giving insight to some of the details of the story. As well as this, they would try and create character identification, even at trailer level.  These trailers, unlike teasers are released a lot closer to the film’s release date (around 1-2 months before hand), this shows that it isn’t a practise just to build ‘buzz’ but mainly for a brief explanation of what the movie is.

Note the two trailers below, both are advertising the same film but immediately you can see obvious difference in length as well as a much more vague plot being reviled in the first. The points I previously suggested are backed up by the same or similar conventions displayed in these trailers.