Trailer Definitions

There are two types of trailers, a theatrical trailer and a teaser trailer:

Theatrical Trailer - a short promotional film composed of clips showing highlights of a movie due for release in the near future. Theatrical trailers are shown to promote the films release to cinemas throughout the country. A theatrical trailer is usually released approximately a month prior to the release of the film and will give a more specific release date e.g. August.

Teaser Trailer - A teaser trailer is a truncated version of a theatrical trailer intended to entice the audience about an upcoming movie and to begin hype on major films.

A teaser trailer is usually a lot shorter than a theatrical trailer, sometimes less than a minute long, whereas theatrical trailers are conventionally at least 2 minutes long and can be up to about 4-5 minutes. Its main purpose is to obviously tease the audience with very short snippets of the film by revealing a minimal amount of the plot line as possible.

During a teaser trailer, producers,actors/actresses etc are commonly exploited to create immediate interest to the audience. The time when a teaser is released can usually be up to 18 months prior to the release date of the film, and the trailer would say for example "coming soon"or "this summer" etc