How to Make a Blockbuster Movie Trailer In 12 Easy Steps

With 3000+ movies coming out each year, the most crucial aspect of a movie is its trailer. Good trailer? There’s a chance the film will be seen. Bad or, worse, no trailer? No chances of the film being seen. But how does a filmmaker go about making a trailer? Here are 12 easy steps.

1) Isolate and Arrange the Dialogue – The first step of making any trailer is to turn off the movie’s images. Don’t bother with them. They won’t help. Instead, focus on the dialogue. And just the dialogue. Seek out talk of exposition—facts about the story, about the characters. Then arrange this dialogue so it tells a story. Mark a progression of vague to specific. This is what you mold around the three-act structure—not the trailer itself. Situation. Problem. Crisis.

2) Select Two Types of Visuals – Now go back and look at the film’s visuals. Look for motion, movement—both with the characters and the camera work. Choose these images based on two categories—IMPACTS and PICTURES. Impacts are shots where elements in the visual connect—someone getting punched, someone smashing through a window, a gun firing, etc. PICTURES are more static but nevertheless arresting images. There’s movement, to be sure. But no collisions occur. Instead, these are shots where, for example, a character turns, or shots of sunsets, buildings, etc.

3) Identify The Trailer’s Rhythm – Don’t worry about where music comes in. You first need to establish rhythm. And this is especially important if you don’t have music. If you have music, you first must identify its beats per minute. You do this in a program like Logic. You can find a great deal of royalty free music on a site like Envato. If you DON’T have music… then…

4) Make the Music – This, while difficult, is usually the way to go. There’s an entire art to it, but trailer music is simpler than it first appears. Much of a trailer’s soundtrack can be made up of repetitive noises. Of course, a knowledge of some music theory helps (although, you really only have to know the C Minor scale).

5) Use the Music to Space Out the Dialogue – Pace out the dialogue according to either your music, or your beats per minute. Have each piece of dialogue end just before the next, first beat. Or, if there’s music, listen for the beat. And make sure you place the dialogue just before it picks up again.

6) Layer In the Visuals – First, start with your impacts. Use these shots to enunciate the end of a piece of dialogue. That is, someone says something—impact shot. Someone says something—impact shot happens. Or put another way—character says something like, “This just keeps getting better and better”—suddenly something explodes. Rinse, repeat. Then, layer in the picture shots in between the impacts. Use those shots to bridge the impacts.

7) Add Impact Sound Effects – Enunciate each impact shot with a sound effect. Identify each transition with a “whoosh.” Drop in your risers to demarcate “acts” in the trailer. Riser 1 for act 1, Riser 2 for act 2, riser 3 to finalize the trailer. Many great trailer sound effects can be found at https://www.boomlibrary.com/. You’ll find a great deal of inspiration in just listening to their sounds.

8) Write The Copy – That is, you write the “loglines” or the “titles.” This is the, “In a world where,” or the, “Get ready.” This takes a study of copywriting—that is, writing advertisements. I recommend reading up on Dan Kennedy’s copywriting techniques to create punchy, memorable ad writing.

9) Turn the Copy into Cinematic Titles – Use a program like After Effects or Motion, or even your video editor’s text editor, and stylize the titles. This is fairly self-explanatory, but it demands a study unto itself. Read into “grid theory.” Look up John McWade, read all of his stuff. Also, watch Andrew Kramer’s tutorials on title design.

10) Mix the Audio – By now the trailer is coming together. But before all is finished, ensure that dialogue, sound effects, and music are all on separate audio tracks. That is, they are exported or treated separately. This will make mixing a doable process. Make sure to “duck” the audio out beneath each line of dialogue so everything the people in the trailer say can be heard. Clearly. Hint—don’t just turn the volume down; instead, learn about sound frequencies, where the human voice lies, and just lower that range. This is what the pro mixers do.

11) Master the Audio – Very crucial step. Put the trailer’s audio into a program like iZotope Ozone and pick one of the “mastering” presets. You’ll automatically notice the difference between mastered and unmastered. Hint: this is why Hollywood movie trailers sound so good.

12) Market – Crucial of all—market your trailer! It’s not enough to just have it and be done. You have to market the marketing!

I hope this provides you a guide in making the trailer for your next blockbuster movie trailer and and in your competing with the major movie trailers out there. If this is helpful, drop us a note at trailers@acrolightpictures.com.