Over 700 films were released in 2019, according to the Motion Picture Association of America—roughly 150 more than 2010. In less than a decade, there were 30% more movies each year. To put in perspective: by 2030, a thousand new movies each year will flood the market. That’s just for movies that obtain a rating from the Motion Pictures Association of America. The numbers do not account for the “indie” titles that overwhelm the festivals each year. For instance, the Sundance Film festival, alone, each year, receives over 3,000 feature film submissions. But that pales in comparison to the amount released on the internet. Each year, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu releases hundreds of films, TV series, documentaries, pushing the total haul into the thousands. Never mind YouTube, where millions of users upload 500 hours of video per minute—every minute. Hour after hour. That’s 30,000 hours, per hour. All of it, ostensibly, for free.

The filmmaker, the producer, the movie-executive looks at those numbers with a lump in his throat. Quickly, he tries to rationalize: most of those movies, movie-media, cannot possibly be any good. The producer would be right. Most of what is released, most of what is uploaded, is bad. Subjectivity not withstanding—and, as the reader will see, having absolutely nothing to do with anything—most of what is released each year is bad, is poorly done, is not deserving of any attention. From the backyard production to the most expensive film in Hollywood—most of it is undisciplined jettison. The filmmaker, the producer, the executive, can safely assume 99.9% of what is released will disappoint whoever consumes it.

But, that does not matter.

Movies—video-media, content, films, however one puts it—are temporal. Their consumption requires time. Their digestion requires even more. It takes experience to find out something is bad or good. And even at that, no one really knows. All those movies, irrespective of their quality, require a consumption not of themselves—but of time.

The competition is not against those movies. It’s against the tens of thousands of hours those movies themselves individually command in attention. Which, when tabulated, would require over a single year of constant viewing just to get through. Five thousand movies would equate to, roughly, 10,000 hours of film. That’s 400 days of straight viewing.

And by then, there would still be more, newer movies to sit through, to sift about, to digest.

It would literally never end.

Simply, a movie cannot compete on quality. It is a meaningless qualifier that will never be discovered or understood. It is an afterthought.

A movie must compete on time. The competition of Hollywood, of entertainment, is not a battle for attention, money, fame, or power. It is a war for time.

And time, is non-negotiable.

The box office is not a reflection of dollars earned, but of time spent. The top films dominated not just money—although, the coffers certainly suggest that—but rather, and more importantly, time. When the latest AVENGERS sequel tops the box office, it is not a reflection of just money spent, but of time invested. Which is a far greater investment when one considers how limited the hours of our lives are. Simply, box office success reflects how people wanted to spend their leisure—for better or worse.

When it comes to movie success—money is not the problem. Time is. Money is only the prize; time is the battleground.

It is for this reason movie trailers are so dynamic. They are short. They are a compression of what may be. If trailers didn’t exist, they would have to be invented. There is a reason they evolved right along with Hollywood. They save time. Movies are amorphous, opaque, unquantifiable bloats—they might as well all be bad. Trailers are direct, punctual, qualifiable propositions. They are helpful sales letters on the route to quality entertainment.

But what is a trailer? How is it defined? It is taken for granted in the industry that a movie trailer is a commercial, an advertisement, for a film that is to be released in the future. Indeed, the word “trailer” is unfortunate. It originated because previews, these mini movies, at one point in time, played after the main feature. They trailed, as it were, the film reel of the main feature. Somehow, it stuck with movie people; now movie previews are ubiquitously referred to as “trailers.”

As a result, the word “trailer,” outside the industry, gives off the wrong impression. Ask any normal person what a trailer is, and they will assume it’s something they see on the highway, trailing behind a utility truck. It certainly does not reflect any of the glamour or prestige of future entertainment.

The word “trailer,” for most people, evokes completely different concepts.

But what concept is it supposed to evoke? A clip show? A highlight reel? A commercial? A montage? What, after all, is a preview of coming attractions?

It is a concept that has developed surreptitiously. In 1913, publicist Nils Thor Granlund produced the first trailer by showing rehearsal footage for an upcoming musical called The Pleasure Seekers. It was enough to simply show footage related to the coming attraction. The practice grew to using footage from the actual movie; then introduced copy, music, and ultimately, dialogue. In 1927, with the words, “Ladies and gentlemen,” THE JAZZ SINGER was the first movie trailer to sell its wares with recorded voice. The first instinct was for that voice to call THE JAZZ SINGER one of the year’s most “outstanding pictures.”

From the beginning, trailers were made to signal the existence of a movie. They were created because they needed to be. The filmmakers, the stars, the producers, the executives, everyone involved, even way back then, understood this simple tenet: Movies do not succeed based on the movies themselves. They need promotion. They need trailers.

As in all fields, the product is secondary; it is promotion that takes center stage. When a movie takes off in its opening weekend at the box office, it is because of the promotion of that movie. A film is not rewarded for its quality. It is rewarded for the quality of its marketing. That a film “grows legs” through “word of mouth” is just another extension of effective marketing. The film had a message, it resonated with ticket buyers; the filmgoer became the film’s promoter. When a movie does well with word of mouth, it is due to publicity. Word of mouth is little more than the filmgoer picking up where the promoter left off. In the case of word-of-mouth, the people are doing the promoting.

Each year, Hollywood spends more and more money on making movies. In 2019, Hollywood spent $65 billion. But, in that same year, they only shelled out a little under one billion for advertising. A comparatively small amount. Year after year, Hollywood wastes more resources than necessary on making movies, overlooking one single fact: People pay to see a movie. Not to have seen it.

Without trailers, all movies would perish upon release. Those thousands of new films would cannibalize each other into oblivion; audiences would simply give up out of confusion. The world of film would concentrate around a blurry composite, a veritable trash-heap of camouflaged cinema, a veiled, errant haze of which only the most idle would dare penetrate.

Without trailers, Hollywood would cease to exist.

For a movie to have any kind of chance, it requires a well-oiled, highly refined movie trailer. There’s no other way. It is only through a trailer that a movie does any kind of speaking to any kind of public. It is only through the trailer that a movie communicates its existence, entices, and directs.

In the days when there were fewer movies, people had time to—indeed, were forced to—take in and actually digest a movie. Discussion centered around whether a movie was bad or good. Now, that kind of discussion is reserved for the limited few movies that break through the clutter, if that. Conversation today, for the vast majority of films, centers around the trailer—and only the trailer. Whether it’s a good trailer, a bad trailer, whether it reveals too much, or too little, whether the movie “looks” good, or whether it “looks” bad. Film commerce has long since passed the era of the film-as-king, the film-as-event. Today, it is all about the trailer. The trailer is the content.

Making one, however, is all together a different matter.

When a filmmaker sets out to make a trailer, he will confront a sizable wall. If he is honest with himself, there will be great tension. Of course, not all filmmakers, producers, and executives are honest with themselves. Especially the filmmaker. He will believe that the trailer is something that can be artistically assembled over the weekend, with a few trailer worthy shots here, a few creative edits there, and some music for exciting measure. He will believe that the trailer—his trailer—is an artful showcase of a movie well done.

It is no such thing.

Of course, artistic design is crucial. But it is even more crucial the trailer’s artistic design be wrapped around expert salesmanship. This salesmanship motivated by age-old principles of attention, interest, desire, and action. The mark of a good trailer is its ability to do what any sales-literature does for its product—direct attention, garner interest, conjure desire, and motivate action. That is the formula. Sales are the main concern—not artistic expression, not artistic reception. Trailers can be art, but they must never be art in and of themselves. A good trailer sells. A bad trailer does nothing but squawk and make noise.

While some people might derive a great deal of entertainment out of watching movie trailers, that should never confuse the purpose of a trailer. Everything in the design of a trailer should be done so through the purpose of promotion. Too often trailers try to entertain, bemuse, amuse, delight. They are to inform, educate, direct, stimulate. Trailers are best when their intent is to persuade, not to fascinate. The orientation is about selling movie tickets, not entertaining an audience. The trailer must be seen as a promotional tool.

For a trailer to simply clamber for attention is not enough. It must get attention, and then direct that attention in some fashion. Too often trailers just aim to garner recognition; they do nothing with it. Urgency and direction are needed. A trailer must say, “Look here, look there.” Not, “Look at me, look at me.”

To simply arouse curiosity is not enough. Expectation must be created. The difference between the two being that curiosity is idle bemusement; expectation excites, directs. A trailer has to triangulate desire to see a film by arousing concrete expectations; expectations that demand fulfillment; fulfillment only possible by viewing the actual motion picture. A good trailer places expectations in the mind of the viewer; it does not beat them over the head with sound and noise. Expectation stimulates the imagination. Movie trailers project in the mind just as much as they do on screen.

The audience wants information, not intrigue. They need that information to build a model in their mind of what the story will be—spoilers and all. Simply, a film cannot exist without some sort of prior positioning. Not only is a trailer a tool of promotion, but it’s also the means by which audiences form expectations about the film they’re about to watch. If movies were sold 100% on mystery, there would be no need for trailers (or movies themselves). Audiences would simply go to the multiplex, then, based on just the title, pick a film at random. This would lead to a lot of frustrated patrons. Quality trailers instill anticipation; selling story instills that anticipation.

There is nothing more complicated in entertainment than producing a movie trailer. Maybe writing a script. Maybe editing a film. But unlike either one of those, little has been written or explained on how to make a trailer. It’s one of the few remaining dark arts of moviemaking.

The hardest job the trailer producer will face when making a trailer is coming up with an appeal. Indeed, “what” is being sold when selling a movie? This is not an easy question. And made no easier by the various influences that go into making a trailer. Everyone will have different ideas. The executive was moved to share a vision with the world. The film, made by other filmmakers, was motivated by a competing vision—and it’s always a competing vision. The audience, spending money on tickets, is motivated by the desire to be entertained, and to be entertained in the way they want to be entertained. All three of them are involved in the same conspiracy. The executive believes that what was a hit yesterday, will be tomorrow. She does this because of the box office numbers. The filmmaker, inspired by countless movies, can only ever make a movie based on what she already knows—other movies. The audience, on the other hand, is dealing with its own nostalgic crisis. While the executive is typically concerned with financial inspirations, the audience has a similar, while inversely, informed hope: they want more of what moved them yesterday. It is a safe bet. Like executives, audiences as well must invest time and money, and can only make those investments based on what has already happened. It is all those audiences know. It is all they can know. And because executive, filmmaker, and audience can only ever try to understand what the other wants, because these three forces can never, realistically align, these combined forces are characterized, typified, powered, reasoned through, built up, by making assumptions. The executives can only guess what will work, as she is working toward a future goal; the filmmakers can only make such a good movie; and the audience—that amorphous blob that has yet to uniquely assemble en masse and buy tickets for the present film—has yet to vocalize, or prove, what it is they want. They are not sure and will not be until the movie is over. Therefore, as legendary screenwriter William Goldman once said about the industry: “No one knows nothing.”

But the trailer producer must know. Because at the confluence of these inspirations is where the trailer producer will find herself. A trailer must be produced; and it must be produced with accuracy, devoid of any inspiration beyond what is potentially unifying these three forces. The trailer producer must do so through creative action; by assembling dialogue, selecting music, selecting rhythm, curating edits, writing effective copy, designing eye-catching titles, mixing, mastering, and delivering. The trailer producer must do this work through the powers-that-be, by working with the film that is available, and then somehow by harnessing and translating the two, hoping to meet the third, the audience—who want something, but are, as of yet, unwilling to share what those wants are. Simply, the trailer producer must triangulate competing desires into a competitive and motivating two minutes of cinema. Because ultimately, it is through the trailer producer where all effective pressures of moviemaking—and moviegoing—converge. It is up to—and usually left to—the trailer producer to sell the motion picture to the moviegoing public. Herculean in nature, the task involves corralling up all available energies behind the movie and funneling them through a sales process; everyone, all the while, hoping that success will be on the other end. No small feat. But it must be done; and it must be understood.

While everyone can miss the point, the trailer producer must catch the boat. She must have a deep understanding of what she is attempting to do. She must know exactly what her aim has to be. Because what is being sold in a trailer? A movie? An experience? An actor? Entertainment? Fun? Horror? Action? Suspense? To whom, and where? And why would they be interested in what is being sold? It is up to the trailer producer to not only know these answers, but to do so with a global scope. She must know what is behind the executive’s ideas. She must know what is behind the—as of now—concrete nature of the film’s very existence (a finished film is a finished film; no amount of money can change that). She must know what will then be appealing about that film, so that she can share that, and the enthusiasm for it, with the world.

A trailer producer must understand exactly what is motivating everyone involved when it comes to moviemaking, and moviegoing.

First, she must consider the executive. What motivates her? The art? The money? Both? It is hard to say. While one would think money, that is not always the case. Some executives genuinely love movies. Otherwise, they would be selling some other commodity. A better question would be, “What does she base her decisions on?” Again, the past is looked to. More specifically, and more rationally, the box office. The grosses of past films. The most obvious list to consult is the top ten highest grossing of all time.

1) Avatar — $2,845,899,541

2) Avengers: Endgame — $2,797,800,564

3) Titanic — $2,207,986,545

4) Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens — $2,064,615,817

5) Avengers: Infinity War — $2,044,540,523

6) Jurassic World — $1,669,979,967

7) The Lion King (2019) — $1,654,367,425

8) Furious 7 — $1,516,881,526

9) The Avengers — $1,515,100,211

10) Frozen II — $1,445,182,280

This list says what has sold, and, according to theory, what will continue to sell tomorrow. And according to the list, that will, except for AVATAR and TITANIC, be a succession of sequels and remakes. This is a sobering thought. Especially to the executive. Even if she loves movies, even if she wants to do something original, this list must be lurking around somewhere in her mind. It is what the people want. Ostensibly.

Second, the trailer producer must understand the finished film. What influences it? Because it is a movie, and it was made by a filmmaker, by theory, the trailer producer can safely assume that other movies are influencing the finished film. But what of other movies? What were their appeals? How were they sold? How did they do it?

Third, the trailer producer must have a deep understanding of the audience. It is easy to find what they want, as one only has to again consult the list of the ten highest grossing films of all time. Why did audiences award these films with the highest grosses of all time? According to the list, they want sequels and remakes. Another STAR WARS, another JURASSIC PARK, another LION KING, another FAST AND FURIOUS. They want, alas, more of what worked yesterday. But what was that? What was the appeal? What did work yesterday so well that people are turning back to it today?

For that answer, it would be best to consult the same list—but this time adjusted for inflation.

1) Gone with the Wind — $3,739,000,000

2) Avatar — $3,286,000,000

3) Titanic — $3,108,000,000

4) Star Wars — $3,071,000,000

5) Avengers: Endgame — $2,823,000,000

6) The Sound of Music — $2,572,000,000

7) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — $2,511,000,000

8) The Ten Commandments — $2,377,000,000

9) Doctor Zhivago — $2,253,000,000

10) Star Wars: The Force Awakens — $2,221,000,000

This list reflects a more accurate representation of what the moviegoing public actually wants. At least, it reflects, a little better, overall tastes—past and present. Of course, it does not account for the changing landscape of media (people had less competing for their attention when GONE WITH THE WIND dominated theaters). But it does begin to indicate an interest in something beyond just aliens, sequels, and remakes. It shows that these are the films that endured; these are the films the viewing public, over a century of film-going, wanted. If the list reveals anything, it is that the audience does not just want sequels and remakes of past hits. To the contrary, the list shows, for the most part, a hunger for original programming.

But what of original programming? What, still, is the appeal of GONE WITH THE WIND? DOCTOR ZHIVAGO? What, still, was the appeal of E.T.? At least so much so that audiences ran out and spent billions of dollars watching them? What about STAR WARS, one of the most successful films of all time? Again, and again, the same question is asked, “What was the appeal?” If the trailer maker’s job is to give the people what they want, then she must first understand what it is that the people want. She must understand what “the appeal” is.

Digging deeper, one could argue that this list reflects crass marketing appeal. The list represents films that were advertised to death. Ushered along by major corporations, these are the films whose studios paid for their attraction, ostensibly. Certainly, that case could be made for AVENGERS: END GAME; even more so for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS; they are both sequels in firmly established film franchises, carrying high stakes that necessitated bundles of marketing dollars. Indeed, one could argue that these two films had a built-in appeal. They were going to be successful—regardless.

So, perhaps another list is worth considering. That of the 6th highest grossing weekend totals. It shows what hung around, five weeks after the initial hype left. This list, unlike the first two lists, reveals what endured after the marketing apparatus were slightly relieved. The following list shows weekend grosses, not overall.

1) American Sniper — $64,628,304

2) Avatar — $42,785,612

3) Titanic — $30,010,633

4) Gran Torino — $29,484,388

5) The Sixth Sense — $29,271,146

6) Black Panther — $26,650,690

7) Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens — $26,342,117

8) Paranormal Activity — $21,104,070

9) The Avengers — $20,486,418

10) Frozen — $19,642,107

This list reveals what had staying-power, absent any aggressive marketing, absent—for the most part—aliens. This list shows films that, in industry jargon, “had legs.” They netted, for whatever reason, vast word of mouth. They resonated.

However, one could still argue that the public was feeling the after-effects of a massive advertising campaign—the trailers were still being shown, the posters still being promoted, at least, somewhere. With that, one moves to a different list. That of what grossed the highest, in its 33rd weekend. The following are weekend totals.

1) My Big Fat Greek Wedding — $5,854,005

2) Forrest Gump — $3,044,280

3) Raiders of the Lost Ark — $1,788,556

4) Chariots of Fire — $1,751,755

5) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — $1,368,496

6) The Sixth Sense — $1,280,780

7) Saving Private Ryan — $1,177,743

8) Titanic — $1,168,551

9) The Lion King — $1,108,308

10) Arthur — $933,000

This is a bewildering list, and completely incongruent with the top ten highest grossing films of all time—adjusted or not. Indeed, nothing on the list is a sequel, nothing on the list is a remake. The films are original and came, seemingly, out of nowhere. They also had transcended enough time to defy aspersions of having been marketed to their position. If any list is worth looking at to get a sense of what it is the public wants, to get a sense for how to make the correct appeal, this is the list to look to. It is, after all, what the public wanted. The list reflects what some group of people, at some point in time, independently wanted (independent of some corporation marketing to them). Not just aliens, not just ghosts, not just explosions. At 33 weeks in, people were still seeking these films out, and therefore, by definition, these films, their grosses, tell us more about what people, in the long run, were and are looking for. Content not marked by just aliens or ghosts, but content marked by all sorts of subjects. Indeed, the sporadic sorts of subject bellies a confusion about what kind of content is of the most interest.

The executive looking at the list, the filmmaker looking at the list, the trailer producer, then asks what these films have in common. What does THE SIXTH SENSE share with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN? What does TITANIC hold with E.T.? What unites any of those films on the list? Not all had special effects. Very few in fact. Not all were ‘period’ pieces—THE SIXTH SENSE and MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING are set in the present. Certainly not all were sequels or remakes. ARTHUR, after all, is a picture about a drunk who sobers up and finds love; his story came out of nowhere. Not all are fantasy—SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and TITANIC are based on real events; FORREST GUMP takes its cues from reality, even if the central character is fictional. Indeed, few commonalities are found within any of these films.

Not even the old fallback of movie stars selling tickets can be assumed. How does one explain E.T., a film that went out of its way to be without stars (it famously cut out a scene with Harrison Ford)? Or for that matter, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, AVATAR, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, THE LION KING, and most of the films on that list? Tom Hanks was in the nascent stages of his star power with FORREST GUMP. Leonardo DiCaprio was still an unknown in TITANIC. Only THE SIXTH SENSE, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK could potentially be explained by their star power. And when one does look at the campaigns of those films, the stars were not heavily utilized.

The films in the list are clearly not unified by “star power.”

What then remains?

What is the appeal of these films?

It is simply this: they are all classically designed. Which Robert McKee defines as, “a story built around an active protagonist who struggles against primarily external forces of antagonism to pursue his or her desire, through continuous time, within a consistent and causally connected fictional reality, to a closed ending of absolute, irreversible change." Simply, a classically designed story is about a character or characters against the world, any world—so long as it’s consistent—told to a resolute finish. Cole must help the ghosts who haunt him in THE SIXTH SENSE. Elliot must find a way to get E.T home. Jack and Rose must escape the sinking ship in TITANIC, or else. ARTHUR wins the affections of the girl, despite their class differences. The platoon in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN must navigate a war-torn Europe, fighting off the encroaching Nazis. And FORREST GUMP, despite the prejudices against his handicaps, blissfully puzzles through a 20th century landscape, influencing and changing history. The films on the list, indeed any list of financially successful films, are told through classical design.