Analysis of teaser trailers in horror

Here are a few more videos of analyses of teaser trailers.
Here is 'Resident Evil: Afterlife':



I filmed this just after uploading this to youtube and added the 'Inception' analysis to my blog on an earlier post, just to clear up any confusion from what I mentioned at the start of the video.

To clarify points I loosely made:
The shots of the teaser are in time with the beats of the music, whether it's an actual song or whether it's just sound effects like the beginning, throughout the whole trailer. Almost every cut is in time with a beat of some sort.
Click here to go to youtube and watch the trailer yourself, if you so desire.

Analysis of teaser trailers

Some of the general teaser trailers I looked at included:
Resident Evil: Afterlife,
Cloverfield,
Shaun of the dead,
Tron,
Prince of Persia,
Superhero Movie,
Inception.

These trailers gave me a good idea of the codes and conventions within a teaser trailer over a range of genre's. Here is a video showing my analysis of the 'Inception' trailer, explaining the codes and conventions:

You may have to make this full screen to see clearly.

On some additional notes, Inception is a sci-fi (science fiction) film written, produced and directed by Christopher Nolan. In this trailer it's things like people flying around a corridor, the tilted glass of water and curvy buildings that bring out the sci-fi part of the film. All these things mess with your mind and play tricks on you, which is one thing that sci-fi does well - being out of the ordinary.

By clicking here you can be directed to YouTube to watch the teaser yourself.

Conclusion of genre chosen

 I have chosen to do a teaser trailer for a horror film. The main features of a horror film is to frighten or panic its audience. Horror films have also developed story lines to do with killers/murderers, alien invasions and zombies, which is where horror links in with science fiction.

I have had some thought on the type of horror film I wanted to do, so now I need to do some research on conventions of teaser trailers to see how they work and what to include or exclude in my own production.

Introduction to area chosen

I already knew, before researching, that I wanted to do a teaser trailer.
Due to my additional knowledge of music software, I wanted to do something that would help develop my skills in the composition area too.


A teaser trailer, or just teaser, is the very first piece of video footage that is released about a film. They last typically between 30 and 60 seconds. It is also released up to almost 2 years before the film they advertise. The name 'teaser' literally does what it says: it is used to tease the audience to eventually make them watch the film when it is released.


There are many different genres of film, including:

These are just the main genres, there are many sub-genres in most main genre, and sometimes even sub-sub-genres within sub-genres.
For example 'slasher horror', or 'action-thriller'.