2. 1910
• In 1910 Cinema’s were very minimal, only usually including one
screen.
• People would pay 5 cents and sit in the theatre as long as they
wanted. The films would play in a continuous loop and you watch
these as many times as you desired.
Timetable
3. 1913
• Considered year zero of the movie trailer. Nils Granlund made the first
promotional film for the Broadway play “pleasure seekers”. This
showed actual rehearsal footage.
• Col. William Selig adapted a print serial “The Adventures of Kathleen”
into a film version. This was however the second print serial to be
made. Each week there was a new episode and then the story would
be continued in the Chicago Tribune. This was when the term Cliff-
hanger was introduced.
• At this time trailers would be shown at he end of a film and were
usually created by theatres themselves.
Timetable
4. 1916
• By 1916 the movie studios themselves began to officially release
trailers for upcoming films.
• Despite this they were still pretty basic, including snippets of film with
some text overlaid such as the actors names and name of the film.
This was due to very little money being in the business.
Timetable
5. 1919
• The national screen service was started in 1919 by Herman Robbins.
• They opened up an office in New York that took movie stills and
added in titles, then sold these trailers directly to theatres. Many
studios happily signed deals to submit their films to the NSS to be
made into a trailer.
• The NSS dominated the business from the 1920s to the 1960s
creating a template style trailer with specific stylistic patterns like
screen wipes and fly in titles.
Timetable
6. 1927
• The 1927 film “The Jazz Singer” was the first ever movie trailer to use
sound, causing a massive breakthrough in the business which they
used to entice their audiences.
• The trailer also used direct address in it.
• These creations successfully created a new template for the industry
and other future trailers that would be made.
Timetable
7. 1940
• It wasn’t until the 1940s when the National Screen Service tightened
its dominated on studio trailer production.
• Several innovations associated with classic Hollywood films were also
introduced including; the use of third person narrative and tile that
flipped up onto the screen from below the frame.
Timetable
8. 1960
• In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock directed the film “Psycho” and was just as
famous as the people starring in the film. He didn’t want to make a
trailer showing a load of clips that might give the film away and not
do it justice.
• Therefore he created a six and a half minute trailer that offered a
personal tour of the bates motel and the sinister looking house in the
hill, complete with his gallows humour style hints to the gruesome
events to come in the film.
• This was a successful and unusual trailer due to Alfred Hitchcock’s
popularity and celebrity status.
Timetable
9. 1962
• This was the time when Stanley Kubrick experimented with
fragmented cutting styles in the trailer for the film “Lolita”.
• This again created a new template for future trailers.
Timetable
10. 1964
• “Gun fighters of casa Grande” was the first ever trailers to feature the
tones from Don LaFontaine, who later set the standard for the trailer
voiceovers and invented the phrase “in a world…” This eventually
kicked off evert third trailer made after 1983.
• This was the year that Kubrick also came back strong with the trailer
for “Dr Strangelove” which was said to be one of he most bold and
brazen pieces of film advertising over made.
Timetable
11. 1967
• “Bonnie and Clyde” was the first ever trailer to feature an anti-hero as
censorship became lenient.
• Also in he film “ The Gradute” more emphasis was placed on the
music.
Timetable
