Film and television production: editing skills of trailers and promotional videos

Trailer is the longest type of promotional film, which usually contains the most story information.

Duration: The length is generally about 2 minutes and 30 seconds, including three-act structure.

Structure: The first act introduces the world outlook and main roles. It is very important to attract the audience as early as possible and let the audience continue to watch in the next few minutes.

Action movie trailer: it's best to start with the big moment.

Suspense horror movie trailer: You'd better start from the normal picture and slowly show the wrong movie atmosphere until the first horror picture appears.

Comedy trailer: try to show the story with laughter. Organize the content in a natural way, establish the tone of comedy and prevent boredom.

Feature film trailer: Try your best to present the attractive characters to the audience. Doing this in the first 30 seconds is easier said than done.

Trailer tip: The climax of the trailer is not necessarily the climax of the movie. In fact, almost none. The last impression is as important as the first impression. Many times, the ending picture of the trailer is the only place that the audience can remember.

Two. Pilot movie

It's similar to the trailer, but the pilot films are basically short. After all, its function is the forerunner. The purpose of hiding most of the story information is only to attract the audience with 1 or two best scenes and general impressions of the film.

Duration: usually between 60 and 90 seconds.

Structure: Most pilot films have a two-act structure. The first act provides a little story background and role information. The second act directly transitions to a series of scenes in the film-such as horror scenes, stunt scenes, key lines, or jokes.

Tip of the pilot film: Don't do too much narration in the pilot film. It is tempting to add classic dialogues of various characters to the film to enrich the story, which will gradually sink deeper and deeper, turning the 90-second pilot film into a 2-minute and 30-second trailer. Use as few narrative elements as possible.

Three. short notice

Length: The length of the short trailer varies, but it is the shortest among the three promotional videos. As short as 5 seconds and as long as 90 seconds. Most of what you see on TV and websites is 15 seconds or 30 seconds.

Structure: It is difficult to show all aspects of the film in a limited time. Although short, a short trailer usually contains three acts, which is similar to the trailer structure, but shorter. One technique is to play the picture from the beginning of the music, the climax part of the music plays the ending picture, and connect the beginning and the end by editing the middle part of the music.

Tips for short notices: People who read short notices are impatient. Unlike trailers and pilot films, short trailers usually attract more distracted viewers. Most people are doing other things while watching. Therefore, the opening of the short notice should be very eye-catching.

These are the editing skills shared by Bian Xiao. I hope it will help my friends. Want to know more about film and television production, please visit this platform in time!