The Trailers

The advent of digital technologies has caused the proliferation of trailers through DVDs and the internet, resulting in a popular trailer culture that fetishizes these “mini-movies” and their soundscapes. Our goal is to initiate the study of music (and sound) in trailers by reviewing the scholarly, professional and fan-generated literature surrounding them, determining their aural characteristics, devising an analytical tool for trailer music based upon these findings, and applying the resultant approach to a discrete body of film previews from the last twenty years (the digital era), arranged according to genre. The trailers for closer analysis comprise those that have received industry recognition (Golden Trailer Awards), that are associated with major films, or have attained popularity as texts in and of themselves. Ultimately, we are investigating the role of music (and sound) in creating narrative meaning in the trailer.

(Click linked titles to view chart.)

Comedy

Amelie
Anchorman
Austin Power: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Borat
Bridesmaids
Bruno
Calendar Girls
Get him to the greek
Ghost World
The Hangover
The Hangover 2
The Hangover 3
He’s just not that into you
High Fidelity
It’s complicated
Johnny english
Knocked Up
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Napoleon Dynamite
The Princess Diaries
The Royal Tenenbaums
Safety not Guaranteed
Sex and The City
Step Brothers
Stranger Than Fiction
Ted
There's Something About Mary
Thank you for Smoking
Wedding crashers

Horror

1408
28 Days Later
The Blair Witch Project
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Final Destination
The Gathering
Gothika
Hannibal
Hostel
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Nightmare on Elm Street
The Others
Open Water
The Pact
Paranormal Activity
The Ring
Saw
Scream
Silent Hill
The Strangers
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Village
Thirteen Ghosts
Vampires

ACTION

Armageddon
The Avengers
Braveheart
The Bourne Legacy
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
The Dark Knight Rises
Die Hard
Fast and Furious
Fight Club
Gladiator
The Hunger Games
Inception
Independence Day
Iron Man
James Bond Skyfall
Jurassic Park
Kill Bill
The Lord of the Rings
The Matrix
Mission Impossible
Ocean’s Eleven
Pacific Rim
The Perfect Storm
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Place Beyond the Pines
Resident Evil
Sherlock Holmes
Spiderman (2002)
Star Wars
Troy
X Men

DRAMA

8 Mile
American Beauty
Argo
Brokeback Mountain
Contact
The Departed
Erin Brokovich
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Girl With A Pearl Earring
The Hours
The Iron Lady
Jerry McGuire
The King’s Speech
Lost in Translation
Meet Joe Black
The Place Beyond the Pines
Slumdog Millionaire
The Social Network  
Stepmom
Titanic
Where the Wild things are
The Wolf of Wall Street

COMPARATIVE GRAPH GALLERY

COMPARING USES OF DIALOGUE, HIT POINTS (PEAK IN SOUND), MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS VISUALLY

Each featured trailer chart has a corresponding graph that gives a generalized visual depiction of the uses of dialogue, music, hit Point (Peaks in sound), and sound effects in each genre. These graphs were developed for the purpose of easily comparing the different uses in sound between the genres Action, Comedy and Horror. (Click any image to enlarge.)