A trailer is a wheeled vehicle that doesn’t move on its own. Instead, it’s towed behind a truck or other vehicle that drives it. Some trailers are designed for hauling boats or other recreational vehicles. Others are built for housing people on a long trip or even permanently in an area designated for such homes. Trailers can be made from almost anything, but one type of trailer is especially unique and named after a water fowl’s distinctive anatomy part: a gooseneck.
Unlike some other types of vehicles, trailers aren’t subject to registration or titling requirements as long as they don’t exceed a certain weight limit. That said, if you want to drive your trailer with a vehicle that’s not registered or titled, the towed vehicle must be tagged. You can also register and title a trailer if it’s a custom-built or manufactured vehicle that meets all the requirements of a car, light-duty truck or commercial truck, such as a semi-truck.
Trailers are a staple of movie marketing. They tell a condensed version of a film’s plot and sometimes include deleted scenes. They can also have voice-overs, song clips or other elements that aren’t in the actual film. Movie studios even have dedicated trailer editors and a series of annual awards that recognize the best in film advertising.
A movie trailer is a slick piece of film promotion that’s designed to appeal to an audience’s emotions and curiosity. It often highlights a key scene from the film, and it may include music that’s intended to complement the mood of the trailer. It’s often shot in a widescreen format, with a dramatic or action-packed background. It’s important for a movie trailer to convey an exciting and convincing story that will convince the audience that they’ll enjoy the film.
The trailer is also a chance for a filmmaker to showcase his or her star talent. A cast run, a list of the principal actors in the film, usually appears near the end of most movie trailers. If the director or producers are well-known, they’re often listed as well. In addition, many movie previews feature logos for the studios that produced the film.
Although the film industry has long been in a state of constant flux, the trailer remains an important aspect of its advertising strategy. It allows studios to reach a wider audience for free and promote movies that might not appeal to traditional television audiences. The Internet has also become the newest and most cost-effective marketing tool for studios, allowing them to release “red-band” trailers that cannot be shown on TV or use Twitter and YouTube to develop extended campaigns. For example, the trailer for Psycho included a snippet of the director Alfred Hitchcock giving viewers a tour of the Bates Motel shower before showing Vera Miles’ blood-curdling scream—a sequence that didn’t appear in the actual film. In this way, the trailer has become a new sandbox for editors to experiment with the art of cinematic storytelling.