HOW TO MAKE BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE TRAILERS

A step-by-step guide to pursuing a filmmaking career by crafting movie trailers.

Independent producer and director Getty’s guide takes readers on a journey through his own experiences in the movie production arena, revealing how aspiring filmmakers can follow in his footsteps. Specifically, he lays out the steps to making effective movie trailers—promotional clips that, he argues, are the most important part of the filmmaking process, as they do much of the heavy lifting to make a film a success. To that end, he stresses how conveying a good story is more important than editing together a series of flashy images, and how sound is the most important element of the process. Each chapter is filled with information about different aspects of moviemaking that also have relevance in feature-filmmaking, from finding a tale to tell that has universal appeal, creating effective sound design, and using skillful editing, to post-production concerns, such as choosing the perfect title. Most intriguingly, this encouraging work claims that a movie trailer can even be made before anything else happens with the project. This way, everyone involved is on the same page, and the reaction to the trailer can determine how the team moves forward: “It is the trailer the script should be written for—not the movie.” The author also effectively notes that Hollywood is a battle for time, a precious commodity, and that one must approach this competition as such. Getty’s writing style is clean and extremely straightforward, making the reading experience feel comfortable and uncomplicated, even when approaching dense topics. Getty offers his own experiences throughout to back up his contentions about how trailers work, which results in a fresh, balanced, and credible take on ideas that may initially seem familiar. Although the work is clearly aimed at readers looking to pursue a filmmaking career, there’s plenty of compelling detail and references to popular movies to engage general readers.

A practical master class in the basics of effective movie promotion.