How to Make a Movie Trailer
Edited by Pat Bitton
July 23, 2019
An attention-getting movie trailer is an essential marketing tool for any film director, beginner or professional. It’s the trailer that gets viewers hooked on a movie they haven’t even seen yet. Good trailers are short and effective - they stick in your memory and make you want to see the film.
Creating an effective movie trailer is not as simple a task as you might think; however, it will be much easier to accomplish with the right software and instructions. Movavi gives you both! Download Movavi Video Editor Plus – an easy-to-use film trailer creator – and read our guide below!
5 Useful Tips on Making A Film Trailer

You have a very limited amount of time (1-2 minutes) to convince the viewer that you movie is worth watching. That’s why you need to choose really spectacular segments for your trailer. But it’s a balancing act – you don’t want to reveal too much and spoil the fun. Hook the viewer, but leave key questions unanswered and vital secrets unrevealed.

A trailer is a story. The classic way to tell a story is in three acts:
- Exposition: introduce the main characters and the environment in which they exist
- Development (growing action and intensity): introduce conflict and complications
- Climax: intensify the storyline and bring it to a resolution.

Often, well-chosen music can be half, or even more than half, the victory. Music binds all the building blocks of your story together; it defines the mood of your trailer, creates the appropriate atmosphere, and can have a big impact on the audience.

An effective trailer always involves rhythmic editing. If the story in your trailer is developing rhythmically, it creates a sense of flow, eliciting more emotions from viewers and making them feel connected to the characters. Cut your trailer into fragments so that the changing frames synchronizes with the rhythm of the music and it will look and feel very natural.

Last but not least, there are some specific techniques used in most trailers that add to its effectiveness:
- Fades to and from black
- Atmospheric sound effects like droning, blasts, whooshes, etc.
- Voiceover or text on screen highlighting the movie’s key themes
- Fast cutting (for fast-paced action)
- Quiet music at the beginning, building to a crescendo towards the end
- Abrupt dramatic endings that are almost silent
Check Out This Trailer We Made In Movavi Video Editor Plus!
Here’s an example of the kind of trailer you can make with just the Movavi app. It’s a custom trailer for an adventure movie that (imaginary) children made for their parents using travel footage. All the stock video and audio for the trailer were downloaded from our partners VideoBlocks and AudioBlocks.
Want to make such a trailer yourself? Follow our simple guide right below!
Step-by-Step Guide

Movavi Video Editor Plus
Your next step in video-making
- Edit video clips, images, and audio on a timeline
- Add transitions, filters, titles, and stickers
- Animate objects using keyframes, use more built-in media
- Export videos in any popular format
* The free version of Movavi Video Editor Plus has the following restrictions: 7-day trial period, watermark on the output videos, and, if you’re saving a project as an audio file, an ability to save only half the audio length. Learn more