'Art of the Modern Movie Trailer'

The most important feature of a Movie Trailer is the soundtrack. The soundtrack can affect the mood of the trailer, giving it an emotional impact on the audience. This can result in the audience feeling hatred towards the villain or root for the protagonist.  It can also affect the pace of the trailer through fast pace editing and the choice of soundtrack. This is a feature which is irresistible to use over and over again by trailer producers.

An example of David Gale's modern piece which makes the audience feel inspired or heart broken includes trailer's such as Milk, The Iron Lady and Munich.

In most modern trailers, "The shots are shorter and shorter and shorter, and more fragmented", ".... the average length of a shot in a film has been shrinking every single year". This has been studied by the film historian Wheeler Winston Dixon. This significant change can be seen in the trailer below, where the use of fast jump cuts has increased to intensify the mood of the trailer.

An example can be seen in the trailer Fast and Furious 8, which uses a vast amount of fast jump cuts to intensify the action scenes in the film. Fast cuts are mostly used for the genre; action to present how fast paced the scenes are.

Terminology 

THE TURN LINE - This is when the music drops for a single line of dialogue. Usually between one or two characters. This builds and can cause change in pace, mood or element.

An example of a turn line is seen in the trailer, The Circle. The most recognisable turn line in this trailer is at 1.41. The pace of this trailer changes throughout by the use of various soundtracks.

THE RISE - This is the big, crescendo which most trailers builds up to. The rise usually happens after the turn line.

An example of the rise is seen in the trailer Divergent, throughout the trailer there is action and some aspects of romance scenes. The rise begins after a peaceful scene, the title of the trailer then appears, creating a crescendo, building up with fast cuts. A lot of action shots and scenes are shown, only a glimpse of them can be seen to create tension. The rise is at 2.00.

HITS - The use of dramatic drum booms in a trailer.

An example of hits being used is in a trailer is the trailer below, Marvel's guardian of the galaxy. This trailer uses the use of hits through out the trailer until the near end of the trailer. Loud bangs are used accompanied with loud background music. This makes the scenes appear very dramatic. The use of hits used in this trailer can be seen as over used, but others can argue it makes the trailer impactful to the audience. It is uncommon for trailers to use lots of hits throughout the trailer.

THE BUTTON - The scare or joke effect. Its usually used after the main title, building into a casendo.

The button is used in the trailer Tomb raider, the button starts with a beat and a few sound effects after the main title appears, then the joke happens. This builds a casendo, it then ends with another another thud sound effect to end the trailer. This humour effect makes the audience remember the last dialogue, the humour within the dialogue leaves an impact on the audience as they would've laughed or giggled. The button is most likely to be used in most genres except for horror.

Reference;
http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2012/01/15/145227280/the-art-of-the-modern-movie-trailer