Radio Film TrailersBY CHRISTOPHER OSBYRNE

What makes a Radio Film Trailer effective?

While most ways of marketing a film are portrayed through the visuals and online interaction of the audience and the distributors, radio trailers rely only on a films sound, dialogue and the audiences imagination.

What are the conventions of a Radio Film Trailer?

Radio trailers are constantly changing and evolving as a way of reaching new heights in marketing the film and ensuring that it reaches a wide demographic. However, the vast majority of contemporary radio film trailers contain the following:

Music + Sound Effects These pieces of music must be from the soundtrack or score of the film you are trying to market. This goes the same It should also reflect the genre and tone of the film and not be overtly loud so that the audience can hear what the voiceover and dialogue is saying.

Dialogue This must be dialogue from the film that reflect the story and characters accurately to the film itself as well as give the listener intrigue and excitement. Therefore, you must put the most “hard-hitting” dialogue- evoking an intellectual and emotional response on the listener.

Voice-Over This is the most important aspect of a radio film trailer. It’s the one aspect that provides the audience with the most amount of information (e.g Storyline, Critic Reviews, Release Date, Age Rating etc.) Most voice-overs have to be read in a certain way that both clearly states this important information as well as intriguing the listener into the story and reviews. They are mostly read by men in an exaggerated manner for emphasis and ensures the audience listen.

What about our Radio Film Trailer?

Our film trailer will contain most of the previously mentioned. For the voice-over, we will very briefly describe the central character, Edward, and play music from our opening title sequence because we feel it best matches the tone of the film. Our film majoratively does not have any dialogue so we will therefore have to solely focus on the music, actors and outline of story. It will end with a voice-over naming the title of the film, “Virago”, the films release date as well as the films age rating- conveying to the listener what our target demographic is and

ensuring that they know what the film is called.