Research into Radio Trailers

Research into Radio Trailers 

The purpose of the radio trailer is to persuade various audiences to watch the film, just like an ordinary film trailer. They do this through using some of these main conventions.

•  A voice over with small hints of sound or speech from the film
•  Information at the end of the trailer of viwing and film certificate
• Production company 
• Director and producer 
• Main actors
• A slogan from the film
• Sound effects when appropriate  
• Music can be used to set the scene 
• A radio trailer is usually about 30 to 40 nseconds long, this is enough time to engage the audience but not too long so gives too much away or so the audience loses interest.

One radio trailer I looked at was The Conjuring from 2013. I decided to look at this films radio trailer as it is a horror film and I was interested in how the horror appeal was put across through a radio trailer. I thought the horror theme came through really well as you could tell pretty much straight away that the genre was a horror. The radio trailer was easy to acess throught Google as it is difficult to find radio trailers to analyse on the internet.

The radio trailer begins with a voice over. All radio trailers contain a voice over as the main factor of the trailer. This is because as it is a radio trailer the audience needs someone to explain the different aspects of the film. The voice over tells us that The Conjuring was directed by the same person who directed the Saw movies and Insidious. These are both well known horror films and so could intrigue the audieence straight away as they may have liked the way the Saw films or Insidious were produced so decide to see The Conjuring as they have the same director.


Throughout the trailer the voice over is split up with clips of dialogue from the film. These short clips of dialogue give the audience a small insight into what might occur throughout the film and the main themes. For example in this radio trailer the dialogue 'What we have here is something inhuman' is used. This gives the audience an example that there will be horrific images that are unnatural, used in the film and that it may not be suitable for young children.

The radio trailer ends with 'The Conjuring in cinemas now, rated 15'  This gives the audience the information they need if they were planning on watching the film. It telles them that it is out now so that is available for them to see but also that the age rating is a 15 so children under this age cannot view the film. Some radio trailers include some of the top actors in the radio trailer but this one does not. This could be because there is no top billed cast in the film or just because they believe the film will gain a big enough audience through other marketing techniques.