How to Structure a Trailer Music Track

This week, I wanted to explore the world of Movie trailers - well more specifically, the music for Movie trailers.

Composing music for movie trailers is an extremely competitive business. If you are one of the lucky ones though, it can also be extremely lucrative, with some trailer tracks earning hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single piece of music.

The success of a film often depends on how successful its trailer is. The trailer's success often depends on the music - so the music is incredibly important, with incredibly high production values. More often than not, the video editors will even edit the footage in time with the tempo or pulse of the accompanying track, making the music completely integral to the overall experience for the audience.

The Structure of a Trailer Music track

Movie trailers are often structured into 3 or 4 distinct sections or Acts, which when combined, will achieve the task of grabbing the audience's curiosity, so they feel compelled to go out and watch the movie in the theatre.

Because of this, trailer music will often reflect the same structure, making it easy for editors to incorporate a track into the overall trailer's structure. The structure of a trailer music track is therefore often extremely formulaic.

Here are the typical Acts or Sections broken down:

Cold Open - this is designed to immediately hook the audience, so that they keep watching.

Act 1 - The Introduction sets the initial mood and tone of the trailer. The movie's main character is often seen in their day to day life, before the main event of the story occurs. The music can be sparse in this opening section, possibly with a signature sound or tone. Some tracks will also start to hint at the impending change that occurs in the next section.

Act 2 - The Build Up - This is where the story really starts to unfold. The tension is building and the stakes for the main character/s is rising. The music needs to reflect this change in tone and so often features more power and excitement. Rhythm created by percussion or string ostinatos is often heard, with the orchestration ramping up as the section progresses.

Act 3 - The Climax - This is where we see the main character achieving their objective - it could be defeating the enemy or solving the problem. The music helps add to the excitement with a massive orchestration and intense hits. There are often sound design elements such as risers and electronic percussion hammering away as well.

In between each of these sections, you'll often find gaps of 1 or 2 bars in length.

These gaps typically have two functions: firstly by helping editors to mix and match sections from different tracks, but also to help give each section more impact. By having a few seconds of calm and solace before a section, ie the climax, it helps the music to feel even more epic.

Analysis of a Trailer

Lets take a look at one of my favourite trailers from the past year:

video preview

Cold Open - 00:00-00:20. Here is a fantastic opening - tension is immediately created with the rising strings/synth sound, where we also see a hint of the nuclear explosion. It immediately captures the audience's attention.

Act 1 - The Introduction - 00:20-01:02. For the first 8 seconds of this section, a single pad sound is heard. Ticking sounds then creep in, helping to create tension. The instrumentation builds as the section progresses. The section ends with a pause in the music, with a key line of dialogue 'lets go and recruit some scientists'.

Act 2 - The Build Up - 01:02-01:50. Here the tension really starts to ramp up. Frantic string ostinatos are heard, with brass, synths and more percussion coming in helping to further ramp up the tension. The section ends with the music reduced to some ticking percussion and what sounds like some string harmonics and high pitch synths at around 01:42, helping give more impact to a crucial couple of lines of dialogue.

Act 3 - The Climax - 1:50-02:30. Here we see the climax beginning. The string Ostinatos from the previous section are heard, but with a more intense orchestration - low synths, more percussion and the use of risers. The music then comes to a dramatic pause at 2:30, before then ramping up with rising strings and synths, leading to the sound of an explosion at the very end.

Outro - 02:30-03:07. To increase the tension, the music falls away at 02:30, before then gradually ramping up through the use of a rising string glissando and sound design risers into the final shot of the explosion, ending at 03:03.