Trailer music
Trailer music is the background music used for film previews, which is not always from the film's soundtrack. Often, people will notice the movie previews they see in theaters will feature music that is dramatic, soothing, or whatever kind of sound complements the movie clip scene. Since the score for a movie is usually composed after the film is finished (which is much after trailers are released), a trailer will sometimes use music from other successful films as a subconscious tie-in method. The music most people picture when they hear "trailer music" is the dramatic orchestra and choir music by X-Ray Dog or Immediate Music.
The music used in the trailer may be:
- Music from the score of other movies. Many films in this century have tracked their trailers with music from other campaigns, such as Dragonheart, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (the "Requiem for a Dream" remix) theme, or Pompeii by E.S. Posthumus used in the Spider-Man trailer.
- Popular or well-known music, often chosen for its tone, appropriateness of a lyric, or recognizability
- Classical music, such as Mozart's Requiem (Cliffhanger), Beethoven's 9th symphony (Die Hard), or Carmina Burana.
- "Library" music previously composed specifically to be used in advertising by an independent composer
- Specially composed music. One of the most famous Hollywood trailer music composers is John Beal, who began scoring trailers in the 1970's and, in the course of a thirty year career, created original music for over 2,000 movie trailer projects, including 40 of the top-grossing films of all time, such as Star Wars, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Aladdin, Last Samurai and The Matrix.
- Songs, which may include knock-offs of recognizable (but expensive to license) songs
The biggest trailer music companies are X-Ray Dog, Immediate Music, Two Steps from Hell, Pfeifer Broz. Music, Audiomachine, Brand X Music, Future World Music and Epic Score.
Articles
The Art of Scoring Trailers: John Beal by Lukas Kendall, Part 1 - Film Score Monthly Magazine, issue #35, July 2003, pp 6-7, Part 2 continues in issue #36/37 Aug/Sep 1993, pp18-19 [Online version]
Art of the Tease by Rick Sherwood, Hollywood Reporter August 25, 1992 pp. S-39-S-72
External links
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