Comparing Teaser and Theatrical Trailers - Introduction

For the main production task for my A2 coursework I will be producing a teaser trailer, so I thought it would be useful to find out what the differences are between teaser trailers (released well in advance of the film appearing in cinemas) and theatrical trailers (which appear much closer to the films released, in the final promotional push to encourage audiences into the cinema).

I suspect that major differences in between the 2 formats will include the length of the respective trailers (I think the teaser trailer will be considerably shorter than the theatrical trailer) and that the theatrical trailer will show much more of the story line than the teaser. I also expect there to be similarities between the 2 types of trailer and that both will include production company logos, images from the film, the fils title, credits, a website and social networking links, and an indication of when the film is fire for release.

Once I had decided upon the genre my film will belong to, I will look much more closely at the ways that genre conventions are shown in trailers. But for now I just want to try and get a clearer understanding of codes and conventions in trailers in general.

For my comparison I have decided to look at a teaser and a theatrical trailer for 2 contrasting audiences, from films from very different genres: 50 Shades of Grey and Captain America.