Why are there never any trailers in movie trailers?
Scene opens, posters plastered against a metal wall… for a movie, perhaps. Some metal noises, maybe creaking brakes. Then some dust, then a little more.
Without pulling back, the camera starts sliding horizontally and more posters.. seemingly all about same movie.
Eventually, the camera slides off the back of the truck and you realized you just saw your first “movie trailer.” Scene closes.
Or how about a trailer broken down on a side street. Names are grafittied all over it and in the small window, there’s a television playing a clip from the movie.
Update (2026-09-21): While digging through old files I found a note that contained the original idea that inspired the above:
Sitting with my film making friend again, this time in the darkened theater watching a really horrible movie, I came up with this little nugget of an idea.
There are always times when I feel like watching the previews before a movie (called “trailers” even thought they precede the movie) I feel like the trailer had every funny scene in the movie, and there is really no reason for me to go and pay to see the film itself.
There has got to be a better way to create a trailer without giving the movie away, yet still create some appeal to the audience. So my idea was a child of word association. Why not a trailer trailer?
See, here’s the idea: They flash that green screen saying the following preview has been approved for all audiences. Then the next shot presents you with a panoramic shot of a beautiful sky, late in the afternoon. The ground plane at the bottom of the screen is a dusty, sandy, red color. You can see the familiar rippling of the sky and the sun as the heat ripples across the surface.
Overlaid on this scene after a few moments is the text: “The director and all those who helped to make this film have gone a long way to bring you this special movie experience…”
The text fades, and we watch as the sun continues its fall to the horizon. Then we see the front of a beat-up, dusty, dirty pick-up come out of the right side of the screen and slowly crosses the screen. Pulled by the truck is a large trailer which is old and starting to look as it may fall apart. On top of the trailer as well as in the pick-up truck are all sorts of people piled in and trying to find relief from the heat. On the side of the trailer reads all the films credits. It states all the usual information that is included in the last seconds of a usual preview. All of it is painted on the side like a barn-side billboard. All the text is legible despite the great amounts of the red dust covering everything.
As the trailer rolls on by, you notice a rope tied to the back of the trailer which reaches off screen, only after a while to reveal a small little two-wheeled runt of a trailer with the release date of the film painted on the side.
All the trailers roll of the left of the screen, and we are left with the sun just as it is setting, all fiery red. And before the shot fades a new screen of text is overlaid reading: “Don’t let all their work go for nothing.”
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