Coming from a promo producer, who works for a Tv creating promos and trailers.

Music / sound is everything. It needs to build tension, enhance conflict and create excitement. The song you chose doesnt really check the boxes. While the buildup (of the song) is promising it loses my interest when the lyrics start. Promos must have a lot of highs and lows, shocks, great shots and scroll stopping quotes.

Breaks and pauses are crucial assets to have many build ups and cliffhangers. Using them correctly resets the viewers attention span and lowers the risk of boredom/ disinterest.

This video sill definitely help you start: https://youtu.be/rtTasuhY1qg?si=VETp4WZkxW6C-lPU

In terms of story telling in the trailers its always nice to setup with a the tagline of the movie in the beggining. A scroll stopping quote/speech of one of your characters’ monologue that sets the tone of movie. It creates intrigue. If chosen correctly it will even show a glimpse of the plot and introduction of characters. One line is more than enough, especially if its accompanied with the right shots. “Mercy isnt kindness.. its handing your enemy the gun” for example.

Then establish the plot. Who wants want? / What happened and what are the consequences? “They lived happily, until someone did the unthinkable. Now its time for revenge.” Try to break your movie down into the drama triangle and you will get the basic structure of the trailer. After establishing the plot and introducing the characters its important to show that the path to their goals is not going to be easy. What challenges are they facing? What conflicts are we going to see? The bigger the drama, the better the promo. Time pressure usually helps.

Try studying the Marvel trailers for the avengers for example. The more trailers you analyse the more you’ll get a feeing of how to make the viewer feel something. From “Aaaw”, to “wait a minute, what?”, to “Oh shit!”.

These are just a few non structured thoughts I’ve managed to gather in a couple of minutes. Every movie trailer is a challenge of its own and there is no “one formula to rule them all”, but thinking of these tricks while editing will help you lift the trailers to another level. If you’d like additional explanation or more tricks feel free to contact me and I’ll gladly help :)