What is a Trailer?

Trailers consist of a series selected shots from the film being advertised. Since the purpose of the trailer is to attract an audience to the film, these excerpts are usually drawn from the most exciting, funny, or otherwise noteworthy parts of the film but in abbreviated form and usually without producing spoilers. For this purpose the scenes are not necessarily in the order in which they appear in the film. A trailer has to achieve that in less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, the maximum length allowed by the MPAA. Each studio or distributor is allowed to exceed this time limit once a year, if they feel it is necessary for a particular film.



What is a title sequence?


A title sequence is the opening sequence of a film with continuity editing done to change the order of which the clips are shown within the film.  Opening sequences have titles during the sequence, showing the names of the actors, film director and maybe others such as story boarders and producers. They use Continuity editing so that the audience understands what the plot of the opening sequence is about and gives a taste of what the overall film is about.

What are the differences?

The difference between the two are: that opening sequence is continuity editing where as the trailer is a montage of clips. A Trailer would usually last a maximum of two minutes, where as an opening sequence could last approximately between 2-10 minuets. The purpose of a trailer is to get the audience to watch the film, where as the main purpose of an opening sequence is to give the audience an idea of what the film is about and to try and encourage the audience to watch the film.

An Example of a Trailer could be the new "Taken 2":




An Example of an Opening sequence could be for "Batman":