Trailers for Movies

**ijohn** · 05-13-2009 01:46 PM

I am really good at video editing and would like to make movie trailers for films as a business but i'm not sure how to start this business. It was a more of a hobby for me, anyone can shed some light on how I could get started?

**bananaman** · 05-13-2009 06:42 PM

Why don't you make some trailers of past movies, and send them to the movie studios?

Just make sure with them you're not breaking any copyright/trademark violations first.

**myfayt** · 05-13-2009 08:09 PM

I own a video editing company in Virginia. Being a freelancer you won't be able to do trailers for upcoming movies, before they do it themselves, all the large companies have their own trailer staff. If that is what you mean?

Which state or country do you live in? I can help give you an idea of where to generate business and get lots of jobs.

**Chabz** · 05-15-2009 03:16 AM

I'm assuming that you have limited resources in terms of getting this off the ground, being, vaguely, a company providing video editing. If that's the scenario your facing, the best thing to do first is to start-up this company with only local or regional customers within your community who may want to spruce up their video content. Since the target audience is on a local level, your probably going to find yourself doing low-key projects, such as video editing for weddings, parties, school/college assessments, family videos, small business video presentations, and other's along that line. Now, if your skills go beyond catering for a local/regional market, then you may want to consider starting off nonetheless with this market to build a profile and simultaneously try to provide services for local businesses and institutions such as video advertisements for small to medium sized businesses, video editing for educational institutions, and the like. So, the easiest way to go about this is locally or regionally if you don't have the marketing potential for a larger customer demographic or if your video editing skills are not fully developed. So that dealing with local/regional customers, whilst in the process of seeking larger customers, keeps you at least with customers, therefore an ongoing source of income.
This means you'll have to do some work promoting yourself, on foot, over the phone, word-of-mouth, with posters, leaflets, and all the cheap marketing mediums, but make sure its directly targeted to your potential customers, such as emailing, faxing, phoning or mailing directly to companies, community groups or institutions, instead of the "leaving a poster in the public square and hoping some one sees it" approach.
Whilst this is all happening, you may want to create a profile for your company online, such as to not only have a web presence by having a company website, but to break into the market and become part of the market community, and the greater part of the customer pool, by taking full advantage of web 2.0 social platforms such as twitter, blogger, wikipedia, facebook, myspace, bebo, and other networking sites specific to your business type or business model, so as to cheaply and effectively create a recognizable and interactive brand without having to pay for the expensive, conventional forms of marketing.
I think this is a good way to start, and try transforming this approach to suit your goals for your business. Once your business becomes a medium-to-large sized business with multiple employees, all this advice will obviously become obsolete, lol.
So if you want to provide video editing in general, and not specifically and only movie trailers, then I hope this approach helps. You may want to re-examine your business model or idea, so as to differentiate it from all other media companies (i.e. affiliating your services with a philanthropic cause) and to branch off from competitors by being more recognizably unique.
Ok, hope this advice is relevant to your situation and hope all goes well.