How to Do a Movie Trailer Voice

pitch

Low, with heavy downward inflections at the end of each phrase.

pace

Slow, in short phrases separated by deliberate pauses.

resonance

Rich chest resonance, recorded close to the mic for warmth and bass.

texture

Smooth with a slight grain, and an occasional gentle fry on the last word of a phrase.

signature

Weighty phrases that land slowly and build tension: setup, pause, payoff.

1. Get close to the mic. Move to about a hand's width from the microphone. The proximity effect adds bass and intimacy. Use a pop filter or angle your mouth slightly off to the side to avoid popping P and B sounds.
2. Find a relaxed low pitch. Speak a couple of notes below your normal pitch with an open throat. If you feel pressing, you've gone too low. Check yourself with a pitch analyzer and stay where it feels easy.
3. Break the script into short phrases. Trailer copy works in fragments. Mark a slash wherever you'll pause: 'One summer. / One secret. / One chance to get it right.'
4. Let each phrase fall. Drop the pitch on the last word of each phrase, and drop it lowest on the final phrase. This creates a feeling of inevitability.
5. Lean on one word per phrase. Choose a single word in each phrase to give extra weight and length. 'Nothing will ever be the same' is about 'nothing' or 'same', not every word equally.
6. Match the genre. Action trailers are punchy and intense, comedy trailers are warm with a smile, horror trailers are hushed and slow, and family trailers are bright and friendly. Same technique, different color.

Read these with the voice, then record yourself and listen back. The teleprompter below scrolls through all of them.

• This summer. One town. One lighthouse. And a secret buried beneath the tide.
• She was told the road ended here. She kept driving.
• Some heroes wear capes. This one wears an apron, and she's out of patience.
• From the frozen edge of the north comes a story no one dared to tell.
• He had one rule: never open the door after midnight. Tonight, someone knocked.
• Two brothers. One stolen bus. Nine hundred miles of very bad decisions.
• When the last light goes out... the city finally wakes up.
• Every legend starts somewhere. This one starts in a laundromat.
• This holiday season, the family reunion... is about to get complicated.
• Coming soon, to a theater near you. Unless you're scared.

• Forcing the pitch down until it sounds like gargling. Relaxed and low beats strained and lower.
• Rushing the phrases. The pauses are part of the drama.
• Standing too far from the mic, which loses the warm, bassy quality trailers depend on.
• Using the same intensity for every genre. A comedy read like a disaster film sounds odd, unless that's the joke.

Trailer reads tempt people to press the larynx down and live in vocal fry, and both can leave the voice tired and scratchy. Let the microphone add the bass, stay at the bottom of your comfortable range rather than below it and save fry for the occasional final word. Warm up with humming, hydrate and stop if your throat feels tight or sore.

Try the voice in a dubbing scene, roll a random prompt, or warm up first with the vocal warm-up.