Reel Masters of the Two-Minute Drill : Movies: In a business fueled by high-concept films, film trailer makers churn out the ultimate high-concept marketing vehicle.

Before Dick Donner started work on his new film, “Radio Flyer,” last fall, the veteran director and his wife, producer Lauren Schuler-Donner, went to a lot of movie theaters.

They didn’t stay to see the movies. They simply watched the trailers.

“If you’re a filmmaker, going to see trailers before you start your next movie is an invaluable experience,” says Donner, best known for directing the “Lethal Weapon” film series. “You get a real insight into what moviegoers want to see--and judging by the audience’s reaction--what kind of reception the movies are getting.

“When our ‘Radio Flyer’ trailer is ready, we’ll play it before a real movie-theater audience. And let me tell you, my heart’s going to be in my mouth. You never know how people will react. It’s your movie up there, but the trailer is the product of a completely different medium.”

Movie trailers, also known as previews or coming attractions, are Hollywood’s signature sales tool. In a business fueled by high-concept films, they’re the ultimate high-concept marketing vehicle, a two-minute blitz of free advertising that plays to the most receptive possible audience--people who have already paid $7 to see a new movie.

Movie studios now spend an average of $10 million to $12 million to market a new film. Studio executives say more than half that figure goes into making trailers and buying time for nationwide TV commercials, which feature 15- or 30-second versions of the original trailer.

Timing is crucial. New trailers need to be completed four to six weeks before a film’s release so they can run long enough in local movie theaters to build audience awareness for a new film. While some studios have in-house trailer departments, the vast majority of work is handled by eight or 10 independent firms, based here and in New York, who create trailers, TV spots and print advertising.

The best-known firms, which include Kaleidoscope Films, Seiniger Advertising, Intralink Film, Aspect Ratio, Kanew Co. and Cimmaron, Bacon & O’Brien, are paid top dollar, earning from $150,000 to $400,000 from the film studios for a full-scale trailer and TV ad campaign. It’s a lot of money to spend, but it’s difficult to keep costs down when you’re paying for what amounts to an instant ad campaign.

Trailer firm executives note that TV ad campaigns for sneakers or jeans run for months--even a year--once they hit the marketplace. Movie campaigns have a much shorter shelf life.

As Steve Panama, head of Kaleidoscope Films puts it: “What we’re doing is product advertising. The difference is that we have a new product in the marketplace every two weeks.”

Bolstered by vivid imagery or a memorable line of dialogue, a great trailer plays a major role in building momentum for the opening of a new movie.

Hired by Warner Films to make a teaser trailer for “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” Seiniger Advertising delivered a striking arrow’s-point-of-view special-effects shot so dazzling that the filmmakers incorporated it into the final film.

“The teaser is the public’s first exposure to a film,” says Intralink chief Anthony Goldschmidt, whose firm has been making trailers and print ad campaigns for 20 years. “And the courage and derring-do that goes into a trailer is often in direct relation to the impact it has in the marketplace. There’s so much competition for the moviegoer’s attention that you have to put a fresh spin on your product so it can cut through all the clutter.”

As many filmmakers have learned, there is a true craft--perhaps even an art--to sculpting a two-minute trailer from a 90-minute feature film. “I can remember being so down on trailer people that I’ve said, ‘OK, I’m taking my editor in there and we’ll do a trailer in 10 minutes,’ ” says Donner. “But after 10 days of tearing your hair out, you realize that it’s not as easy as you think.”

It’s easy for a trailer to grab moviegoers’ attention if you have Bill Murray cracking jokes or Arnold Schwarzenegger mowing down crooks. But how do you sell a film that doesn’t have a major star or a high-concept situation?

“Movies are all about emotion,” says Goldschmidt. “If you expect people to leave the comfort of their home, spend $15 and sit next to a total stranger for two hours, then you have to find a way to convince them they’ll have a riveting experience. Emotion sells. It’s what can cut through all the chrome, all the other things competing for people’s attention.”

One of Intralink’s signature concepts is its method of editing trailers so that the film’s dialogue chronicles the story, a big advance over trailers that rely on a booming announcer’s voice to narrate the action.

“One of the things we love around here is having the actors speak the words that tell us the story,” says Goldschmidt. “When an actor tells you something, I think it’s more believable than a disembodied voice. When we did the trailer for ‘Flatliners,’ the first words you hear are Kiefer Sutherland saying, ‘It’s a good day to die.’ It’s very startling--and very persuasive, because it’s the star of the movie talking.”

A key line of dialogue can provide enough sizzle to sell an entire trailer. “Crocodile Dundee’s” trailer was fueled by Paul Hogan’s classic line: “You call that a knife? This is a knife.” Every Arnold Schwarzenegger trailer sports a classic retort. Betrayed by his wife in “Total Recall,” Schwarzenegger shoots her dead, saying in his guttural deadpan: “Consider that a divorce.”

“If you have a great line of dialogue, that’s really striking or funny, you really try to showcase it, because that’s what people will remember,” explains David Schneiderman, head of Seismic Productions. “When we did the trailer for ‘King of New York,’ we knew there were all sorts of ways to set up a gangster picture, but we went with the great line from Christopher Walken, who says, ‘I never killed anybody that didn’t deserve it.’ ”

Aimed at youthful audiences weaned on Nike commercials and MTV, trailers are also punctuated by quick-cut editing and propelled by an insistent rock backbeat. “The audience we’re going for is so conditioned to a highly stylized form of advertising that we can take a lot of artistic license,” says Steve Panama. “To re-create the intensity or drama of a film in 30 seconds, you edit in a completely distinctive way. There’s almost a unique trailer-style of telling a story.”

Still, the complicated process of making a trailer, which often involves extensive audience research, producer ego soothing and constant interference by nervous studio executives, can often result in unwieldy artistic compromises.

“The process is definitely crazy,” says Joel Wayne, senior vice president of worldwide advertising at Warner Bros. Films. “Try to imagine a naked man, with the trailer in his hands, running a gauntlet of studio executives, producers, directors, movie stars--all with these little hatchets in their hands, each hacking away at your trailer. It’s a wonder how many good trailers somehow manage to survive.”

With marketing costs spiraling, movie studios have been taking a hard look at the expense of making trailers--and wondering if they could do it for less money themselves. Of the major studios, only Universal Pictures has an in-house staff that creates the majority of its trailers. Warner Bros. recently formed an in-house department, the Idea Place, which handles 20% to 30% of its trailer cutting.

“For us, the main benefit of creating trailers in-house is immediacy,” says Universal marketing chief David Sameth. “If we have an idea, we can see what it would look like right away--you just go down the hall to a cutting room.”

Trailer firms say the studios themselves are responsible for much of today’s high trailer costs. “The problem is you’re dealing with too many people who have a say in the final product,” says one top trailer exec. “So you end up re-editing the trailer over and over. But it’s very difficult to satisfy someone who doesn’t know what they want. And every time we start working overtime, coming up with a new version, the price tag goes up.”

Disney Studios has the most singular marketing philosophy of all. Though it occasionally works with a major trailer firm, Disney has an exclusive relationship with two trailer companies, New Wave Productions and Craig Murray Productions, which are independently owned but handle only Disney jobs.

Disney critics point to this as a classic example of the studio’s paranoia, that its top brass is fearful that outside trailer firms might share marketing information with rival studios. But Disney execs say having exclusive access to its own trailer firms allows its marketing department to function more efficiently.

“By having a company on call and dedicated to us, we don’t have to worry that they might be working on another movie when we really need them,” says Disney’s Buena Vista Pictures marketing chief Bob Levin.

Disney isn’t the only studio that wants more control over its trailer campaigns. Trailer firm executives grumble that studios not only want more control, but more credit, especially when it involves a successful trailer campaign.

“Most of the time the studio marketing execs will take the credit for whatever good ideas the trailer people came up with,” says director Dick Donner. “But 90 times out of 100, the ideas came from the trailer firms’ creative juices.”

In fact, as many moviegoers can attest, the trailer is often the best thing about the movie. Does that make it a sham--or just good advertising?

“The trailer should offer the audience a promise, whether it’s a promise of a great story, an intriguing mood or a charismatic star,” says Tony Seiniger. “And you always hope that the movie will deliver on that promise.”

Unfortunately, many films don’t. “Sometimes your trailer is going to be better than the movie,” says Seiniger. “But that’s our job. If our trailer isn’t good enough to get people into the theaters, then we’re all really in trouble.”