David Burns: Trailer Editor & Composer

David Burns is the mind behind trailers people remember without knowing why. He cuts, scores, and designs his own spots, building every frame and every note like it’s meant for the biggest screen in the room. His work has pulled millions of views, landed on major networks and streamers, caught the attention of the top trailer houses, and includes sequences for The Batman, Succession, and Deadpool and Wolverine. We talked about rhythm, emotional physics, and the invisible choices that make thirty seconds feel unforgettable.

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When you’re cutting a trailer, what’s the invisible decision that changes everything but no viewer ever notices?

The story you sell. Tommy Boy is a goofy comedy, but you can edit that trailer to be an emotional family drama, a romance movie, a goofy comedy, or even a road trip film. The point of view you decide to tell is always hidden from the viewer.

You cut, score, and design your own spots. Where does the moment happen when the sound or the rhythm shifts the emotional read even if the audience can’t explain why?

The music should be telling the same story as your cut. That’s why big trailers keep moving toward custom pieces. You’re not forcing something to fit that shouldn’t. You’re designing everything so it's a perfect puzzle piece that fits just right.

Trailers live in seconds. How do you decide what not to show, and what does that restraint actually buy you?

That restraint is creative and it’s teasing. You know you can’t show Frankenstein’s lab burning down, but you can lay in the foreshadowing that things are heading somewhere bad. It’s on the editor to give just enough story to tease those moments that make someone lean in and think, “I gotta go watch that!”

You said you chase the goosebump moment. What’s the unseen structure behind it that people misread as instinct?

I think it goes setup, tension, shift, and then the big chicken skin moment. A lot like comedy. You set up the joke so the punchline hits hard and makes you laugh. A trailer should set up the story for that chicken skin moment. It’s rare though. I’ve only gotten chicken skin from a few pieces.

There was an old Coca Cola ad with this amazing music theme and a parade of characters inside a vending machine doing all this work and travel to deliver someone their drink. It was cute and big. It was funny. It was wonder and imagination. All to sell sugar water. Doesn’t matter what you’re selling. There’s a way to make your audience feel goosebumps. It’s rare, but when it happens it’s special and it sticks with you for years.

When you hand off a finished piece, what’s the part of the craft that quietly defines your work but never gets credited in the final package?

The world-building inside the sound. When you rebuild SFX, foley, tonal beds, and rhythm from scratch, you’re shaping the emotional physics of the trailer, but nobody gets that credit. People just say the pacing feels cinematic. That’s because every cut has an audio motive behind it, even if the final finish hides how much reconstruction went into it.

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When David talks about trailers, he isn’t talking about spectacle. He’s talking about the quiet engineering that decides how a feeling lands. For him, the invisible work inside sound and rhythm is what makes a few seconds feel bigger than they should.

Learn more about David at:

• Website

• TikTok