What does the green, red and blue background mean at the begining of movie trailers?

Question

I know that the green is for all audiences but what are the other two for.

Answer 1

...interesting question!!!

I think that the different colors are probably meant to strike something subliminally or unconsciously, as I have seen the colors matched with with various rating indications, depending upon the intensity of the film.

For instance, you DO have a point, regarding the color green typically being matched primarily with films being rated for general, of family type of films.

When they use the color blue, the 'general audience' and 'restricted audience' rating seems to vary, from film to film, again is seems, depending upon the intensity of the film.

Although the use of green and blue seems to vary, depending upon the film it represents, there's no denying that when the color red is used, the film rating will definately be 'restricted'; off the top of my head, distinctly, I seem to recall that trailers for the films directed by Paul Vorhoven ("Robocop", "Starship Troopers", "Basic Instinct") always seem to always be 'red', for obvious reasons.

Sorry if I couldn't provide something more factual, as well as any kind of reference; I really couldn't find anything. My logical conjecture DOES seems to make sense, though, right???

Answer 2

A green MPAA title screen indicates that the trailer is appropriate to be seen by all audiences. The film itself can be an R, but the advertising has to be clean to get the green screen.

A red screen, indicates that the trailer is appropriate for a restricted audience, meaning that theater owners can only show it in front of R or NC-17 rated films. This may be due to graphic violence, language, nudity, sexuality, or drug use. All of the things that makes the film itself an R or higher. Filmmakers try to avoid making red screened trailers because they want to reach as wide an audience as possible.

I don't think I've ever seen the blue screen in front of a trailer, only at the end of the feature film where it just lists the film's rating. At that point it doesn't matter, because you've already seen the film.