Research

This section of my blog is the Research section, during this part of my blog i will have looked in depth into different areas of the media. Such as film trailers, posters, websites and magazines.

Marketing Campaign For Real Steel 
(In the Style Of Movie Marketing Madness)
Example of an entry

Below i will produce a marketing campaign in the style of an entry from Movie Marketing Madness, above you will see i have included an example of an entry from the site. All entries on this site look at how promotional packages for movies advertise and sell the movie. I will do just this below;

The poster

Here is the poster for the new movie Real Steel, staring Hugh Jackman.The poster was in my local cinema. It shows us a masculine and striking picture of Hugh Jackman stood in front of a very large robot.This tells the audience that the film will be obviously something to do with Robots. It also conveys a sense of action and fighting because of the fighting stance Jackman is stood in. From the position he is stood in and from the way the robot is coping him exactly it conveys to the audience that maybe they will be fighting together or the robot is made to fight for him.

The colour scheme of the poster follows the theme of metal and robotics because of the greys and silvers in the poster. Your eyes are directly drawn to the  picture of Jackman because his eyes are staring directly at the audience creating eye contact. this will draw the audience in because they feel a connection with the actor in the poster. Our eyes are then drawn to the robot behind him which then tells the audience a bit more about the film.   

The Trailers

To the left is the Theatrical trailer for the new movie Real Steel. In the first few seconds of the trailer we hear a cheering crowd and chanting voice, this tells the audience that an event of some kind will be taking place. After that we hear Jackman say "the one and only" this tells the audience that he's the main character and that he has a big role during the film. Shortly after that the voice over continues says "times have changed" with a montage of boxing photographs and a flash of the boxing ring some including Jackman himself, which allows the audience to get the feel for the character and his past. After that we see the crowd in an arena and lots of posters saying "Robot Fights" so obviously we can tell that there is going to be some form of boxing matches between these robots. As the trailer continues we see flashing images of the robots in action and in training. We see them in fights and lots of press and the media. So this conveys to the audience that something big is going to happen which coincides with the Robot boxing. Then at the end of the trailer, the words "Hugh Jackman" is shown this gives the trailer it's USP (Unique Selling Point) and will attract fans of Jackmen to go and see the film.

Online
Click Here For Website

Above is the link to the Real Steel website. There is a lot of information on this website, when you first open the site the trailer for the film appears large on the screen. This is helpful if the audience hasn't seen the film trailer yet, but does get annoying for those who repeatedly access the site as it comes up automatically. After loading the site and watching the trailer you are shown the movie poster with two buttons under it. Saying "enter site" and "get tickets". The menu button is on the top left hand side. Once clicked a range of features are listed "Gallery, Story, Downloads, Video, Cast and Crew etc" allowing the target audience a range of features to get involved in and to look at. This gives the audience a better idea of the movie and if they like what they see then obviously they will go and see the movie. It also allows people who have seen the movie to find out more about it, or to get a better understanding of bits they didn't quite get. Or maybe if they were just interested in how some shots were filmed. It gives the audience the freedom to find the answers to the questions they want answered.

Advertising and Cross Promotions

BT struck a deal with Disney to promote the film, by using the BT tower as the venue to hold a film preview. this is the very first time this has been done.


 "The high-tech synergy between the BT brand and 'Real Steel', combined with the iconic backdrop of the BT Tower, has given us great scope to create a unique and creative campaign, spanning multiple platforms, and reaching a broad audience." - Bobi Carley, commercial director

And because the film has only just come out, no massive advertisements have been done to promote the film yet. But the media have posted Billboards and posters all around main cities to show off the new film to the general public. As well as the film trailer and posters playing on everyone TV screens and on the Internet.

-Own Research- 

RESEARCH INTO FILM TRAILERS

This trailer is for the 2005 Frank Miller's Classic, Sin City. This trailer shows the black and white lives of the characters involved and sums up the Film Noir style genre. The trailer  also  shows the faces of well known actors and actress' such as Jessica Alba and Devon Akio. The USP of the trailer is that fans of the original graphic novel will know the story and will be interested in seeing it turned into a movie. This will mean that although the target is an niche audience, by word of mouth, news of the film will spread and more people will be interested in seeing a graphic novel to film transformation.

 

This trailer is for the 1999, cult classic. Fight Club. Starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The Trailer starts with Brad Pitt saying "I want you to hit me as hard as you can" which tells the audience that from the very start, the film will involved violence and drama. The film is a psychological thriller. So the target market of the film will be high teens and upwards, generally people of an age that will enjoy and understand the film.   

Chaz malkin top trailers

View more presentations from bir

Above is a PowerPoint about three film trailers that i personally think are the best. My choices include, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hangover and Fight Club. I chose these films because they are all different genres and i wanted to explore different makes of films inteas of just the films i enjoy. By doing this i was able to look at what different genre's of films have to include in their trailers. Keeping to the main conventions of the genre.

RESEARCH INTO FILM POSTERS

Key Conventions:

•       Main image you see on a poster is the Key art, used for trailer, magazine covers.
•       Key art image, must be a narrative image and must also show genre– sums up the film,
•       Tag line
•       Stars name
•       Director’s name
•       Release date
•       Anything that’ll be a selling point will be used USP
•       The copy (all the written text) 
•       Tag lines (catchphrase) 
•       Awards the film has won 
•       Quotations                                                                                                          

 RESEARCH INTO FILM WEBSITES

Twilight Website

How does the visual look of the site complement the style and content of the film? 

     

 The style of the website, is almost identical to the front covers of the DVD’s. The large picture of Bella and Edward (the main characters) in the top left hand corner of the screen portrays the romantic theme of the story and is also almost instantly recognisable to the majority of the public due to the commercial success of the twilight sage.

How does the visual look of the site reflect the age and gender of the target audiences for each film?

The colour scheme of the website is dark and shows that even though the story is romantic, there is a darker twist to the movie. This presents the romance themes of the films to a stereotypical female audience whilst also presenting the more supernatural side to males who may choose not to watch the film as it is considered “feminine.” By also having the male lead, Robert Patterson, on the website, it promotes the films to females (specifically younger) who find him very attractive (fan girls).

What interactive features are there on each site?

There are many different interactive features on the website. Such as various hyperlinks which allows the audience to search the website easily and jump to different sections I.e. Image gallery, Video Gallery. There is also a video player in the bottom right hand corner. This will allow the audience to watch the trailer and watch clips of the movie.

In which sites are you invited to submit an e – mail address? For what purpose? How might these be used to enhance the marketing campaign?

By submitting an email address this will allow the website to send special offers or important information about the films/books/events to do with the film. Some websites send their fans newsletters every month or so. This is to keep the audience and frequent website users up to date with the happenings of the Film.

 RESEARCH INTO FILM MAGAZINES

Sight and sound - (www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound)

Published by the British film institute, This magazine is for the more intelligent audience and uses complex language to attract this magazine. It covers cinema’s all around the world not just British or American films. It is aimed at people serious about film and aimed more at media students and film studies students at university. By having this as their target market it makes the audience a niche market. It is also a monthly magazine that features reviews of every film released.

Uncut – (www.uncut.co.uk/magazine)

A hybrid magazine of music and film. It contains features on mostly older movies and music, usually from the 80‘s. The magazine sometimes features a free CD again from artists from the 80’s. This is also the USP of the magazine because fans of the music will sometimes just buy the magazine for the free CD. The movies featured are targeted at an older audience the age certificates of the film are higher. This magazine is also published by the British film institute

SFX – (www.sfx.co.uk)

SFX is a Science fiction based magazine. It is definitely targeted at a niche audience as well as a younger audiences as some older generations won’t enjoy TV programs such as primeval or Doctor Who. It involved articles and reviews on TV programmes as well as films and other technologies . Unlike Uncut and Sight and Sound, This magazine is published by Future publishing.

Empire magazine – http://www.empireonline.com/)

Empire Magazine is the world’s leading movie magazine. This magazine is targeted at all age ranges and audiences. It is published by Bauer Media Group It is aimed at the mainstream, so most of the public will be aware of the magazine and the films being reviewed. It focuses on a wide selection of people in its interviews and reviews and not just mainstream actors or directors. So actors and directors can be recognised by interviews with the magazine. Helping to get their work out to the audiences. And unlike other magazines, this particular magazine, is sold at cinema’s as well.

Total Film – (http://www.totalfilm.com/)

Total film is aimed at a family audience, so it covers all movies for different age ranges for all the family to see. It is published by Future publishing, but is only out in shops and cinema’s 13 times a year which makes the sales limited. This magazine is also aimed at the mainstream. The tagline ‘the modern guide to movies’ shows the audience that this is the only magazine you need because it has everything you need to know about films. It features pictures from upcoming films and will keep the audience interested because it’ll show movies they’ve seen advertised and want to know more.

Audience Research

Below is my groups survey to find out, what our target audience wants in a Dark Fantasy Film or what they don't want. by doing this is a easy way to get lots of results quickly. By placing the URL for our survey on social networking sites, such as Face book and Twitter, we were able to gather multiple results from our target market. Helping us in our research to create a Dark Fantasy Film with all the main conventions accepted by the audience.

Audience Feedback

Closed Questions

We asked our audience "Do you enjoy watching films from the Dark Fantasy/ thriller Genre's". This closed question allowed us to understand how many people are interested in our film genre, letting us know whether we'll be creating a film for a niche market or for a mass target audience. From the results you can see that the results were evenly spread except for the thirs colum, showing to us that our target market either likes one or the other, not both together. Mainly because not many of these films had been done before.

In another closed question, we asked the audience their sex. Because we placed the survey on facebook, it allowed different sex's to answer to questions however, only 12 people answered our survey and out of the 12, obviously from the graph the majority were male. but because we also had some female responses we know that our data is reilable.

In this closed question we asked the audience to choose the films out of the ones listed below that they enjoyed watching, Inception, The Dark Knight and Death Note came out top. Where as Alice and Wonderland came out at the bottom. Thsi tells us more about the audience perferences and what they look for in films. Although all the films listed wern't in our genre type they all involved some for of Fantasy element or thrilling plotline. And from our results we can tell that the audience enjoys films with interesting stories and characters as well mysetious elements and that feeling of un-real possiblities such as, being able to control dreams (Inception) and a Death God watching over as he create mischief in the human world (Death Note).

 In this question we asked the audience "Does the age certificate influence your decision to see the film?" We gave the audience a choice of four options, Yes, No, Sometimes and Indifferent. This question will help us to decide whether, graphic content should be used to catch our audiences attention. Our audience said that the age certificate "sometimes" influenced their decision. This tells us that we don't have to include graphic content but we do need to include a strong plot and some area's of horror and thrills to keep up A. the genre and B. the audiences attention during the film.

Open Questions

Also in our survey we asked a varity of open questions, one question we asked to help us understand what our target audience look for in a Dark Fantasy/ thriller movie was

"If So.... What do you like about it? Or if you answered 'No', then what don't you like about it?"

Our answers were so:

1. it's really un realistic
2. The mystery and paranormal stuff
3. LOVE it
4. Takes you to another world
5. Don't like the potential predictability
6. I don't like being scared
7. Sting in the tail
8. I love it all
9. Love the animation of Spirited Away, the intrigue and mystery of Death Note and the complexity of Inception. The others are too 'little girlish'.
10. i think the predictability is fun because even though you know whats happening, you still jump and the adrenaline rush is brilliant.
11. Every Dark Fantasy film has amazing story lines and characters, even though it's unrealistic it just makes you wish it could happen to you
12. they're just awsome!

From these answers we had a varity of opinions, this is helpful for us a researchers because this allows us to develop and change ideas to suit our target audiences liking. Espeically from the answers, "11" and "9" these answers allow us to really think about our characters and we know that to attract the audiences attention and keep it we need to come up with a interesting plot line. However, some answers such as, "12" and "3" aren't very helpful because they're not really giving us an indept answer to what they like/dislike in the films.

 Genre Research

This mood board was created for the grenre of "psychological thriller". When first debating the choice of genre, we first came up with the idea of "Fantasy thriller". But decided because of low budget and other complications thiis would be impossible for us to achieve what we wanted. So we stuck to the easier genre of "psychological thriller".




Movies related to this genre



Above is the trailer for the classic 1999 movie, The Matrix directed by Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski and below is the 2010 masterpeice Inception directed by Christopher Nolan. I chose to look at these two movies for my genre research because both of these movies fall under the genre and use techniques to make the audience question reality. i also used these movies to help me explore the conventions of the genre, this was helpful because then i understood what i needed to inculde in my own trailer.




INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH

20th Century Fox http://www.fox.co.uk/

20th Century Fox was founded in 1935 in New York by William Fox after merging "Fox Film Coropration" with "Twentieth Century Picures" and since then has blessed our screens with films such as "Titantic", "Starwars" and "X-Men". Plus many Tv shows such as, "Family Guy", "The Simpsons" and "American Dad". this is also one of the most succesful film coroprations in the world and is known worldwide.

Paramount Pictures http://www.paramount.com/

Paramount Pictures is an American film and TV distributor/producer. It was founded in  1912 and currently owned by Viacom. Paramount Pictures have produced the likes of "Tintin", "The Devil Inside" and "Hugo".

Miramax http://www.miramax.com/

Miramax films was founded in 1979 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and was an independant film distributor before it was acquired by The Walt Disney Company. And has distributed films such as; "40 Days and 40 Nights", "The Brothers Grimm" and "Cinderella Man".

 Pixar http://www.pixar.com/

Pixar is an American based animation film studio and has earned a well earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards. Pixar is also one of the most well known film producers in the world and is extremely succesful, and are well known for films like "Finding Nemo", " UP" and "Monsters Inc".

Walt DisneyPictures
 http://disney.go.com/movies/index

Walt Disney Pictures started in 1929 as The Walt Disney Company and was made into Walt Disney Pictures in 1983. The company produces mostly motion pictures and is well known for Films such as Tim Burton's "Alice and Wonderland",  "Pirates od the Caribbean; Dead Man's Chest" and "Toy Story 3".

Warner Bros Pictures http://www.warnerbros.com/

Warner Bros. Was founded in 1918 as Warner Bros. Studios but then in 1923 was changed to Warner Bros. Pictures and is also another American based studio and is also one of the most succesful independant film distributor/producers. They are also well known for  films such as "The Matrix", "Oceans Eleven" and "Harry Potter".

Pre limn Research

Above is my attempt at coping the trailer for Village of shadows. this was first attempt at using the software and using the conventions of a trailer. As a class we filmed this trailer and they put it together in exactly the same order to make the trailer seem the same.



Above is my actual preliminary trailer i did for the first part of the course, i did this to understand the making of a trailer and to gain a deeper understanding of the conventions of trailers. Our task was to create a horror trailer. We had only an hour to film and then two lessons to edit the short trailer together. This was helpful because it allowed us as a group to understand the importance of planning and research.

Below is our evaluation of our preliminary task we did as a group. which we also edited in Premier Pro and filmed using the same cameras as we did in our actual trailer.