F ILM PROMOTION AND MARKETING Research & Planning

W HAT IS MARKETING ? Marketing is how a film is promoted and advertised to it’s audience. It is crucial to a film’s success because it informs it’s target audience on what the film is about, what values & ideology it may have, and so on. It also gets viewers exited about the release and creates a hype before the film comes out, resulting in viewers wanting to see it as soon as possible. One of the most crucial parts of marketing and promotion is the films trailer, and teaser trailer(s). There are many methods and stages to promoting a film, ‘The Film Value Chain’ is a films potential earning power throughout its release. This is made up of 3 stages; Theatrical release (marketed through print and advertising such as film posters and magazine covers), Home entertainment release (DVD/Blu-Ray, and ‘pay-per- view subscription TV), and then free to air on TV. Other types of promotion include; Viral marketing (web), TV promotion/interviews, merchandising, and even gimmicks and pranks!

R ESEARCH – F ILM POSTERS This Blade Runner poster contains the basic conventions of a film poster, a title, credits, actor name and a tagline. It uses the format of ‘Harrison Ford is...’ rather than listing multiple actor credits, suggesting that this is more of a teaser poster than a theatrical one. The tagline reads “Man has made his match... Now it’s his problem”, I haven’t seen Blade Runner but my guess is that this suggests that in the narrative, humans come across a new danger or enemy, and Harrison Ford, The Blade Runner, has to sort it out. The image on the poster shows two of the main characters and a futuristic city-scape, this tells us it is set in the future and these characters will play a major part in the narrative. The fact that the characters are higher and over the futuristic city may suggest that they are ‘stronger’ than this huge established city. Also the fact that Harrison Ford’s head is larger than the other character, this is because he is the more recognised and famous actor, this assumption is based on a theory by a graphic designer named Gavin Berliner, who makes film posters for huge international production companies and made a very funny but very eye opening video on making film posters, here’s a link ( heads-from-fod-team-and-brian-huskey). heads-from-fod-team-and-brian-huskey The font of “Blade Runner” is sharp and looks like once upon a time it had futuristic conventions to it, this may be because it is Italic and sleek, but to me in this day and age it looks dated and ‘cheesy’. The orange hue coming from the city provides busy metropolitan conventions, it also reminds me of pollution and this is very common of a dystopian film. Blade Runner

F ILM POSTER ANALYSIS – T HE M ATRIX Main image Main character stands at front with serious expression on his face, indicating that this film is not a comedy or light hearted. Two other main characters in background looking slightly smug may suggest that they have more power than him but they all have similar clothing on and guns which tells us they are probably all fighting for the same thing. Tagline Tagline reads “believe the unbelievable” this suggests sci-fi genre. Production company Has to be included in credits for legal reasons. Actors name Keanu Reeves is the actor for the main character in this film, he is a well known and established actor in the action genre, this appeals to fans of both the genre and the actor. Masthead Masthead reads “The MATRIX” in electric blue and white, the font is very un-easy and messy, it holds connotations of error and glitches. These connotations suggest computer science and hacking being some of the themes in the narrative. Directors name appeal to fans of directors prev. work

R ESEARCH – M AGAZINE COVERS Empire – The Matrix This Empire magazine cover shows the character Morpheus from The Matrix holding two guns, its a whole body shot and he is posing for the camera in a action stance. The cover also follows the basic conventions of a movie magazine cover page, this includes a header at the top, a large title in the middle, and a footer at the bottom with a bar code next to it. Empire is now “THE BIGGEST MOVIE MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD!” as it says on the front of many issues. It is a high end, high budget magazine that focuses in on the Hollywood side of film, including mainstream films, A-list actors and special effects. This is why one would expect this front cover of ‘the matrix issue’. Empires most common reader is a male year old (source: July-Dec 2012), and we can see why if we look closer into some of the features on this front cover. The footer conveys collectable magazine covers, this follows a typical trait of men, wanting to collect and keep things in orders and collections, it is things as small and inconspicuous as this that attract us to buy into media products. Also the colour scheme of the cover is quite masqueline, greens and blacks rather than more feminine colours like pink and white.

F ILM MAGAZINE COVER ANALYSIS - T OTAL F ILM Masthead: Bold white writing, vibrant, glowing white has electric, shocking connotations. The fact that it sits behind the main character of the film doesn’t matter as it is such a recognised and established brand. Basic information: date, issue number and price. Special issue, feel more reason to buy magazine, relates to massive marvel fanbase “TOTAL ACCESS! Meet the new superhero god” This appealing story is drawing in fans making it feel more exclusive and giving a sense of knowledge that others may not have Main character to represent film, a strong male lead, attracts a male audience, but maybe also female audience due to sexual appeal. Smaller stories give viewers a more varied range of stories to read, but “Spider-man!” and “The Hulk!” still attract marvel fans Dark background with white flashy colours add to the lightening and thunder theme of the film.

O UR MARKETING PLAN Our film poster will contain the conventional features of a film poster including the image of the two main characters, the title of the film, a tagline, production company and other legal credits, actor names and a release date. We chose to make a Total Film magazine cover because we felt this magazine fits the criteria of our film, it is a high end magazine like Empire, but has a slightly more varied demographic. While it’s not a totally arty ‘indy’ film magazine like Little White Lies, it does take a bit of notice of directing skills and deeper qualities of films rather than JUST the huge star and the ‘freakishly good special effects’. Film Poster Magazine cover (Total Film) Our primary advertising product is our trailer (which you can find on the blog) but we need other marketing methods to add to our package. Our trailers release date is early 2014 in winter, there is not much reason for this specific date but the icy cold theme of the film ties in with the cold winter season. Our films unique selling points are its strong feminine lead character, and its post modern elements in the cinematography & narrative.

C ONTINUED.. Marketing in terms of "push" advertising is the posters we see on the walls of the cinemas and the sides of buses, and magazine covers in shops. We have decided that our film will be put on the front of Total Film magazine, this text usually promotes big budget movies with A-list actors but we thought we could manage it by making it a special issue of the magazine the will specialise in dystopian or indie films. We wanted to use Total Film because its target audience matches some of the same criteria as ours, it is quite a wide audience in both texts. Web 2.0 social media marketing will also be used, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to help the film reach the masses, using "pull" marketing which leaves it in the audience's hands to help distribute information. Mobile phones will also be used, concentrating on creating a game app which could use synergy by associating Strategy with a gaming company to help with profile. Twitter will allow us to promote our film, with links to Strategy's website and Facebook page, photos, videos and even competitions, giving our followers the opportunity to spend more time interacting with the film's online marketing. Below is a fake mock up that one of the group created, to show how Strategy's twitter account would be used to connect with its audience.