Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Monday, December 7, 2020
PLANNING: STORY BOARD
We have done a brief plan of a storyboard, this a rough idea of how the trailer will flow. Because we are creating a trailer it will not flow as much. With lots of hard cuts and the trailer jumping back and forward, as I have learnt from watching trailers that they flow at the beginning and have a continuous story to it until the drama hits and it becomes more suspenseful with lots of hard cuts and dark screens and flashes. So although we have created a storyboard the trailer may not continuously show this order. This is just so we know what kind of shots we want, scenes and people.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
PLANNING: AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE
I created an audience questionnaire tailored to my own film production work. Through the use of Google Forms I was able to collect date and I can present in both graphical forms and words, as I asked questions that were both quantitative and qualitative date.
Friday, September 25, 2020
PLANNING: LOCATION RECCE
Our locations for our film trailer are mainly based in the same building. We will be using our school grounds to film the trailer on as we have many locations such as a the basement tunnel that has a dark and gloomy atmosphere which is perfect for the horror scenes we want to film. We will film shots of the exterior of the building to portray a boarding school atmosphere, but then as the audience discovers the basement of the school they say what is really going to happen.
PLANNING: INITIAL DEVELOPMENT
For planning, my group and I wrote down all of our initial ideas onto a mind-map to give us a clear idea of what props, location, genre, plot and character we would like to include. We came up with the rough idea for the plot we want to use which we can further finalise later on in planning. We want the film to be set in the 1960's and we will present this clearly through mine-en-scene - how the character's present themselves in what they wear as well as the use of cod-liver which was a dietary supplement that was commonly used in the 1960's and the students and boarding schools had to have it.
Sunday, August 23, 2020
TRAILER
THE BIRTH OF A NATION
02.
OVERVIEW
Half way through the trailer, the non diegetic music changes from being deep and dark (piano) to then turning to a higher pitch and extremely empowering piano piece. It changes to the well known song called Rise Up which could suggest the turning point within Nat Turner's mind, where he now wants to 'rise up' and fight for his rights and everyone else's. The change in song is extremely important in the song as it connotes his change in attitude and that he no longer wants to sit around and do what he is told by his masters.
Above this song, a voice over of Turner saying "God spoke to me... to rise good against evil" while there is a slow zoom of Turner looking up at the sky suggesting he is looking up at God. This clip shows the moment his attitude changed, as he heard a message from God and wants to make a change. This is extremely uplifting to watch and makes the audience feel extremely emotional
While Turner is telling his fellow's about his plan, a close up for his face shows him with a smile thinking about their future. This shows how optimistic he is and how determined he is for there to be change, the audience have always been on his side but are now especially excited to see him want to fight for what he deserves.
Towards the end of the trailer we see the black slave trade community come together and fight against the injustice they have gone through.
A montage of short clips show the white upperclass community hurting, beating or hitting the slaves followed by Nat Turner's partner lying in bed wiping Nat's tears off his face while she says "you fought for us all". This heartfelt moment is highlighted the the use of the slow zoom into Nat's face showing the tears on his face.
Extreme close up is used to show a little boy's
face (who is a slave) right before it shows the
weapons the black community are about to use.
This motivated edit shows that even the young
children have to go through such awdul experiences
like using a gun at such a young age to fight for
equality.
Shot reverse shot shows the black community and the white community facing each other as they are about to start a dangerous fight between them.
Once they start running towards each other, the clip of Nat Turner running was edited to be in slow motion to show the anger in his face and how he is the leader of his pact during the fight.
The trailer ends with the slow motion running, leaving the audience wanting to
know what happened next, making them watch the film.




AMERICAN SNIPER
While Kyle is watching them carefully with the dramatic heart beat sound as well as now a intense soundtrack in the background, we as the audience see the flashbacks Kylie is having. The flashbacks include his wedding, his wife giving birth and him playing with his daughter. By placing these flashbacks between him watching the mother and son, it shows that he does not want to shoot them if they are innocent as he himself has a wife and child so feels immense pressure to not mess up.
The motivated edits of the flashbacks shows that his mind is being flooded with thoughts and gives the audience an insight of his life showing he has a family too
We hear Kyle say through his walkie talkie that she is carrying a grenade and passing it to the little boy while his eyes are not moving from the target and we can see from the closeup that he is focused on watching them
When somone on the other end of the walkie talkie says it is Kyle's call, we hear him take a huge deep breath as his partner next to him says "they fire you if you're wrong. This shows what pressure Kyle is under as he doesn't want to kill a women and a child but equally if he doesn't, him and the army's lives may be at risk
The music and heart beat now gets louder and louder, faster and faster, connoting that Kyle's heart is racing and that he feels a huge amount of stress and pressure to make the right choice.
A shot shows the young boy running with the grenade in his hand, followed by a motivated edit of Kyle's daughter having fun. This juxtaposition between children creates emotion for the audience as the daughter lives a happy, fun life while the boy is in danger, making us sympathise to him.The two kids are similar ages
connoting that the decision Kyle makes will stay with him for
the rest of his life as he doesnt want to kill a young child
because he himself has one.
An extreme closeup of a finger slowly pressing down on the
trigger is shown with shot reverse shot going back to Kyle's
face where we can see how nervous and afraid he is.
A black screen is then shown followed by the movie name 'American Sniper' being shown next.
By ending the trailer with a cliff hanger, it makes the audience want to watch the film to see what decision Kyle made and if he ended up pulling the trigger on the little boy or not.
Mise-en-scene is used to show the genre of the film
clearly. Having the men dress in military clothing.
This
is also a stereotype as it is just men being shown,
suggesting it is a job that men should be doing.


GRAVITY

GRAVITY
Intense music is playing in the background to exaggerate what we are watching and make the moment even more tense
The diegetic dialogue of her breathing heavily and fast throughout connotes fear for herself and shows how scared she is, making the viewers scared and hoping she finds her way back somehow
An extreme closeup is used to show only Stone's eyes
moving from left to right constantly, this suggests that
she is looking
around to find something to show where
she is and also shows how fearful
she is for being in the
unknown. It is very effective to only show her eyes
here,
as eyes give away a lot of feeling and emotion
Fast paced montage is then used to match her breathing that is used as a soundbridge over the top.
The voice over of Stone speaking in the past, matches what we see. When she shares that she has a daughter we see a closeup of a photo frame with her and her daughter, making the audience symphathise more as we don't want the daughter to lose her mother
The trailer then ends with ultimate silence again as it shares the title but the viewers are still unaware whether Stone made it or not, making them want to watch the film
The trailer ensures to include its talent within the trailer, showing the names of well known actors like Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, both of which are unique selling points for the film



Cuaron was already well known to audiences before Gravity (2013) as the director of critically acclaimed films like Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children of God, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Friday, June 12, 2020
RESEARCH: HOW THE THE CAMPAIGN WORKS
Below the Line costs:
- themes in a film
- storyline
- background
- talent
- established partners
- industry partners
- agencies

Types of Release:
Most films released in the UK are launched on fewer than 100 digital copies
(and, as a 'linited' release will not be heavily supported by large amounts of advertising spend). Only 5% of films are released with over 500 copies (and accompanied by a large P&A spend).
In 2014, distributors spent approximately £350 million on advertising their films. Of this, around £190 million was invested in above-the-line media advertising, and the remainder on advertising production, cutting trailers, publicity junkets and materials, premieres, and producing and delivering DCP’s to be projected on screen.
The more money that the distributor estimates will be taken by the cinemas in box office ticket sales, the more they will invest in marketing the film. Typically, the smaller the film, the smaller the spend.
Advertising:
The largest ‘spend’ of any P&A budget will be on advertising a film. In the UK, media advertising is very expensive. The main advertising avenues open to any distributor are:
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The poster:
The image on the poster must make us aware of the existence of the film, must make us want to see the film, and put across ideas of what the film could be about.
Most posters want to include:
- the film
- the stars
- credits
- and often a tagline.
The iconic image or design in a film’s poster – the so-called ‘key art’ – is central to the film’s identity and an essential feature of its release campaign. A great poster catches the eye, tempts the mind and touches the heart, arousing viewers’ interest in the experience that’s promised.
If the film is a sequel, its poster must immediately make it recognisable as part of a continuing saga. If it’s an original movie, the poster has to be bold enough to cut through having messaging and branding that are stands out.
The poster must generate interest, or even excitement, without revealing too much. Or it may largely be a montage of the principal cast with their costumes giving clues to their particular roles. The mandatory credits must be incorporated in their due proportions too.
Illustrations or paintings were commonplace in film poster artworks up to the 1980s. In our digital media age, posters are often created using sophisticated software such as Illustrator or Photoshop. In any event, film posters are well established as a genre of commercial ‘pop art’ in their own right – copyrighted designs to cherish, savour, remember for a lifetime, collect and even share.
The poster gets its message across in a number of ways:
- The image or images used on the poster
- The use of ‘star’ names/faces
- The size of specific words on the poster
- The use of colour
- The graphic style of any words used on the poster
- The certificate
- The teaser trailer
- The full trailer
- The T.V. spot
- On-set blogs posted by key cast or crew

In the heart of the sea:
In this film there are many well known actors, by including these talented actors and making them the face of the film it will attract an audience as they will associate the film with the talent involved and assume it will be excellent. By including cast such as Chris Hemsworth and Tom Holland it makes a whole target audience immediately intrigued to watch the film. The fast paced editing and great use of CGI excites the viewer to see the film as it looks very realistic with an intense and powerful storyline.The hook of the film trailer is the story of the men as sea when they are faced with the myth of Moby Dick. The sound used within the trailer is very simple but effective as it creates a lot of tension. The unique selling point here is the fact that it is based on a true story as people will be more interested it to and to see who survives the story.
The 33:

Using the FDA site I created my own trailer, this task was very fun and allowed me to be creative. They gave me clips from the Suffragette film trailer and I placed them in my own order and added my own sound. I enjoyed doing this but did find it hard to have smooth cuts as I could not edit the length of the clips or add in transitions to make it smoother. MY FINISHED TRAILER
- How important digital media is
- Perception of a film is shaped within the digital space
- Have to be careful that we maintain a positioning within a space
- Digital marketing also gives publishers and marketeers the best opportunity to engage with consumers on a targeted and more personal level
- Easy to have instant interactivity with consumers making marketing more effective
- Users and fans can generate own content to support your release, adding to the marketing
- Spending for digital media has increased a huge amount and companies focus on marketing online.
- It is hard to distinguish the difference between digital activity and non digital activity as it crosses over in everything we do (publicity- magazines and newspapers will also live online making almost everything that is non-digital easy to find digitally too. Also, competitions, promotions, social media
- Mobiles and other devices are so universal and found everywhere therefore is most likely the first place an audience will see a trailer rather than in a cinema or anywhere else.
- The power of online is potent because it generates conversation around a piece of content; for example trending hashtags on twitter, tagging people in trailer post - reach is huge. This can be enhances by putting more money into this marketing to push it further
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
RESEARCH: WHAT SETS A FILM APART
Kezia Williams is Head of theatrical distribution, and from her I learnt:

- When developing the message, key themes and hooks must be picked out - What will excite the target audience?
- It can start at any moment of a film campaign, such as:
- From the script alone, you can get a sense of what it is about and its motivating and engaging aspects of the story
- When the footage is finished and they can watch it back
- It could even be as late as the final film itself and the team realise there is a important element of the film that was only just discovered.
Chris Besseling, director of marketing focuses on the market place and the different factors that need to be identified, including:
- Unique selling point
- Target audience (as early on as possible)
- As well as this, identifying any challenges that may come its way is important to discuss and have responses too
- What are they key strengths that you're going to look to exploit over the cause of the campaign?
- Cast
- Well-known director
- Quality of the performances
- Reviews
- Awards
- Films source material - based on a true story, a real person, a book or part of a franchise/sequel
- When making a sequel you automatically have a built in audience that you can cash in on
- Cinematic spectacle- the visual effects, CGI, 3D
- An important or thought provoking message that you can use to try and communicate through your campaign
- The films powerful and emotional resonance
RESEARCH: WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE

Each film has to be positioned through considering the selling points against an understanding of age, gender, lifestyles and activities of the audiences available – all of which inform the later decisions on how and where a film is promoted. Films have to compete for audiences’ time as well as disposable income.
The target audience can vary considerably from film to film, for example from families with young children to teenagers to older audiences. It is the distributor’s job, through research, comparison with previous films and their audiences, commercial experience and professional judgement to define who the audience for any particular film is. Each film has to be treated as an individual product.
Genre and audience:
- what motivates them?
- interests them?
- what drives them to going to the cinema?
- male
- female
- age group
- regionality
- how each cinema performs
- was there a specific cinema chain people went to?
- bespoke research
- focus groups
- go out and talk to potential audiences
- film may be an established book/game, this will have data on who is already interested
- is there certain talent that appeals to certain demographic/group
- understand core audience and persuadable audience
- if the film is a 4 quadrant film (Film with multiple target audiences)

The hook and audience:

Reaching the target audience:

I thought about how I would market a film using the information I learnt from Williams and Besseling in the short videos.
Marketability and Playability:
I took what I've learnt from Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling to try and imagine how I would market a film.
WELCOME MODERATOR
WELCOME MODERATOR ! by eviegracehand
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After watching Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling I had a very good understanding of what factors are needed to be focused in for a film t...
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FILMING by eviegracehand