RESEARCH: HOW THE THE CAMPAIGN WORKS

Above the Line costs:

These are known costs for creating marketing material like trailers and buying media advertising such as website banners, radio or tv spots and creating an online presence for the film

Below the Line costs:

Publicity creates more awareness and interest In a film. This may include articles or interviews which are seen as 'more trusted' than display advertising. Premieres are included as they are the cost of getting stars and directors to attend which will generate more coverage from the press. These kinds of events offer fans opportunities to interact with the stars more at the red carpet to get selfies, autographs and more. 

Cross promotion: set up with different companies outside film industry e.g. food brands, drinks, clothing etc, to help promote the film to a different environment with hope of a wider audience.

In short video Williams explains that brand partnership is an important part of blockbuster marketing campaign and the promotions and messages that can be achieved. Every film will have the trailers and the assets that speak about the specific film, this is extremely single minded in how they communicate with an audience. 

She talks about brand partnerships and how they allow you to extend out to other target audiences and other areas that you usually may not be able to reach, this may allow the film to add synergy. 

Distributors look at many factors when it comes to the campaign release, they also must discuss who the potential brand partners may be, this may depend on the connection between: 

• themes in a film
• storyline
• background
• talent

The distributors brainstorm and identify who the brand partners may be and then leads to them going out and having the conversations with:

• established partners
• industry partners
• agencies 

PRINTS AND ADVERTSING:


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:

Posters Trailers Press advertising T.V. advertising Websites Outdoor Radio advertising Merchandise/Cross-promotion Online social media

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

POSTER ANALYSIS:

Types of trailers:

The film trailer is probably the most cost effective advertising technique available to the film distributor. It can give audiences a sense of genre, what the story is about, who is in the film and when it opens. 

Trailers can be classified in three ways:

• The teaser trailer
• The full trailer
• The T.V. spot 
• On-set blogs posted by key cast or crew

Trailer Analysis:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:
This trailer is extremely interesting and was created very well. The editing and sound played a huge factor that added to the genre of the film and would make viewers want to watch it. The hook of the film is how strongly women are being portrayed. This is extremely captivating for many women watching, making them want to go and watch the full movie to see how empowering the women in it are. With Elizabeth Bennet played by Lily James who is a very well-known actress who starred in Mamma Mia! Here we go Again, Baby driver and Cinderella. The film starts with orchestral classical music with the stereotypical women in shot, but then it rapidly changes to an action pact part of the film with upbeat, fast music showing women to be the strong figures. The sound and use of composition is very important in this trailer, as it begins with the girls being stereotypical by using orchestral music over the top. But, the use of the guitar music that starts to become louder as the women walk towards the camera portrays them as a group of strong and powerful women.

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:
Based on an inspiring true story of the struggles that occurred in Chile when 33 men get trapped under ground after working in a gold mine. The trailer immediately will gravitate to those who speak Spanish or come from a Spanish heritage as they may feel very strongly about the situation and making it relatable to them. The soft, orchestral music really draws the viewer in and by using well known songs, it heightens the emotions and makes the audience empathise about what they are watching. Fast pace editing and loud screaming and crashing sound shows the hook of the film when the men get trapped.

The trailer maker: 
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

Online marketing:

On-line marketing of a film allows distributors to access an increasingly fragmented audience. 16-24 year-olds have more and more calls on their "entertainment" time. The majority of this important market group are online using mobile devices to listen to music, play interactive games, using a multitude of apps and engaging with their online friends through social media. This is an audience, a generation that moves seamlessly from one thing to the next, and being online and connected is so important to them.

They may not pay attention to more traditional methods of advertising – television, radio, newspapers and magazines. 

Chris Besseling discusses: 

• 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.

Kezia Williams discusses:

• 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 

RESEARCH: WHAT SETS A FILM APART

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 to be set apart from others in the same genre. This will really help me when making my own film and will allow me to ensure mine is different from others in the market.

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.

This is when they would realise how important a specific part of a film really is as it helps develop the film and the hooks which will be shown in publicity and marketing.




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?

Once these strengths have been established and challenged you can then determine how you can position the film in the market as something unique and special come the week of the release. These selling points include:

• 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 

Selling points for a block buster would include:

• Cinematic spectacle- the visual effects, CGI, 3D

Non-blockbuster films need to find a way to position themselves as a must see movie for your target audience in the week of release, this could include: 

• 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

Reaching me:






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:

Keiza Williams from eOne, explains the importance of understanding your target audience In order to market the film.     

• what motivates them?
• interests them?
• what drives them to going to the cinema?

The distributors will examine comparable films, films that are similar to one the distributor is working with. They then create a set that they can look back at data and research to identify who the audience was for those films. 

Looking at demographic data

• male
• female
• age group

Box office data

• regionality 
• how each cinema performs 
• was there a specific cinema chain people went to?

They must also do this research to understand their target audience 

• 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)

Chris Bessling talks about how distributors need to research to support the release strategy, as the film industry is massively high risk, there are anomaly at box office weekly as it is unpredictable. This is why the mostly rely on historical data.

The historical data helps them get an idea of makeup of the audience who saw the films, age demographics, socio economical standing, who should they be target? how comparable titles performed at box office? This will allow the distributors to forecast potential taking. 

The hook and audience:

Taking into consideration what I have learned from Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling, I have tried to imagine what the target audiences for the following films may have looked like








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.

Marketability is the ability for a product or service to be sold or marketed. Marketability for film is extremely important otherwise people may not have awareness of the film and pay more attention to it. 

Playability is the quality of the product or service, it is how the audience react to the film and if they are satisfied, if the audience are satisfied this will mean there will be good word of mouth and they may encourage peers to see the film. It is about the outcome of the film and how many people continue to watch the film after using DVD, streaming.

4

I took what I have learned from Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling and tried to imagine how I would market a film.

Marketability is referencing the ability for a product to be sold or marketed. In the case of films, the marketability of a film is very important otherwise people will not pay attention to your film.

Playability references the quality of something to be played, in the case of films these are legacy views. How many people will buy the eventual DVD or watch on a streaming service time after time. This is very important for the life span of the film.

TASK

4

I took what I have learned from Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling and tried to imagine how I would market a film.

Marketability is referencing the ability for a product to be sold or marketed. In the case of films, the marketability of a film is very important otherwise people will not pay attention to your film.

Playability references the quality of something to be played, in the case of films these are legacy views. How many people will buy the eventual DVD or watch on a streaming service time after time. This is very important for the life span of the film.

TASK

I took what I have learned from Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling and tried to imagine how I would market a film.

Marketability is referencing the ability for a product to be sold or marketed. In the case of films, the marketability of a film is very important otherwise people will not pay attention to your film.

Playability references the quality of something to be played, in the case of films these are legacy views. How many people will buy the eventual DVD or watch on a streaming service time after time. This is very important for the life span of the film.

TAS

I took what I have learned from Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling and tried to imagine how I would market a film.

Marketability is referencing the ability for a product to be sold or marketed. In the case of films, the marketability of a film is very important otherwise people will not pay attention to your film.

Playability references the quality of something to be played, in the case of films these are legacy views. How many people will buy the eventual DVD or watch on a streaming service time after time. This is very important for the life span of the film.

RESEARCH: THE ROLE OF DISTRIBUTOR

I used the FDA site The Film Space to research the role of the distributor. Mark Batey, Chief Executive of the FDA, describes how distributors have to consider the 'what, who, when, and how' involved in acquiring and marketing films for successful distribution.

The FDA site states that the role of a distributor is varied but includes: acquiring a film.

• If the distributor is a ‘major’ and is attached to a studio (e.g. Warner Bros. or Universal) then they will normally work on the films made by that studio. A ‘major’ might also acquire the rights to an independent production (made outside the major studios).
• If it is an ‘independent’ distributor, unaffiliated to one of the major US studios, then the company will buy (license) the rights to a film which they may have seen at a film festival  or at script stage, or during the production

Either type of distributor might have the right to distribute the film in the UK only. Major studio distributors will often have the right to distribute the film worldwide.

WHAT:
All films must be looked at as individual and needs to be handled with its own plan and not just based on numbers and statistics. It is not only important to considered what the particular film is, but what genre it is, if there are any similar films that have come out recently and how they performed. They also need to consider if its a sequel, based on a book or a play, each film has to be looked at on its own merits regardless of what it is. 
Mark Batey drew attention to the different genres of films that each required individual distribution plans. To illustrate this, make a collage of different films, such as this one that I prepared to show the many different genres that Working Title make:

WHO:
In obtaining the film, the distributor will have considered that there is a viable audience for the film, i.e. WHO might pay to see it. 

The most common people that attend the cinema regularly are young adults (20+). However, it can be argued that in todays world this age category is broadening. 
 The FDA have observed a growing divergence on viewing patterns by age, with TV audiences getting older (over half of TV audiences are in the over-54 category), whilst an OFCOM survey found that 48% of12-15 year olds picked YouTube as their favourite platform and 19% picked Netflix. These figures will influence how distributors market their films.

The FDA observes: The 'movies’ can hold various different appeals to people at different times, for example: a family outing; a party; a date; a girls’ night out; an afternoon or evening with a partner or friend; and a way to stay ‘in the know’ among social peers. Audiences comprise a complex mosaic of consumer segments, varying substantially film by film, week by week

                                                                      

WHEN:
The distributor acquires a film for release, In the UK around 700 feature films are released each year making the industry very competitive

Different types of films will be released at specific times in the year dependant on the genre of the film and when they think they are most likely going to reach their target audience, for example horror movies are most likely going to be released at Halloween. 
Another example is Grinch and the Nutcracker, which were released during the Christmas period due to them being a Christmas film which helped draw in the public to watch it 

The FDA yearbook shows us films that came out in the Christmas period, including Grinch and the Nutcracker, these are both remakes of famous Christmas films. These films are obviously related to Christmas as they have always been marketed as Christmas films or ballet, therefore they need to be realised during the Christmas period to get the public involved in wanting to watch them.
Sometimes, factors outside distributors' control can affect box office takings despite careful planning, such as a football match or a turn in the weather, as the cinema market is product-driven, expanding or contracting according to the films released into it and the extent to which they engage wide-ranging audiences. For instance, FIFA world cup fixtures competed for audiences with cinema on several weekends in 2018, whilst the third weekend in April had hot sunny weather after a long cold winter

HOW:
'How should the film be released?'
'How is it going to be marketed?'
Based on this they will create trailers and display materials to promote the film, create publicity through such things as interviews with the stars online, on TV, radio and in the press, premieres and news stories. 
When considering how the film will be released there are multiple factors that need to be taken into account, these include: who its for, how it will be released, how much the business can afford on releasing it, brining it to market and promoting the film to audiences. they also have to consider: how many cinemas will consider playing it. These factors have to be worked out for each individual film, what is the best distribution plan for each particular film. 

The FDA shares  the different types of marketing strategy: FDA estimates that UK film distributors’ investment in bringing 916 new titles to market in 2018 exceeded £350m. Around half of this is paid-for UK-wide advertising, using many digital, social and physical media outlets. The rest is formed from components: advertising, poster and trailer production; publicity and premiere costs; and digital cinema packages to be supplied to cinemas in many formats. The FDA assert that although the UK is a large cinema territory in terms of box-office receipts, the high costs of marketing and distribution mean relatively low returns for the distributor. It is hard to 'cut through' in a congested marketplace and the fact that it is so crowded makes decisions on release dates very tough.