Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your product and ancillary texts?

The role of a distributor of a film is the promotion and marketing of a film, as they was a film is distributed is essential to the amount of success and profit it will encounter. They may set the release date of the film, which would be based strategically on the audience research or because of the context of the film itself (festive film to be released around the Christmas Period). They would be in charge of the different forms of advertisement, for example when to have the advert played on the radio, TV or on transportation. If the film being distributed was a horror film then they could advertise during August, September and October and then have the release date of Halloween, and also advertise the trailer on night time TV. It could be said that the distributors main role is to raise awareness of an upcoming film, and they have to advertise it in as many different ways that are suitable. This goes from creating sponsors and partnerships to gain the audiences acknowledgement of the film, and to reach out to the different theatres and cinemas to screen the film upon its release.When an audience goes to see a film at the cinema, it is likely the advertising trailers shown before the film starts would be of the same or similar genre, as they have similar demographics. As well as this, conventionally people go the cinema at the weekend to see a film, so some nationally known cinemas such as 'Odeon' increase their prices over peak times, which increase profit. 

 

(image taken from the Odeon Cinema Website)

When advertising a film it is crucial that it is spread through as many different media platforms as possible in order to promote the film to the widest audience feasible. They platforms include: TV; radio; billboards; newspaper/magazines; transportation signs; social media; websites. Distributors would already know who their target audience are, and need to appeal to them. However if the not all types of people use the same media, for example some people might not listen to the radio very often, so you would need to use different methods of advertising like social media. The broader the advertisement the more well-known the film will become and therefore increasing the chances of it becoming popular and a lot of being going to see the film in the cinema or DVD, which increases the incoming revenue.

One of the largest and most successful advertisement campaigns was for the 2008 Warner Bros ‘The Dark Knight’ where they released a massive range of different platforms to make people aware of the film. This included things such as the online fake political website for one of the characters in the film (Ibelieveinharveydent.com), as well as creating a fictional newspaper ‘the Gotham times’ (which is the city the film is set) and handed them out to people on the streets. Due to the extreme depth and broadness of this marketing, it helped to created around one billion ticket sales worldwide.

Another film with a large marketing campaign was ‘The Hunger Games’. A huge part of its success was due to the book platform being a worldwide phenomenon. However, in the lead up to its movie release, the company distributed over 80,000 film posters featuring the cast. This film used social media widely in order to promote the Hunger games. For example they released games where players could join a ‘district’ which is an important part of the story line, and compete with different players from different districts. They also had a YouTube channel, during the production stages, where audience could see how the film was progressing and developing.  Due to one of the sub plots of the film being the romantic relationship, one of the films main attractions was having an attractive male lead, in order to appeal to its audiences which were predominately female. This is also apparent in films such as the Twilight saga.

 It is important that they know who their audience are in order to attract them to go see the film, which is why audience research is a vital part of production. If the film were a children’s film then you would expect to see the film advertised on children’s TV channels or in magazines, and if it were for teenagers that it would be predominately advertised on social media. Once production has discovered who its target audience is, then they can pick out the different methods and which are most appropriate.

Marketing campaign

We have chosen to make the PEGI rating for our film an 18, this is because of the amount of violence, and gore featured within. I think that it would be inappropriate to allow someone below this age category to see the film, because it has mature themes and scenes that include murder. Due to the genre there would be scenes of distress, which would make a younger audience feel uncomfortable and uneasy.

There is a visible relationship between my poster and film trailers, as the image i have used in the poster, is intertextual with the final shot from the trailer, giving them a unified identity. I felt that this was a good image to use, as it is one of the most important parts of the trailer, and is the ideology behind the whole film, (the antagonist’s quest to capture and kill the attractive female.) i also tried to show a relationship by the colour scheme i used within my poster. They colour red is situated throughout the film, due to the costumes and the time setting of the Christmas period, so i wanted to incorporate this within my poster, as it one of the most conventional colours in the horror genre.  There is also a relationship by the poster creating an Enigma of the antagonist. The character behind the female has his identity hidden, so would position the audience to want to go and see the film in order to find out who he is. The font used for the main coverline on my magazine front cover is the same that is used on the title for my film poster, which reinforces the unified identity throughout the marketing of my film.  

It is important to have a film advertised on the cover of a magazine as this is a platform that is distributed widely. Some people collect a certain brand of magazine, and have weekly subscriptions, so they would buy the magazine regardless of what is featured on the cover. When buying a magazine, the front cover is what attracts the audience, so the image and text used must be appealing. I tried to do this with my magazine by having the model in the main cover image using direct mode of address in order to position the audience to feel as if the magazine is directed specifically at them.

Below is the Annotated YouTube video describing how effective my final film trailer and ancillary tasks work together.