Friday 27 June 2014
RESEARCH: Using TV Chat Shows to Promote Films
Chat Shows on TV are becoming increasingly more popular throughout the UK and the US, with British chat show hosts such as Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton, Alan Carr and the Loose Women. American chat show hosts include Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy Kimmel and Jay Lenno. Chat shows are the perfect way for actors, actresses and directors to talk about their upcoming films and help promote them. It saves companies money because the actors themselves are actually being paid to talk to the show which means free promotion of the film. In this clip, we see Nicholas Hoult on The Jonathan Ross Show discussing his new film "Jack The Giant Slayer" but as well as discussing this, he discusses other films he's about to start filming and some of the past productions he has featured in such as Skins and X-Men. The Jonathan Ross show is a very popular talk show, getting an average of 3 million viewers per show. For a production company, it is an easy way to get their film noticed by a lot of people very quickly and often in actors contracts, the contract requires them to attend these talk shows, interviews and press conferences etc. to help promote the film. This is usually only done with very famous actors who have a wide fan base because TV talk shows wont have actors on the show that aren't very well known because it'll mean their viewing figures will go down.
Thursday 26 June 2014
RESEARCH: Soundtracks on Film Trailers
Soundtracks really help set the atmosphere and the plot of films, without them, trailers can be pretty bland, not exciting and they can sometimes be confusing.
This is the film trailer to Silent Hill: Revelation 3D. It is the sequel to the very successful 2006 Canadian horror film 'Silent Hill'. Without the sound, the trailer has no atmosphere. In terms of the visuals, the film has all the aspects of horror films, dark lighting, people running, screaming or looking scared, blood, scary creatures/monsters and the text that appears also helps show that it is a horror film. For example, it says that the film is released on Halloween. Traditionally, films that are released on Halloween are normally horror films. Yet, even with all of these visual aids to help with the atmosphere, the only thing that really gives the film trailer the scary, dramatic and horrifying atmosphere is the soundtrack. In the beginning, it shows our main female character talking about how she's been to five schools since she was eleven. During this, we are hearing a single piano which has connotations of loneliness and sadness. However, during the rest of the trailer, there are a lot of sounds which are typical of horror films. The sound of knives slashing something are enhanced for extra effect but knives are associated with death, we hear church bells which although they normally have a positive atmosphere in our everyday real life, they have a creepy, strange atmosphere in the scenario our main character is in. She's in a misty, foggy area and the woman she is talking to looks strange as well. Everything is quiet and all you can hear is the church bells which again suggest something bad is about to happen. There's a lot of screaming which again helps back up the idea that this is the trailer for a horror film because screaming is associated with terror and death. The speech used also is a massive help for us to realise that this is a horror film. The main character talks about people being "after her" and how she needs to find her father. She also screams a lot and tells someone to go to Hell who replies "We're already here.". If that speech wasn't there, we wouldn't really have any idea of what's going on or get an idea of what the plot is about, so without the non-diegetic sound and the diegetic sound, we lose all of the scary atmosphere we are looking for in horror films and trailers.
This is the film trailer to Silent Hill: Revelation 3D. It is the sequel to the very successful 2006 Canadian horror film 'Silent Hill'. Without the sound, the trailer has no atmosphere. In terms of the visuals, the film has all the aspects of horror films, dark lighting, people running, screaming or looking scared, blood, scary creatures/monsters and the text that appears also helps show that it is a horror film. For example, it says that the film is released on Halloween. Traditionally, films that are released on Halloween are normally horror films. Yet, even with all of these visual aids to help with the atmosphere, the only thing that really gives the film trailer the scary, dramatic and horrifying atmosphere is the soundtrack. In the beginning, it shows our main female character talking about how she's been to five schools since she was eleven. During this, we are hearing a single piano which has connotations of loneliness and sadness. However, during the rest of the trailer, there are a lot of sounds which are typical of horror films. The sound of knives slashing something are enhanced for extra effect but knives are associated with death, we hear church bells which although they normally have a positive atmosphere in our everyday real life, they have a creepy, strange atmosphere in the scenario our main character is in. She's in a misty, foggy area and the woman she is talking to looks strange as well. Everything is quiet and all you can hear is the church bells which again suggest something bad is about to happen. There's a lot of screaming which again helps back up the idea that this is the trailer for a horror film because screaming is associated with terror and death. The speech used also is a massive help for us to realise that this is a horror film. The main character talks about people being "after her" and how she needs to find her father. She also screams a lot and tells someone to go to Hell who replies "We're already here.". If that speech wasn't there, we wouldn't really have any idea of what's going on or get an idea of what the plot is about, so without the non-diegetic sound and the diegetic sound, we lose all of the scary atmosphere we are looking for in horror films and trailers.
RESEARCH: Film Promotion and Marketing
For the analysis of film promotion and marketing, I will be using the film "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" as an example. For the promotion, they used things such as teaser posters, teaser trailers, websites, a main poster, a main trailer, T.V spots and publicity campaigns.
The teaser poster (the image on the left) is very effective for both people who have read the Harry Potter books and those who haven't. For people who have read the books, they realise what exactly is about to happen and it makes them excited yet sad that it's about to end and they know how dramatic it is going to be. For people who have never read the Harry Potter books, it makes them intrigued to see what is going to happen and makes them excited for the movie to come out. Seeing the teaser poster may make people think "I wonder if the trailer has come out yet...", when they find that it hasn't come out yet, it again makes them more excited for the trailer to arrive.
This is the teaser trailer for both part 1 and part 2 of The Deathly Hallows films. It gives the audience a few iconic scenes which will represent key points in the film. It doesn't give away too much about the film but it gives the audience a rough idea of what might happen without any spoilers. It gives the audience the release dates of both of the films and uses clips from both films and merges them into one massive teaser trailer. Traditionally, teaser trailers aren't that long. For example, here is the latest teaser trailer released for part 1 of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.
This teaser trailer is roughly only a minute long. It gives only very subtle hints as to what might happen in the film which people would only really understand if they have read the books. For example, someone who has read the books and follows The Hunger Games franchise would realise that in the first film, Peeta (who is the man stood next to President Snow) said that he didn't want the Capitol to change him and turn him into something he isn't. Clearly, he has been changed and turned into a person he doesn't feel like he really is. This is a massive teaser for anyone watching the film as you want to find out what's happening to Peeta but not only that, Katniss isn't featured in the trailer. As we know from the latest film, Catching Fire, she has become a symbol of rebellion so the audience might be wondering whether she's still alive, where is she, has she changed etc. This teaser trailer is very different from the Deathly Hallows teaser trailer because it features no scenes from the film itself and is giving the audience barely any information at all.
The main poster (image on the left) for The Deathly Hallows features our three main characters (Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley) running away from something. It is a dynamic and exciting freeze frame which makes the audience think "what are they running away from?". It has the title of the film which is written in the classic "Harry Potter" font which has featured on every single harry potter film. It has the tag line of "The End Begins" which is slightly different to the teaser poster tagline which was "It All Ends", however the teaser tag line is more of a summary. Considering as this poster is for the first part of the last two films, it makes more sense to say "The End Begins". These posters would be displayed in cinemas, around towns and cities, in magazines etc and it would help get the word out to the audience that this new film is coming out soon. Another thing to mention is that the dark colour palette used for the poster helps suggest that this film is a lot more edgy, dramatic and maybe violent than the others. It could also suggest that The Dark Lord himself, Voldemort, is on his way.
This is the main trailer for the first part of The Deathly Hallows. It has a lot of action and fast paced editing which helps keep the audience interested. Like most trailers, it's not edited in chronological order either which means it's less easy to guess the plot and piece together which scenes go where in the film. There are scenes of conflict between Harry Potter and Voldemort which is almost traditional of Harry Potter films. The release date is shown so that audiences are again reminded when they can go see the film and the production company is also depicted in the trailer. Even if somebody hadn't heard of Harry Potter but had heard of Warner Bros, they would more likely see a film by a massive, well known production company e.g. Warner Bros rather than a small indie company. The title scene is the same as it is on the film posters and on the website which is an example of synergy.
The Harry Potter saga also have a website (which at the time of posting this, it doesn't seem to be working for my laptop) but it has a series of games on it, a synopsis of each film, character profiles, trailers for each film and it also has one of the many film posters of The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 as the backgrounds for different pages on the website. The website helps promote the films because by making the website fun and interactive, more people are going to talk to their friends about the website and get others to visit it too. A few years ago, a massive craze went round called Pottermore. Pottermore is an interactive online game where you are sorted into one of the four houses at Hogwarts and you make your way through challenges and complete levels. This was a massive success for the Harry Potter creators because it was such a hit. Millions of people signed up and played, which must have helped spread the word of the Harry Potter films even more.
The T.V spot is a trailer which is summarised into around 30 seconds for television. Most adverts on TV are around that length as well and because so many people watch TV, especially between the hours of 5:00pm and 11:00pm, it helps promote the film even more as it is showing the trailer to a wider audience. Even though it is shorter, it is summarised to a level where still, all the key information is featured and it is very fast paced and exciting still.
Merchandise has always played a massive factor in the publicity of the Harry Potter films. You can buy things such as cloaks, wands, wizard hats, chocolate frogs and other Harry Potter themed items. By purchasing these items (mainly aimed at a younger audience but not always) it is making the buyer seem more involved with the film and may make them feel more part of the story.
I personally think that the marketing and promotion of all Harry Potter films, not just The Deathly Hallows was done brilliantly, not only on the success of all of the previous films but on it's extraordinary ability to "tease" the audience with trailers and posters and convince the audiences to go and watch the films. I think another factor to Harry Potter's success was it's directors and production team. There has never been an "average" Harry Potter film, in my opinion. The editing, mise-en-scene, directing, actors and filming has always been of such a quality standard. This might make audiences want to go and watch the upcoming Harry Potter films because traditionally, the first film is always the best when you have a group of films being produced which all follow the same storyline. An example of this is The Hangover. The first Hangover film had a massive success with rave reviews regarding how funny the film was and the plot it was based around. However when The Hangover 2 came out, it wasn't so highly rated because people had already seen a film like it (the previous Hangover). Other than the location, the plot didn't change that much so viewers may have been bored by the lack of change.
The teaser poster (the image on the left) is very effective for both people who have read the Harry Potter books and those who haven't. For people who have read the books, they realise what exactly is about to happen and it makes them excited yet sad that it's about to end and they know how dramatic it is going to be. For people who have never read the Harry Potter books, it makes them intrigued to see what is going to happen and makes them excited for the movie to come out. Seeing the teaser poster may make people think "I wonder if the trailer has come out yet...", when they find that it hasn't come out yet, it again makes them more excited for the trailer to arrive.
This is the teaser trailer for both part 1 and part 2 of The Deathly Hallows films. It gives the audience a few iconic scenes which will represent key points in the film. It doesn't give away too much about the film but it gives the audience a rough idea of what might happen without any spoilers. It gives the audience the release dates of both of the films and uses clips from both films and merges them into one massive teaser trailer. Traditionally, teaser trailers aren't that long. For example, here is the latest teaser trailer released for part 1 of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.
This teaser trailer is roughly only a minute long. It gives only very subtle hints as to what might happen in the film which people would only really understand if they have read the books. For example, someone who has read the books and follows The Hunger Games franchise would realise that in the first film, Peeta (who is the man stood next to President Snow) said that he didn't want the Capitol to change him and turn him into something he isn't. Clearly, he has been changed and turned into a person he doesn't feel like he really is. This is a massive teaser for anyone watching the film as you want to find out what's happening to Peeta but not only that, Katniss isn't featured in the trailer. As we know from the latest film, Catching Fire, she has become a symbol of rebellion so the audience might be wondering whether she's still alive, where is she, has she changed etc. This teaser trailer is very different from the Deathly Hallows teaser trailer because it features no scenes from the film itself and is giving the audience barely any information at all.
The main poster (image on the left) for The Deathly Hallows features our three main characters (Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley) running away from something. It is a dynamic and exciting freeze frame which makes the audience think "what are they running away from?". It has the title of the film which is written in the classic "Harry Potter" font which has featured on every single harry potter film. It has the tag line of "The End Begins" which is slightly different to the teaser poster tagline which was "It All Ends", however the teaser tag line is more of a summary. Considering as this poster is for the first part of the last two films, it makes more sense to say "The End Begins". These posters would be displayed in cinemas, around towns and cities, in magazines etc and it would help get the word out to the audience that this new film is coming out soon. Another thing to mention is that the dark colour palette used for the poster helps suggest that this film is a lot more edgy, dramatic and maybe violent than the others. It could also suggest that The Dark Lord himself, Voldemort, is on his way.
This is the main trailer for the first part of The Deathly Hallows. It has a lot of action and fast paced editing which helps keep the audience interested. Like most trailers, it's not edited in chronological order either which means it's less easy to guess the plot and piece together which scenes go where in the film. There are scenes of conflict between Harry Potter and Voldemort which is almost traditional of Harry Potter films. The release date is shown so that audiences are again reminded when they can go see the film and the production company is also depicted in the trailer. Even if somebody hadn't heard of Harry Potter but had heard of Warner Bros, they would more likely see a film by a massive, well known production company e.g. Warner Bros rather than a small indie company. The title scene is the same as it is on the film posters and on the website which is an example of synergy.
The Harry Potter saga also have a website (which at the time of posting this, it doesn't seem to be working for my laptop) but it has a series of games on it, a synopsis of each film, character profiles, trailers for each film and it also has one of the many film posters of The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 as the backgrounds for different pages on the website. The website helps promote the films because by making the website fun and interactive, more people are going to talk to their friends about the website and get others to visit it too. A few years ago, a massive craze went round called Pottermore. Pottermore is an interactive online game where you are sorted into one of the four houses at Hogwarts and you make your way through challenges and complete levels. This was a massive success for the Harry Potter creators because it was such a hit. Millions of people signed up and played, which must have helped spread the word of the Harry Potter films even more.
The T.V spot is a trailer which is summarised into around 30 seconds for television. Most adverts on TV are around that length as well and because so many people watch TV, especially between the hours of 5:00pm and 11:00pm, it helps promote the film even more as it is showing the trailer to a wider audience. Even though it is shorter, it is summarised to a level where still, all the key information is featured and it is very fast paced and exciting still.
Merchandise has always played a massive factor in the publicity of the Harry Potter films. You can buy things such as cloaks, wands, wizard hats, chocolate frogs and other Harry Potter themed items. By purchasing these items (mainly aimed at a younger audience but not always) it is making the buyer seem more involved with the film and may make them feel more part of the story.
I personally think that the marketing and promotion of all Harry Potter films, not just The Deathly Hallows was done brilliantly, not only on the success of all of the previous films but on it's extraordinary ability to "tease" the audience with trailers and posters and convince the audiences to go and watch the films. I think another factor to Harry Potter's success was it's directors and production team. There has never been an "average" Harry Potter film, in my opinion. The editing, mise-en-scene, directing, actors and filming has always been of such a quality standard. This might make audiences want to go and watch the upcoming Harry Potter films because traditionally, the first film is always the best when you have a group of films being produced which all follow the same storyline. An example of this is The Hangover. The first Hangover film had a massive success with rave reviews regarding how funny the film was and the plot it was based around. However when The Hangover 2 came out, it wasn't so highly rated because people had already seen a film like it (the previous Hangover). Other than the location, the plot didn't change that much so viewers may have been bored by the lack of change.
Monday 16 June 2014
RESEARCH: Analysing a Film Trailer
This is the film trailer for the new and upcoming film "As Above, So Below". It's a horror film which is based around archaeologists in search for lost treasure in the catacombs below Paris, however they end up being at the gates of Hell.
This film trailer matches up almost perfectly to the codes and conventions of typical horror film trailers. The trailer starts off rather positive with a rather attractive woman talking and smiling before then discreetly mocking death. This is just to make everything seem "ok" before the bad stuff really starts to happen. They don't believe in demons, ghosts and ghouls etc. It is also apparent in the beginning of the trailer that it is a "hand-held camera" horror film. These are increasing in popularity because it makes the movie seem more true-to-life and more realistic!
There are many "jump scares" in the trailer. Jump scares are where the scene is intended to make you jump. By including jump scares in the movie trailer, it makes people realise how scary the film is and if it genuinely scares them, they're more likely to go and watch the movie. However, a problem I have noticed in the past is that the scary parts that are put into the trailers are usually the most scariest parts of the movies so if you happen to have seen the trailer quite a few times, you may recognise a scene from a trailer, realise something scary is about to happen and at what point and not be scared by it. This happened to me in the film "The Quiet Ones". During the trailer (which I shall link below this paragraph), all of the jump scares featured honestly did scare me whilst first watching the trailer. However, whilst watching the film, I could pick out every single one of the jump scares and there were NO other scary parts in the film, for me personally. So, this is a problem with horror film trailers for me. It's hard to make the trailer scary but not ruin the whole film.
- Trailer for The Quiet Ones
Also, throughout the trailer there is a written commentary instead of someone speaking. What I mean by this is that there is captioning talking about the history of the catacombs, who produced the film, when it's released and it also makes it personal to the audience by saying "Your past will come back to haunt you". This helps make the audience feel more scared. It's better having a written commentary for a horror film rather than having a voice over because the voice over can easily take away from the atmosphere of the film trailer.
In almost every horror film trailer I have seen, including "As Above, So Below", right before the title of the film is shown, there is always a small scene in the trailer where there is no music and something scary almost always happens. For example, in this trailer, the music cuts out and we watch a car being burned down in the catacombs with somebody inside the car. The scary part is when one of the archeologists is pulled by a strange force into the burning car. Then, straight after the title of the film is shown. This is very atmospheric as throughout the trailer, the eery music, screaming, yelling and timing of the shots is all increased and then it just suddenly cuts to this quiet scene with no screaming (at first) and absolutely no background music. It helps add tension and drama to the trailer.
RESEARCH: What is a Film Trailer?
According to IMDB's terminology glossary, a film trailer is "an advertisement for a movie which contains scenes from the film". You can also have teaser trailers which are basically the trailer before the official trailer. They are normally shorter in length and give audiences a sneak preview of the film that is going to be released in many months time. The trailers are usually the main form of advertisement for a movie as they can be shown on so many different forms of media such as television, in the cinemas itself, on the internet, through social media etc.
Monday 9 June 2014
A2 Coursework Brief
"Create a promotional package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with the following:
- film magazine front cover, featuring the film;
- film poster for the film."
- film magazine front cover, featuring the film;
- film poster for the film."
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