By having a wide range of publicity methods, you can reach a wider audience because someone might see the poster for the film before the trailer. However, each advertisement has to want to make the audience feel that they want to know more about the film. Also, all the publicity material must look the same so that it is easily recognisable for the audience. For Example, i have used the same font on my poster as i have used on the trailer and i have kept with the night vision theme.
ADVERTISING
One of the ways the film distributors advertise their film is by creating merchandise, like toys and t-shirts because it allows audience's to become fans of the film and show their support.
Posters are the most popular way of advertising films. They have to encourage the audience to want to see the film. They include all the conventions of a poster; billing block, Tag line draws the audience in because it is usually a memorable phrase from the film. Mise-en-scene and colour scheme have to have the same design as the trailer, merchandise and other campaigns so it is easy for the audience to instantly recognise what film it is. The main image on the poster has to explain a little about the film, but not too much because they want to entice the audience to want to find out more. The lighting on the poster has to create the right effect, so for a horror poster, usually the lighting is low key to create a sinister effect. The composition of the poster when changed can change the way the audience read the poster and finally, quotations are sometimes used on the posters, such as star ratings from magazines which shows the audience other peoples opinions of the film.
Word of mouth is also important to advertise a film. Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter allows people to comment and become fans of groups of certain films. People normally will go to see a film if lots of people are talking about it and have said it was good.
Marketing differs depending on the target audience. For instance, my age group teenagers/students/young adults age 18-24 would most likely be effected by trailers, websites and word of mouth because they are more likely to agree with what their friends like. Also 18-24 are most likely to use the computer compared to older or younger ages because they use sites like Facebook and YouTube. I am most effected by trailers of films which I can watch on YouTube because it is easily accessible.
Audience research is very important for distribution companies because they can find out what age group likes. They often conduct surveys and previews of the film to ask what the audience think and when they receive the feedback they can change and adapt the film to how the audience want. For our horror trailer, we did some audience research because we wanted to find out what scared people the most in a horror film so that we could apply them into our trailer to make it appeal to the audience.
I have chosen these four films because i think that they are aimed at different audiences.
The Chainsaw Massacre poster has low key and dull lighting so it wouldn't appeal to younger audience's such as the Tangled poster does because it has bright colours which attract a younger audience. I think that The Notebook poster would appeal more to female teenager audience because the colours are soft and it is obviously a story about love, Whereas The Hangover I think would appeal more to a teenage boy audience because there are all boys in the image and it implies that it is going to be about a group of boys, so i think that the target audience can relate to them. They also follow the conventions of the genre, for instance, The Hangover looks like a comedy because of the expressions the boys are pulling and the baby in the sunglasses. This compares to the Chainsaw Massacre poster as it looks more serious and dark.
Paranormal Activity Viral Campaign - http://www.movieviral.com/2009/10/27/paranormal-activity-viral-marketing/
I found the viral campaign for Paranormal Activity interesting an effective because it appeals to the older teen target audience. On the Paranormal Activity website, people can become a fan on Facebook and follow the movie on Twitter and "tweet their scream" to show how they were effected by the movie. The website also includes information on the cast and has many press articles which people can read.
First, Paranormal activity released clips and photographs of the film to attract the audience and when they thought that enough people were interested, they released the teaser trailer, which wanted the audience to know more about the film. Then the poster and finally the full trailer is released.
The unified identity of a film is important because it makes the film easily recognisable for the audience so and they can link the poster with the trailer, or the merchandise with the trailer.
It might be the colour scheme, logo, characters or symbol which is the identity of the film and when people see it, they automatically know what the film is.
The classification we chose for our film , "Find Me" was an 18 because we thought that the scenes in the film were of a high level of horror and violence and also there would be a considerable use of bad language necessary to add realism. We targeted 18 years and above because that enabled us to develop the psychological element to the film, something that might be lost on a younger audience. Today there are more 15 and 12 certificate films than ever. The reasons for this is that audiences are less sensitive to violence, bad language and sexually explicit material and also because film makers need to attract as large an audience as possible in order to maximise their profits. However, our film is a low budget horror so it has less money to recoup and is a niche genre anyway. We were also interested in the artistic elements of the film which appealed as much to us as the promise of box office success.
In both our trailer and my poster I have kept to the theme of the night vision effect. In Photoshop I added a green tint and a speckled effect to create the night vision effect. On the front cover of my poster, I have added a still from our trailer, so it is easily recognisable for the audience because she is one of the main characters in the film. Most of our trailer is filmed in low key lighting so I have made the poster low key, with a green tint to enhance the night vision. The red symbol on the poster is featured in our trailer, it is a mysterious marking on a tree and implies that something has been there and made it. ( Like the Blair Witch Project) I have used the same kind of font on my poster as we have used on the inter-titles of our trailer, again making it easily recognisable for the audience.
The magazine cover is important for the film's promotion because it shows that the film is obviously going to be a success because magazine companies wouldn't really put a film which isn't going to be a bit hit because none would buy it. My magazine cover relates to my poster and film because I have kept within the theme of green and night vision and used the same text through-out. On my magazine cover I have included an important still from the trailer because that is the last piece of footage you see on our horror trailer, so the audience would be able to easily recognise that picture.
My Film Poster
For my film poster, I was inspired by the American Haunting poster. On Photoshop, I placed the American Haunting poster to the side so that I could use the layout because i think that it looks effective. I decided to place the billing block to the right hand side of the poster because conventionally, the billing block is normally positioned at the bottom of the poster, however, i think that positioning to the side creates an interesting effect. I also added a shadow to the title "Find Me" because it looks effective in the American Haunting poster, giving it an eerie feel. On the American Haunting poster, there is a cross which seems to be carved in the background, this implies that the theme of the film could be something to do with religion. I have used a symbol in my poster from the trailer. We found a marking on a tree and thought that it looked interesting and created a mysterious element to the trailer (like the Blair Witch Project where there is a symbol hanging from a tree. I have also added the actor's names at the top of the poster because it is easy to read and most posters include the actors names clearly at the top.
I created my whole poster on Photoshop and copied the pictures from my trailer. I added a green tint and a speckled effect to enhance the night vision effect. I like this effect because there is black surrounding the girls face, so it could imply that something is lurking in the darkness.
My Magazine Cover
I constructed my magazine cover on PhotoShop. I kept within the theme of the night vision so that it linked to my trailer and poster. I was inspired by the Terminator Empire cover because i thought that it was set out interestingly. I First added a still from my trailer to use as my main image. i enhanced the eyes so that they gave the picture a more eerie effect. I edited the Empire logo so it fitted the conventions of a horror design. I added a grain effect, which links to the TV interference in our trailer, then Ismudged the edges and added a dull green to it. I added a bar code and an issue number to my magazine to make it look more official. I copied the strip effect at the bottom from the real magazine cover and added other groups photos of there trailer. The text of Find Me is kept the same through out the trailer, poster and magazine cover. I added what else there was featured in the magazine and made it a "horror special" so it fitted well with my trailer. I think my magazine cover has worked well because it easily links to my trailer and poster and would be recognisable for the audience.
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