In the film industry a distributor has a role that involves appealing to as many people as it possibly can using the most efficient and cost-effective methods available. Therefor a marketing campaign is needed. The three main areas of a marketing campaign are:
The magazine that promotes our film 'Braeden Forest' would not be under the control of a distributor, as it comes under the publicity area of marketing. Despite this point, I created a film magazine cover that complies with generic film magazine conventions and provides publicity for our film as the main feature on the cover. As I would normally leave this to the media companies that own that brand of magazine, I would hand them a promotional package containing stills from the film, concept sketches and some detailed information on the production, for example, that they could use to publicize the film.
The teaser trailer we produced plays on several conventional areas of horror to appeal and 'tease' its target audience. As a point-of-view film, several aspects are more important that others and have to be highlighted in the trailer to have an appropriate effect on our audience. Firstly, the character development toward the end of the trailer is important as things like special effects and beautiful vistas cannot play much of a part in the trailer. Playing on the fact that it is supposed to have been filmed using a hand-held camera - characters directly engage with the camera and close-ups of their faces can be used to engage with them and identify with them. The film Blair Witch Project was a large inspiration for our film, so the scene with the film's protagonist crying in front of the camera is used as a kind of homage to this. Although you get an idea of who the main protagonist is, and who the 'main' antagonist is, the other characters aren't explored as much and not too much is revealed about them.
From our teaser trailer, you can see that some common conventions of the horror genre have been subverted. For example, we have no 'final girl' which I think is important to raise the 'realistic' element of our film - whoever survives survives and the female in the film has just as much a chance to survive as the males.
As a promotional package, my products use synergy to bolster their effectiveness. The trailer as a standalone product works well to raise awareness and draw the attention of a viewer. With the poster, a clear sense of what the film is trying to show is apparent and work well in unison. The trailer has an ‘amateur footage’ aesthetic as well as the static that gives it the feeling of being mysterious, lost footage. I have used this as a basis for my poster. I originally planned a more artistic ’28 Days Later’ styled poster using a silhouette of the film’s protagonist, Jake, surrounded by or walking through tree branches that spread like ink across the poster. After designing the title and tag line, I found a screenshot from the trailer of a dark landscape of some tree silhouettes that worked well with the white background. The darkened silhouette of Jake with the interference/static-like effect worked well as a conventional but stylistic horror poster and also related to the static effects of the trailer. This cross-media referencing worked well to produce products that work synergistically.
- Advertising
- Publicity
- and Promotion
The magazine that promotes our film 'Braeden Forest' would not be under the control of a distributor, as it comes under the publicity area of marketing. Despite this point, I created a film magazine cover that complies with generic film magazine conventions and provides publicity for our film as the main feature on the cover. As I would normally leave this to the media companies that own that brand of magazine, I would hand them a promotional package containing stills from the film, concept sketches and some detailed information on the production, for example, that they could use to publicize the film.
The teaser trailer we produced plays on several conventional areas of horror to appeal and 'tease' its target audience. As a point-of-view film, several aspects are more important that others and have to be highlighted in the trailer to have an appropriate effect on our audience. Firstly, the character development toward the end of the trailer is important as things like special effects and beautiful vistas cannot play much of a part in the trailer. Playing on the fact that it is supposed to have been filmed using a hand-held camera - characters directly engage with the camera and close-ups of their faces can be used to engage with them and identify with them. The film Blair Witch Project was a large inspiration for our film, so the scene with the film's protagonist crying in front of the camera is used as a kind of homage to this. Although you get an idea of who the main protagonist is, and who the 'main' antagonist is, the other characters aren't explored as much and not too much is revealed about them.
From our teaser trailer, you can see that some common conventions of the horror genre have been subverted. For example, we have no 'final girl' which I think is important to raise the 'realistic' element of our film - whoever survives survives and the female in the film has just as much a chance to survive as the males.
As a promotional package, my products use synergy to bolster their effectiveness. The trailer as a standalone product works well to raise awareness and draw the attention of a viewer. With the poster, a clear sense of what the film is trying to show is apparent and work well in unison. The trailer has an ‘amateur footage’ aesthetic as well as the static that gives it the feeling of being mysterious, lost footage. I have used this as a basis for my poster. I originally planned a more artistic ’28 Days Later’ styled poster using a silhouette of the film’s protagonist, Jake, surrounded by or walking through tree branches that spread like ink across the poster. After designing the title and tag line, I found a screenshot from the trailer of a dark landscape of some tree silhouettes that worked well with the white background. The darkened silhouette of Jake with the interference/static-like effect worked well as a conventional but stylistic horror poster and also related to the static effects of the trailer. This cross-media referencing worked well to produce products that work synergistically.
The magazine cover I designed is for a fake magazine ‘Epic’ but uses conventions from existing magazines. I used a template of an ‘Empire’ magazine to build around but modified it to create a familiar but unique look. As our film is a point-of-view, Blair Witch style film, I decided that a photo of the two screenwriters off-set (probably taken at a studio at the company) was the most suitable image to use whereas an image used for a conventional horror may use a still from the film or an image from a promotional pack. 'Braeden Forest' is the main film featured on the cover, which also helps provide publicity for the film, more-so than if it was just a featurette. As an ancillary text that would also promote the film I think it works well alongside the trailer and the poster.
These comments are good but situate them in the context of an understanding of what a film distributor does. You should talk about the construction of a marketing campaign and the three components of it: advertising, publicity, and promotion. Two of your products are advertising products which you as a distributor would be able to control the look of, but one is a publicity product which would be beyond your control to produce. You would need to try to attract favourable publicity. How would a distributor do this? Take a look at their websites of the UK Film Distributors Association, or have a read through of the handout I gave you about this.
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