RESEARCH: DISTRIBUTION COLLAGE

On the Film Distributors' Association site, you watch the presentation by Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling of theatrical distribution at Pathe, on how distributors work to create a successful marketing campaign for each film. You investigate the different aspects of a marketing campaign for a specific recent film, such as

• film website
• film posters
• film trailers
• FB
• Instagram
• Twitter
• cross promotion / product tie-ins (like Heineken and James Bond in SkyFall and Spectre, Toyota and Star Wars
• news articles, interviews, award ceremonies

PREP You make a one-page collage showing all these elements together. Post this on your blog under the title RESEARCH: FILM MARKETING. When you pick your visuals, remember why the distributor created these particular marketing strategies, by looking at the bullet points below.

Later, your next prep task will be to write about it. If you want to get ahead, here is the task:
Introduce the post, using the sentence at the top of this post (or something similar).
Explain that a distributor identifies key strengths or 'hooks' in a film as selling points, such as

• its genre, such as biopic, literary adaptation, sequel
• its special effects
• its cast, director
• awards or reviews

Below are examples of how Yesterday was marketed. Collect your marketing materials before starting your collage.

TV DRAMA: IN PLAIN SIGHT / THE WEST WING

IN PLAIN SIGHT : Rubble Without A Cause
When a huge building collapses on a star witness, Mary rushes in to save the man from an untimely death under the debris but, above the building site, a persistent reporter and the threat of a professional assassin may prevent her getting the victim out alive.

In this sequence, a potential witness is in a position of great danger when a building collapses on him and traps him. 
The sequence builds characters using a series of oppositions, such as the depiction of the two sisters Mary and Brandy (for instance, Mary's 'masculine' qualities contrasted with Brandy's feminine wiles); the different gender characteristics (such as the masculine use of humour in the face of great danger; Mary's passionate character contrasted with Marshall's self-control).

Terminology

Camerawork: movement handheld, tracking shot shot types wide angle, POV angles high angle 
Editing: hard cut, match cut
Sound: dialogue (diegetic sound), soundtrack of low orchestral music (non diegetic sound)
Mise-en-scène how authenticity / verisimilitude is created by the physical details of the building site, the presence of the police, Marshall service and reporters

THE WEST WING : Premiere

The extract features the busy team that runs the President's Office in The White House, Washington DC, handling every issue that affects the President's life. The extract opens with three scenes which are edited together to deliberately create parallels between them, with the overall effect of emphasising how all the staff operate with a frame of mind that they are always on duty, wherever they are and whatever the time may be. This is the main thrust of all the representation.

The mise-en-scène of the opening establishing shot is a wide shot of Washington DC at night with iconic buildings that signal the place as the seat of power.
The first scene positions Sam, the deputy communications director, in a two-shot with a pushy journalist, as a man harried by journalists even when he is off duty in a bar trying to relax. The government environment appears intense and pressured.
A straight cut to the second scene reveals the Chief of Staff Leo at home in a well-appointed sitting room with carved door frames, a chandelier and damask covered seats, obviously the home of a wealthy person.  A wide angle shot shows the television to be always on even when it is not being watched, signifying the pressure of politics is inescapable. The diegetic noise of the telephone summons Leo urgently to the White House.
Another hard cut to the third White House staffer introduces CJ, the press secretary, in a wide two-shot showing her in the gym on running equipment, wearing gym clothes and beaming with pleasure in her activity. She clearly likes thinking of herself as dynamic and in control, able to combine work and leisure. In her conversation with her neighbour, she attempts to assert her sense of control as someone who can exercise as well as do a full day's work. It is only when she reveals that it is 5 a.m. that the audience see the dialogue with irony, especially when a presidential crisis makes a beeper summon her back to work at The White House. The comedy of the scene is created by CJ falling off her running machine as she tries to do two things at once.
The final scene in the sequence depicts the interior of the White House West Wing itself, drawing together all the previous three cameo sketches of West Wing staff. Here at the centre of power, Josh sleeps at his desk, the mid shot showing both his exhaustion and the debris of a hard night's work spent entirely at work at his desk.

RESEARCH: SCOOPIT! FILM OPENINGS

Starter Activity: How to create a Scoop.it! board entitled MY FILM OPENINGS.
PREP Complete your own Scoop.It board and start to collate relevant sites. Start to add your own 'insights'. These should demonstrate articulate reflection.

FILM DISTRIBUTION

To know how your product would be distributed as a real media text, you will explain distribution.
What is distribution? See the BFI Screenonline 

On the FDA website www.launchingfilms.com : read the FDA Guide to Film Distribution  https://www.launchingfilms.com/assets/FDA_Guide_to_UK_Film_DistributionMain.pdf

The FDA resources on Film Space http://thefilmspace.org/fda100/distribution/
http://thefilmspace.org/fda100/distribution/distributor

RESEARCH: HOW BRANDS TARGET AUDIENCES

Later on in the course, you will offer a detailed response to four Creative Critical Reflection tasks.
No. 2 asks: HOW DO YOUR PRODUCTS ENGAGE WITH THE AUDIENCE? The research that you do today will form part of this answer and it will also help you think about how you define your own audience.

Today you will investigate how real media texts profile their audiences. Although Bauer Media are not film distributors, we can learn how they help brands profile their audiences and address their audiences.
You will present your findings in Google Slides, with an image and your writing on each slide.
You have some choice in which 4 brands you pick. Here some choices: EMPIRE, MOJO, KISS,  SKY MEDIA, NME. There is cross-over in these audiences and your target audience, which it is why this modelling is useful.

1. Bauer Media handles several brands and develops campaigns to raise brand awareness. Look at what they say about their campaigns as we watch their video. They express their approach using expressions relevant to advertising:

• they interrogate the brief 
• their creatives use insight and instinct to identify and solve attention
• they define a clear strategy and audience fit
• united by one Big Idea (remember Frank Ash's advice?)
• an innovation execution delivers impact and influence
• like film distributors, they 'increase brand awareness'

We start by looking at their media packs. First, we look at Empire Magazine and how it reaches and profiles its audience.

EMPIRE IS, WITHOUT question, the world’s most influential film and entertainment brand. Encompassing a print magazine, podcast, website, digital edition and live events strand, nobody speaks to more film fans across the world with more authority. And within the industry, Empire really matters to people. 

EMPIRE profiles the typical target reader using age, gender, demographics as well as lifestyle

2. Next, we look at MOJO's media pack and read how MOJO profiles its target audience.

MOJO is the WORLD’S LARGEST UK MUSIC MAGAZINE, delivering a monthly dose of world class journalism and iconic photography to an audience of extremely passionate music consumers. If you’re featured in MOJO, you matter.

MOJO envisages the typical target reader as Dave, 43

3. KISS FM UK is the UK’s largest multimedia brand for engaging 15-34 year olds across its multiple touchpoints.

Read how KISS FM describes its audience. Notice the age (15-34) and the importance of mobile and digital. Does this relate to your own target audience? How could you use this information to talk about how you reach your target audience?

4. SKY offers a more traditional audience profile using demographics presented as pie charts.

Some brands go further than merely have Twitter feeds: I also discovered how a really big budget can buy cross-platform integration of a film launch with an existing successful product that engages an established successful audience. In this example, Lionsgate's Nerve (2016) was linked to Celebrity Big Brother by Sky Media

"We all know young people are big users of social media, and therefore to truly engage with this audience, the use of a social platform was key within the campaign. Furthermore, reports show that 74% millennials, particularly 14 to 17-year-olds, regularly use smartphones during TV viewing*. A programme was needed to unite the target demographic by driving social media conversations.
Since its launch, Celebrity Big Brother has been the most talked about TV programme on Twitter, topping the Instar Social leader board as Twitter’s most-talked-about TV show during the 29 day series. Offering a strong teen audience on-air and mass social following online, Celebrity Big Brother provided the perfect platform for the ‘Nerve’ film launch."

"The integration of Lionsgate film ‘Nerve’ was a great success for Celebrity Big Brother, demonstrating a seamless brand integration. The high-pressure challenges of ‘Nerve’ the film translated well to challenges for the housemates. They launched the task just 2 days before the opening night of the film and successfully integrated the look and feel of the Nerve brand. This partnership demonstrates that, when executed well, promotional activity in Big Brother can enhance editorial and leverage for brand awareness in show.” 

5. NME's profiling mixes lifestyle and demographics

Who Is Your Target Audience: Action Steps

1. Who is your primary target audience?
Ex: Male college kids who love zombie movies. 

 2. What makes your film different from competing movies?

Ex: Our film is about zombies that attack ninjas.

3. Why should your audience spend two hours watching your movie?
Ex: Fangoria says: Funniest zombie movie since Shaun of the Dead!

TV DRAMA: SELFLESS

On Mondays, we work on Section A of the exam, television drama.

Section A: Textual analysis and representation (50 marks) Candidates answer one question based on an unseen moving image extract.

1 Analyse how the extract from SELF/LESS constructs meaning, including the specific representations of individuals/groups/events/places, through the following technical elements:

•• camera shots, angles, movement and composition

•• sound

•• mise-en-scène

•• editing.

MARKING SCHEME

Use of terminology: 10 marks …………………………/10

Use of supporting examples: 20 marks………………/20

Explanation / argument / analysis: 20 marks……….../20

Total /50

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: THE POST

Today we analyse representations in the trailer for The Post which you will continue for PREP

• gender  especially in relation to power
• age
• a period in history
• the newspaper industry
• government power

PREP is to take either of these extracts and write roughly a page analysing aspects of how the following create representations of people, places and issues through

• mise-en-scène
• camerawork
• sound
• editing

I suggest that you deal with all these elements as you tackle each scene.

Use the T, E, EAA approach: terminology, example, explain / analyse / argue

How do these representations compare with those in Can You Ever Forgive Me? 

• gender
• middle age
• the world of literature
• wealth and poverty