Advanced Portfolio Evaluation Question 2 How effective is the combination of your

1. Advanced Portfolio Evaluation Question 2 How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Ryan Jones

2. The importance of marketing a film The film industry takes a lot of risks when creating new movies. A typical, mainstream American movie costs many millions of dollars to make, and even after the film is completed, studios often spend many millions more to market the film. Because film studios are businesses, they are motivated by profit, which means they are always afraid of releasing a movie to empty cinemas. To ensure healthy returns, most major studio films are supported by large marketing campaigns. Still, lots of movies never break even. Many studios rely on a few big blockbusters each year to recoup the losses they took on other films. Promotions departments are responsible for creating effective advertising campaigns in order to get people into cinemas for these big blockbusters. Sometimes, the buzz works, and studios make back the money they invested. Without marketing, many people wouldn't even know which movies were playing at any given time, and the studios would have no hope of making money.

3. The internet and social networks movie marketers face more challenges than ever before. Consumers are adopting new social technologies with increasing speed. 42% of the US smartphone users under the age of 35 now check their favourite social media apps before deciding on which movie to see. The marketplace is changing, and while most coverage has explored the best overall digital movie programs, the focus of the following observations relate to new trends in film marketing. As social networking continues to mature, it’s going to be more important than ever to identify which social channels work best for a specific brand or property. Different communities utilize different tools, and the marketing push is no longer a one-sided conversation. Fans are now involved in being the advocates for the brands they love. Marketers willing to take risks and empower these fans with fluid, “open-source” content in the places they socialize are ultimately going to be most successful.

4. The top three ways that films use the internet and social network sites to promote themselves.

5. 1. Facebook Facebook reaches 142M unique users a month. It is the top social site reaching 78% of internet visitors. It is also the anchor of social media strategies for most films. Movie marketing teams launch their Facebook pages sometimes as early as the day they announce a film, using them to promote other programs in different social channels such live chats on Twitter, channels on Spotify, or trailers on Instagram. The key is bringing all this back to a social channel with the broadest reach to get these new programs out to the masses. The newest trend with Facebook movie promotions is purchasing targeted ads on mobile. Over 70% of the 18-34 demographic access Facebook via mobile. As moviegoers spend more time on social via their mobile devices, and as most movie viewing decisions are made day of, this is the best way to capture these consumers in market.

6. 2. Twitter Twitter is the #2 social network/micro blogging platform reaching 28M unique users a month. Television rules the Twittersphere, and while many movies maintain a presence on Twitter, very few film pages reach over 1M followers. Entertainment marketers leverage in-tweet media to enable mass distribution of trailers. Brands have also started to include hashtags in their TV spots and other marketing materials to encourage conversations. Some of the latest trends include expandable tweets, releasing the first trailer of highly anticipated films, or using hashtags and purchasing hashtags on trending words for emotions or sentiments such as #TGIF, #NSFW, and #YOLO.

7. 3. Instagram Instagram has become the social photo app of choice, reaching 130M users. It allows consumers to take and edit photos with a wide array of artistic filters and share them easily on various social networks. While Instagram is primarily a photo app, the company recently introduced video (fifteen seconds vs. Vine’s six seconds), which has been taking off with users. The Jobs film released 3 trailer exclusives on Instagram to align itself with Jobs’ own persona of being a pioneer in creative technology. The campaign helped introduce new functionality for Instagram using a fantastic creative asset.

8. How we would use the Web 2.0 sites I have mentioned above We wouldn’t use all of these because we are just a small college coursework group. But if we was a proper film company then we would take advantage of all of these ways of promoting as they are free to use and billions of people all around the world use them. In the world today it has basically come to if you don’t use these new ways of promotion then your film wont do as well other films will. Web 2.0 sites = success.

9. Promotion of our film In our group we decided to choose a mainstream distribution company such as Miramax which is well know for marketing and producing more independent films but they have the money to really push on the marketing of a film and they also have the social status of being well known for films such as kill bill 2. So using Miramax will allow us to promote our film much more widely and to a larger audience than if we have an independent company. We would have the usually push and pull marketing that you would expect a film would have so posters, trailer, magazine covers and articles and then social networking so Facebook page and twitter account to help get the word out of new up and coming film. By using social network websites this creates a snowball effect where one person tells two people about our film and then those two people tell two people each and so on.

10. Reservoir dogs Kill Bill Get Carter Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels These are the four films which I researched when it came to marketing. All four films had poster and trailers and were featured in a film magazine. Kill Bill and Reservoir dogs both had video games out this is broadening the brand of the films.

11. Unique ways films have marketed there films The day after tomorrow Kill Bill To promote the global-warming movie THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, the Indian distributor thought about this outdoor billboard submerged underwater. An Auckland TV campaign, to promote the launch of KILL BILL on TV2 New-Zealand (design by Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand) Fairly gore, clever, mind-boggling and above all VIRAL. This is what most films use when promoting there film. And this is a bill board but the one tron used lit up making it really stand out.

12. How we are going to promote our film The main way that we are going to promote our film is by posters and magazine covers. We got the idea for our posters from Jackie Brown as they have a different poster for every single main character and we really liked this way of promoting because more posters then the more people will see our film.

13. Target audience for ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ Our film will attract a primarily male audience, age range 15-25. This target audience has been specified to this due to our main narrative of the film as there is a bank robbery and a poker scene which are very stereotypically male and there is also death and violence through out. Because our main character is female I think this will attract both male and females, as women will enjoy seeing a strong female lead in a predominantly male genre and men will like seeing a hot female fighting bad guys. Our target audience has been specified to 15+ as the violence shown is not appropriate for a younger audience. Our direct target audience stops at age 25, however our secondary off-shoot audience age goes up to 50 and we feel that by the right marketing we could get this part of the market as well.

14. Similar films to ours which also marketed through posters Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was marketed by using a poster which shows Vinnie Jones as the largest image on the cover of the poster and then two other characters behind him but smaller. This is because, as Guy Ritchie’s first film they could not base the marketing on him- instead they left that with Vinnie Jones because at the time he was already very famous and doing very well for himself being a footballer turned actor. Although our director is also up and coming we will actually focus on that the most and use that as a good thing rather then a bad thing. This is because it is becoming more and more important to certain audiences as there are starting to want to know who's actually making the film and how not just who's in the film. Pulp Fiction was marketed in a similar way to how we will, by focusing on the director rather then just by who’s in it. However as Quentin Tarantino was an already well established director, it was sure that this film would be a automatic success because of the past knowledge we had of the director. The characters in Pulp Fiction are essentially played by also well established actors such as Bruce Willis and Samuel l Jackson which have had big parts in big films before.

15. Analysis of our posters We can see that the main character (Beth) picture is clear and you can see her face but the other two characters (Ryan and Liam) have blurred faces this could be an indicator to show something what might happen in the film (They die). The main title is bold, and the white contrasts with the coloured image behind making it stand out even more. We have introduce the main starring actors on every poster so the audience knows who’s in our film. The slogan is also bold, and in the next size down font. The slogan will jump out at the audience because it is directly under the main title so it will be the second thing on the poster that they will read. Credits, giving information on the production company, actors names, directors name, editors, who the music is by etc.

16. Similar film poster The slogan is bold, big and short. This is really good as the audience we be able to read it fast and understand it right away. The main character is the focus point of this film, therefore that is why she is the focus point of the poster as well. She is standing tall looking like she is about to fight someone. She is wearing the famous yellow jump suit and this means right away you can look at her and just know what film this has come from without even seeing the title of the film. The title is very short and snappy, so having it in such a big font makes it the first thing you read on the poster. (This is what we were aiming for on our poster). Mention of the Kill Bill soundtrack is very clever. This is because not only is this poster now promoting the film but also a soundtrack that you can buy so different products being sold which in turn will make the film more money. Credits, giving information on the production company, actors names, directors name, editors, who the music is by etc. and this is also a legal obligation that they have to put them on.

17. Analysis of our magazine cover We have chosen to use sight & sound magazine as it looks more in detain at how the film is made and at the people that made it rather then just the film stars. Date on the magazine and basic information so audience know it’s the latest magazine. This is the editor of our film. You don’t normally see the editor of the film on the front page of a magazine but because its sight & sound we are looking at the makers. Individual interviews with the actors in the film because even though this magazine isn't about the actors the audience still wants to know who's in it and what they think. Also markets the film in a good way. The title is big and bond so the audience sees it right away and it is the same font that was in the film so right away the audience knows what film its from.

18. Similar magazine covers This is the masthead. This is the name of the magazine and this is very important so that when people are looking for the magazine they find it but also that people right away know what the magazine is called and on this it is right at the top in a nice, big font and it is very easy to read therefore the audience will see it right away. This lets the audience know Sight and Sound magazine are in relation to the British Film Institute and this is important because people will know that they can trust the information inside. Having Tarantino pointing and winking at the audience catches their attention and involves them more and this also gives them the feeling that his actually pointing at just you. Having the background colour and dark colour really makes everything else which is brighter really stand out and just makes the magazine look nicer and makes you want to open it and read it. Also other content which is in the magazine that week is being shown at the bottom just to show that the magazine isn't just all about Inglourious Basterd