Exhibition Marketing

Exhibition of film- The exhibitor sells the experience of the film
E.g.- 3D
- Offers, Orange Wednesdays
- HD
- Big screen, surround sound
- Dark, no distractions

1) Why is digitial exhibtion important for the development of the UK film industry?

Because digital exhibition only costs one tenth of the current reels and prints format of film distribution, it would mean that film producers could spend more of their budget on sending their films to more and more territories than they can currently. This means more people will see the film, and especially for the smaller films, it means they will get more money back from ticket sales and various others things.

2) The UK film council want to make non-mainstream films accessible in 3 ways, what are they?

- Improving access, 240 digital screens showing non-mainstream films in the UK.
- Raising awareness, prints and advertising fund provides £4 million every year to help promote films.
- Increasing information, www.findanyfilm.com, can buy, rent or download loads of films.

3) Differences between mainstream and indepedant?

Mainstream films generally have bigger audiences than indepedant, because they spend a lot more on advertising and promoting their films, so they reach a bigger audience and more people go to see the film.

4)What new technologies are exhibitors currently having to take into account? Consider technologies used in the cinemas and technologies used at home.

They are having to consider things like the arrival of digital distribution, which means they can export their films in a faster cheaper way. Also, in peoples homes they are having to cater for things such the arrival of Blu-ray, and high definition TV's, which means that the format of the film has to change to match these technologies. Also, producers can re-release older classic films, like all the Disney films, which have been digitallly remastered, which means they can be sold all over again without creating any new film.

Stereotypes- Age

Stereotypes Age

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New technologies to target more specific audiences

• 3D- "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" was advertised TV, saying that you can see it in 3D.

• CGI- "Toy Story" was the first fully CGI film to be released, and that was what most of the advertising was based around.

• High definition- People go to the ffort of seeing older films in newer technological formats, so that they see it looking better.

• Internet- Social networking, YouTube etc- "Micheal Jacksons This is It", was advertised as a rollovert on YouTube homepage for about a week.

• Video games- for the "Avatar" film, a game has come out on Playstation and Xbox.

• Email/ MSN- Orange wednesdays emails, lets you know about film releases and promotions.

• Interactive websites- Has trailers and various other things embedded onto the films website. E.g. "The 13th Day".

• Downloads- "The 13th Day", can download trailer for IPod, or various other
download options like wallpapers.

• Online shopping-

• Texts- lovefilms.com texts you abiut new films when they come out if your a member.

• Billboards-

• Digital distribution- see Downloads section.

• VHS -> DVD -> Blu-ray- Improving quality of Disney films by putting them onto a new format so that people will watch them again, and therefore buy them again in the new format.

• Podcasts/ blogs- Directors commentary for various films can be brought off ITunes website or store.

- Uses keywords on social profiles to send appropriate adverts.
- Promotional emails
- Links to Facebook pages
- Virtual tours on interactive websites. Then email the links
- Downloads trailers and films
- “Recommended for you” on shopping sites/ YouTube
- Orange Wednesdays texts
- Promotions on YouTube, film companies have own accounts on websites to advertise
- Able to write what we think on various sites e.g. Facebook

Distribution

Logistics of Film
- Definition- logistics is the supplier of the cinemas, everything from getting from production into cinemas.
- Applys to DVD's, film reels etc.
- Film onto print, 35mm. Each cost £1000, then sold to distributors, then they rent them out to cinemas.
- Independants can only afford 10 prints, and sell one to each city.
- 3D or subtitles cost more.
- When prints are finished with, just get stored.

Prints and advertising
-Specialised films
- Smaller and more independant films, prints roughly 10.
- Shown in the UK for 6 months ish.
- Mainstream films
- Over 200 prints made.
- Sent to places like Vue and Odeon.
- Press materials, posters and trailers etc.
- Press release and interviews only with trusted press elements.
- Standard cinema posters in UK is 30x40 quad format.
- Posters most effective form of advertising.
- Advertising campaigns start with editorials, interviews and reviews in popular magazines
- Most advertising takes up 50% of a films budget.
- Large distributors have their own communication and PR so releases are properly addressed.
- Final method is the pre-release. Makes a "buzz" about a film.
- Previous uses teasers for viewers from the press.

Marketing
- Digital distribution- practice of providing content in a digital format.
- Advantages- Cheaper.
- Easier to send online, rather than transporting.
- Less budget on prints.
- More distribution.
- Being used in China and Brazil.
- Better for future of cinema.

Film Marketing
- Released on the day when not many other films come out.
- Avoids releasing at the same time as similar genre film.
- Getting harder as roughly 10 new films each week.
- Once release date is set, then plan the threatrical release.

Vertical Intergration
- Technique that international film companys use.
- A big film produced by (eg.) Working Title with mother company Universal. Don't need to sell to distributors.
- Basically, keeping it inhouse.

Choose one scene from American Beauty and analysis its effectiveness

American Beauty is about a guy called Lester Burnham, who at the start of the film is very down in the dumps, and depressed to a point. He feels like his life is going nowhere, and his wide Carolyn, and daughter Jane both are embarrassed of him and hate him. Throughout the film though, Lester gradually comes out of his shell, after meeting a girl called Angela, who is a friend of Jane, and is very shallow and regularly throughout the films boasts of her previous love conquests, which later turn out to be lies. Lester falls in “love” with her when he first meets her, although it is more like lust, and spends the rest of the film trying to impress her with progressively more and more childish methods, such as working out to become more muscular. Meanwhile, Jane gradually drifts away from Angela, and forms a relationship with her new neighbour, Ricky Fitz, who is portrayed as a bit strange, but a very deep person, and very sensitive.
The film fits into two main genres, the first being the romance genre, and the second that it fits into is the genre of mystery. The romance is in the relationships between Ricky and Jane, Lester and Angela, and Carolyn and Buddy King, who is a local and rival estate agent. Ironically, the one relationship that isn’t really in the film is between the married couples of Lester and Carolyn, and Ricky’s parents, Colonel Fitz and Barbara Fitz. On the other hand, the mystery side of the film is all about who is it that ends up killing Lester, and why they do the deed. The audience is told at the start of the film that Lester ends up dead by the end of the film, and the whole film builds up to the moment that he is killed.
The scene from the film that I have chosen to analysis is the scene where Lester is driving along at the wheel of his car, singing along to the radio, which is playing a song called “American Women”. This scene is shown about half way through the film, and is a significant scene in the film (see YouTube, type in “American beauty American woman” and click on top result).
The camera angle is looking at him through the windscreen of his car, from the passenger side of the bonnet. This is done like this because it shows that whilst Lester is singing, he is in his own little world in that car, and the windscreen represents the walls of his own little world. The lighting in the general for the scene is quite bright, and the reflection on the windscreen is of blue sky. This reflects Lester’s mood, showing how happy and lively he is feeling.
The music in this scene is “American Woman” by Lenny Kravitz. It’s a very upbeat song, and was chosen for the scene by the director because it matches the upbeat feel of the scene, and Lester’s mood. Furthermore, if you listen to the lyrics of the song, it says “I don't want to see your face no more, I got more important things to do, Than spend my time growin' old with you, Now woman, stay away, American woman, listen what I say”. These lyrics show what Lester is feeling towards his wife, Carolyn. He is basically saying that he’s found his new groove in life, and he doesn’t need her any more, and wants her to stay away from him. The American Woman in the lyrics therefore is Carolyn. The scene also shows Lester as being very cheerful, as shown by his singing. He appears to be very carefree at this point, and on top of his game. However, previous to this scene, he had been very down, almost depressed. This scene represents the turning point in the film of his emotions. He is driving along in a very fast and almost dangerous way, just like you would expect a teenager to be driving. Also he has the music on, and turned right up loud, which is also very teenage-like. This reflects on how he has been “born again”, and is living his life to the full, all over again. Furthermore, when he reaches the drive though of the fast food restaurant, when he can’t hear the intercom clearly, rather than asking politely for them to repeat themselves, Lester simply yells “what?!” into the speaker, which is also very much the sort of thing a teenager would do. Also he’s smoking what we know from earlier in the film to be drugs, which can also be linked back to him acting just like a teenager.
In the scene, Lester is clearly breaking free of the restrains of his life he was feeling before in the film. This can be linked the Levi-Strauss’s theory, being that Lester, the down trodden and disheartened one, has found a new breath of life, and is in conflicted with his very restricting and restraining wife Carolyn, a conflict of freedom and restriction. Also, the scene links into Torodov’s theory, of the problem/ solution/ consequence. The scene fits into the solution part of the theory, because his problem was that he was very down and depressed, and his solution to that problem was to find himself almost a new personality and act like a teenager.
American Beauty was primarily aimed at an audience based in America, hence the name. Nearly everything in the film is something that all Americans can relate to in their life, and the film is actually set in America. Furthermore, throughout the film there is a constantly reoccurring theme of red white and blue, which are the colours that make up the American flag. The characters also appeal to an American audience, for example Lester trades in his normal and boring car for a Pontiac Firebird, which is a famous American car, and is the dream car of many fellow Americans.
Overall, the scene I have analysed is a very effective scene, even though it’s a fairly short scene. Its whole purpose is to show the audience how much Lester has changed since the beginning of the film, and where his life is heading next, which turns out to be working in a fast food restaurant.

Licensing

Licensing

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Types of Advertising

Merchandising

Viral Marketing

Synergy Marketing- two companys wokring together
- eg. Mcdonalds toys for Disney films

Product Placement- eg. James Bond using Aston Martins/ wearing Rolex watches

Comparing Advertising

Bridget Jones Diary-

This film opened with lots of synergy marketing deals, with companys such as The Body Shop, MSN.com, Virgin Megastore and Atlantic. The money that came from this totalled roughly at $10 million.
Virgin Ailines promoted the film with emails sent to its flying club members. Lifetime TV ran 30 second clips to promote as well. This synergy marketing as well.

The Boat That Rocked-

This film was first released with just some bright and colourful posters for advertising. They then released a trailer.
Something else they did was go on a website called spotify, and created some playlists based on the DJ's in the film.

James Bond-

In this film, an example of advertising in the form of product placement, this being the fact that james Bond uses Aston Martins in all the films, and has Rolex watches. In one of the more recent films, he drove the new Ford Mondeo, which boosted the sales for that car dramatically.
Also an example of synergy marketing is when they released The Quantum of Solace, the film makers teamed up with Avon (beauty treatment company), to promote a product for women based on the film.


Because James Bond is such a well known and established film series, and has a massive following, companys and sponsers are more desperate to get their products in the films, and will pay massive amounts of money to do so. That way, more people will see their products, and alongside James Bond it would receive quite a cool image. If they were to place their products in an unknown, brand new film, less people will know of it, and it won't have the same effect as putting the products alongside James Bond.

Representation And The Gaze

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Distribution and Marketing

Above the line- This means that the advertising for the film is given to you, and you don't have to go looking for it. e.g trailers, posters and billboards etc.

Below the line- This means that you have to go looking for the advertising for the film. e.g viral marketing, clips on youtube or podcasts.

Film adverstising strategies:

2012- Marketers have created some fake websites and facebook pages based on the legend thats in the film, also there are reviews, adverts, film posters.

The Men Who Stares At Goats- T.V adverts, trailers, film posters, reviews.

Bunny And The Bull- Websites, hyperlinks, clips on youtube, reviews.

The average film spends about £34.4 million on advertising, although some have spent more than £100 million so that they get maximum exposure, and more people will watch the film.

"Four Weddings A Funeral" was promoted by Working Title through a technique called "Platforming". This means that the film was only opened in a couple of cimemas (New York and Los Angeles), and then they built the advertising on word-of-mouth so more and more people would hear about the film and watch it.

How does the budget of a film institution affect the production practices used to appeal to audiences?

When a film has a low budget, it affects its production practices. For example, Dead Man's shoes, a film produced by Warp Films, and directed by Shane Meadows, had a budegt of three quarters of a million pounds. Because of the low budget, it meant that they couldn't afford to emply lots of well known actors, because they would have wanted high pay. Instead they employed actors that aren't well known, and didn't need such a high wage packet. Furthermore, the production team couldn't afford to create new sets and use extra lighting, so they had to find to find already existing places, and just use natural lighting instead. This gives the film a look of realism, rather than a special effects faked one.

In Shane Meadow's film This Is England, they found that they needed props to make the film appear like it was in the 1980's, but they couldn't afford to splash out on a brand new set, and all the other props required. So instead, they found an area in Nottingham that hadn't been updated since the 80's, and they just edited out the satilitte dishes, and brought a load of cars from the 80's and before off Ebay because it was the cheapest way possible.

When it came to shooting the scenes of the film, rather than going to great lengths to produce a script and then make the actors work to it, Shane Meadows would just create a basic script, and then spend amounts of time with all the actors, planning it out because it was cheaper that way. Even then though, when it came to shooting each scene, a lot of what went into the film was improvised acting.

At the end of the day, because the production team had such a limited amount of money to work with, they were restricted as to what they could do in their film. Because of this, they couldn't make their film appeal to a very wide audience, becausde they couldn't splash out on advertising and a big film premiere. This meant only a small amount of people saw the film, and only in small independant cinemas.

Film Costs

Hot Fuzz- £8 million

Dead Mans Shoes- £723,000