RESEARCH: SCOOPIT

Scoopit's a very helpful website in which you can collate lots of different parts of information along with images and present them in a clear and informative fashion. I used it here to research how trailers and posters fit into a whole marketing package.

Research behind the Film

Main Trailer

Inception Teaser Trailer

Inception Film Website

inception-movie-poster-7.jpg (2633x3900 pixels)

RESEARCH: WHAT ARE A FILM'S SELLING POINTS

What Are Films Selling Points

By Max Green

FDA Website

In starting to plan a release, the film distributor has to decide how it will present a film to a potential audience. They need to decide what sets this film apart from all the other films that are on release at around the same time – they look for a film’s ‘selling points’ or ‘hooks’. If, for example, the distributor is handling an action adventure film, they will need to identify aspects which set it aside from other action adventure films.

I explored into the FDA website to which Kezia Williams (Head of theatrical distribution at Entertainment One UK) expanded. Williams discussed that elements of a film that distributors will look into are things such as 'What are the emotional aspects of the film?' along with 'From the storyline, what is the fundimental driving force for the plot?'. Chris Besseling, Director of marketing, then informs us that the key themes of the film must be conveyed within the advertisement along with the challenges that come with it. This could be in the form of race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Or in Besseling's words: 'discriminatory avenues must be considered'. 

An exception to the marketing of a film is wether or not it is part of a franchise. In this case, a target audience is already established along with a fan base. From a distributors point of view, selling points would be exploiting old characters, themes along with making the new spin on the sequel visible.

Hooks

The hook is the nucleus of both a film and its screenplay. It is what grabs the viewer's attention, preferably in the first 5–10 minutes, as a reader might expect to find a literary hook in the first chapter of a novel.

The ‘hooks’ of a film must help potential audiences come to an understanding of what they might expect when they go to see it. 

Once you're strength and challenges are established, positioning your film in the market as something special becomes easier. In terms of what selling points might be, that involves: the cast, directors, quality of the performances, reviews, awards along with source material (whether it's based on a true story, person or book).

The visual campaign – the posters, trailers, online clips - will emphasise the hooks and give the target audience a ‘narrative image’ (an idea of the film’s story).

Genre

Genre can be a very useful tool in positioning and marketing the finished film. The understanding of genre is shared between the audience and the film industry, so if for example a company is marketing a horror film, the audience will expect certain elements to be evident, this might be settings such as woods, isolated houses, etc. The characters might include teenagers in a particular type of suspenseful situation. These elements are expected by the audience and drawn on during the production, writing and casting. However the promise of a genre film is not just to provide us with the familiar, but to also to provide something new. This might be in terms of new dangers, new settings.

Characters

Some genre films rely on audiences getting attached to the character or characters and wanting to see how a fresh situation challenges them. Audiences want to know what happens to well-liked characters such as Luke Skywalker or James Bond in their next adventures. In these types of genre films (‘franchises’) we see a return to familiar characters and settings but the narrative is disrupted in some way.

Part of the pleasure here for audiences is the familiarity of the character, their behaviour and attitudes being revisited as well as offering something new in terms of the adventure on offer. This is also challenging for the film companies involved, and can be very costly. They need to develop interesting storylines that will keep audiences coming back.

RESEARCH: DIFFERENT KINDS OF TRAILERS

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