How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

DEAD MAN’S HANDJoe Habben

QUESTION 2

TARGET AUDIENCEWhen it comes down to target audience, all areas of the film industry are involved. From production and post-production to push and pull marketing. Each of these sections have a big impact on how the film is seen and the impact that it has on the target audience. It’s vital that you target the right audience when producing your film. If you don’t then you may not earn enough revenue to support it.

There is a wide variety of audiences which films are able to market themselves to, ranging from young children and teenagers to adults and the elderly. Personal taste and gender also have a big influence on the target audiences for films. For example mainstream horror would be marketed towards young teenager girls who are interested in watching films with their friends and getting thrilled by the suspense. Whereas older more mature consumers would be interested in independent upcoming films that feature talented unknown actors.

These audiences also affect where the films are marketed due to the lifestyles and activities that the general audience participate in for example push marketing such as bus shelters, billboards, trailers etc. Including pull marketing such as film websites, YouTube, and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

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We had to also considered this when discussing the marketing for our trailer. I believe that we would market our film towards 15-30 year old males who enjoy watching gritty crime flicks, both mainstream and independent. Because ours is an independent, we would advertise this using mainly cost-efficient push marketing like trailers, posters, flyers and other independent ways of marketing. We would also use independent film magazines like ‘Sight and Sound’ and ‘Little White lies’ to features articles discussing our film which would combine push and pull marketing by attracting consumers, they would be interested in the article and would want to read more.

INDEPENDENT AND MAINSTREAM

I believe that our film is an independent film due to the fact that it has been produced by a new upcoming director and features a female as the main protagonist. I think that we would advertise our film to both an independent audience and mainstream audience. This is because our film has a mid-range budget and has been distributed by a large, well-known company. This allows us to spend more money on marketing. I believe that our film would attract a wider mainstream audience because it features crime and action which are seen to be very popular in modern day film.

I believe that our film could be premiered at popular independent film festivals such as ‘Sundance’ and ‘Festival De Cannes’ where the movie would hopefully attract a lot of attention and gain popularity before it was released. Here we would use push by allowing the media, film critics and other people involved in the industry to promote and advertise our film for us, this would intrigue consumers to want see our movie.

If our film became very successful then it might even be featured in mainstream film festivals like ‘The London Film Festival’ and maybe magazine such as ‘Total Film’ and ‘Empire’.

We had to also considered this when discussing the marketing for our trailer. I believe that we would market our film towards 15-30 year old males who enjoy watching gritty crime flicks, both mainstream and independent. Because ours is an independent, we would advertise this using mainly cost-efficient push marketing like trailers, posters, flyers and other independent ways of marketing. We would also use independent film magazines like ‘Sight and Sound’ and ‘Little White lies’ to features articles discussing our film which would combine push and pull marketing by attracting consumers, they would be interested in the article and would want to read more.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

The film industry has embraced social media ever since its up rise. This is a cost-effective way of interacting with fans and consumers directly using both push and pull marketing to promote their newly released films. Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are adopted by these corporations to use new and diverse ways to promote their films to their target audience. Pages, profiles and websites can all be made via these social networking sites, from here they can hastily and cost-freely spread their films virally and increase their fan bases. A film example of this is ‘Paranormal Activity’. This film was produced on a budget of $15,000 but managed to gross more than $150 million in box office. Paramount produced this film and used Facebook as a way to reach their target audience which turned their production from a small limited showing to a worldwide release.

PROMOTION OF OUR FILMOur film would be produced by ‘Miramax Films’ because they are a large company which supports independent films and are well known for it. We would attempt to get a larger more mainstream company to distribute our film (e.g. 20 th Century Fox or Time Warner) because it would allow us to reach as far as possible in the marketing spectrum of reaching our audience. However this would not be the case with an independent distribution company. Through our popular production and distribution companies we would have the access to a larger marketing campaign where we could enter every opportunity of advertisement e.g. billboards, magazine covers, talk-shows, posters, TV adverts etc.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION OF OUR FILM

• Due to the fact that our film is low budget and an independent I feel it would be produced by companies such as ‘MIRAMAX’ or ‘Film4’

• We would market our trailer through web 2.0 on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. A website would also be created for the film using pull marketing where consumers could interact and gain information e.g. the release date, starring actors etc.

• We’d take all opportunities to publicise our film as much as possible using push marketing like interviews with the actors and director. These would be presented on the internet or in small company and independent film magazines such as Sight & Sound. The film could also be advertised on gambling websites/games which would relate to the film.

• We would also use a unique strategy of push marketing by producing and distributing masks that imitate the ones that the main characters wear in the film. These could be given out at suitable places such as near cash points in town where people dressed up as the ‘One-Eyed Royals’ would hand them out along with leaflets and flyers of the film and would answer any questions about the film.

• It would also be shown at small film festivals and award nights before the main release.

• Our film would be viewed at independent cinemas like the Duke of York’s Picture house, if it became a larger success from media attention due to the advertisement, I think we would extend the showings to larger more mainstream cinemas to increase the consumer population of our film.

DEAD MAN’S HAND TITLESIn our trailer I decided to use a strong, bold font called ‘Impact’. The aim of using this font was to hopefully achieve what it says by impacting into the viewer’s head, standing out from other films which would tempt them to watch it. Because the film that we created is postmodern and very stylish, I decided to make the titles this way too. As you can see I presented the info and text in our trailer in full capitals, coloured with a clean white against black background. I decided to put the text in capitals because it is more outrageous and challenges the typical subtlety of most other postmodern crime films such as ‘snatch’. I think the white against the simple black is quite minimalist and draws more attention to what the text is trying to get across to the audience. As you can see I also featured these titles on top of clips such as when we used freeze-frames to present each of the characters individually to the viewer. I shaped the compositions of these texts to reflect the contour outline of each of the characters, this was so that neither of the two subjects clashed with each other and blended together well.

DEAD MAN’S HAND TITLES

I believe that these titles help our film stand out because they are very constant throughout the trailer which increases the likeliness of them imprinting themselves into the viewers mind. The strong text contrasts a lot from its backdrop. We used these titles to explain the narrative of the film but also the information about the film e.g. production, release date etc. We created a USP by mentioning that the film was given the award of the ‘Best Independent Film’ at the Cannes Film Festival which is an incredibly good achievement, I think that this would allow it to push itself away from other films being released at a similar times which would bring more attention to it. We also mention that Sight and Sound magazine have called the director ‘The New Guy Ritchie’ which is also a high status which would attract film fanatics and a larger niche audience.

TARGET AUDIENCEThe beginning of our trailer opens up with two of the main characters running out the doors of a bank, this instantly implies the genre of the film and part of the narrative, this a very popular story-type which I believe would attract a large male audience.

This part of the narrative was inspired by Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, where they only show the robbery post-bank heist. I think this works really well with our trailer because it is an independent and also leaves it to the viewer to use their imagination. I don’t believe shooting the actual bank hold-up would fit our budget

due to all the expenses, this is good because it would also attract a niche audience of viewers who enjoy watching films which aren’t so stereotypical and challenge the generic storylines of mainstream film. I feel

that this gives our movie some individuality from other crime films where the plot only revolves around how they conduct the bank heist, but not what happens afterwards e.g. the consequences or slip-ups etc.

I think our trailer would attract a creative audience due to the visually entertaining editing, cinematography and stylish content. Because a strong female lead and two male characters are featured, the trailer would draw in a large audience consisting of both a males and females which fit well into our target audience of the age between 15-25 years old. At the end of the trailer, there is a blooper-like scene where the two male antagonists get into a lift and stand there silently whilst corny elevator music plays, this adds a comical touch to the film which may attract a more relaxed and humorous audience.

REACHING THE TARGET AUDIENCE THROUGHOUR TRAILER

One subtle way I linked our trailer to the magazine cover was by putting a quote by Sight & Sound magazine into the trailer. By doing this, we told the viewer that Sight & Sound have featured our film in one of their magazines. This would encourage the viewer to buy the magazine and find out more about the film. I think this is a subtly clever way of promoting ourselves through a magazine, it is also a sign that a well-known prestigious magazine has selected to write about our film, which would attract a nice audience of a lot of independent film fanatics.

The target audience for our film would be 15-25 year old males and females, but the majority of the audience would consist of adolescent males. We would rate the film a 15 because it involves violence, swearing and illegal activity. The target audience are males and females because the main protagonist is a strong female role which the same sex would find empowering and challenging to the stereotypical all-male casts in crime films. This would also be appealing to a male audience because they would want to see the young, attractive female character in action. Our film would be released in winter because it would flow well with the rough, intense content of the film, whereas if it were a romance or comedy etc. it would be released in the summer when the weather is bright and cheerful.

FILM POSTERS ~ RESERVOIR DOGS

The Reservoir dogs posters were all produced individually without a running theme except from the main featured conventions such as the main characters, the titles and the colour scheme.

I like the way that they have featured the characters so stylistically and made them the main focus.

I also admire the way they have featured a lot of red to signify that there will be a lot of blood.

I really admire how Jackie Brown was advertised. A poster for each main character was created, but also a main poster which featured all of them. This gave them a variety of different covers but all shared the main themes such as black and white photograph, the titles and the actor/actresses name. I think this is an interesting, individual strategy of marketing which has inspired me.

JACKIE BROWN

KILL BILLLike Reservoir dogs, Kill Bill produced a wide range of different posters which all featured the main props, characters and colour scheme.

I believe that they used the colours yellow and black because it relates to warning signs which often signify danger.I really like the way that they have made the props a big feature of the poster because it tells us that it has a lot of importance to the narrative.

LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels used a similar marketing strategy as Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs. Here in there posters they featured the main characters and themes of the films i.e. Poker and Crime. What I like about these posters is the vibrant Saul Bass-like graphic ideas they have presented which adds a post-modern edge to the advertising strategy.

DEAD MAN’S HAND POSTERS

Here is the trio of my final posters, as you can see, I was mainly inspired by Jackie Brown’s technique of marketing where I have created a series of posters featuring different main characters. I was also inspired by the way Lock Stock featured its main props to signify the genre

and content of the film, this is why I have featured money, guns and cards. In a way, these are the McGuffin of the film which push the story along kept a running theme in the posters through the main titles, composition and colour scheme. I used a red brick background

because it gives off a rough, cockney-like appeal which relates it to other films like Snatch and Lock Stock. I think the strategy of creating a series of posters has given our marketing technique a strong USP. I am very pleased with these, due to the fact that we have a variety of

posters means that we could advertise the film more frequently in locations, our target audience and other audiences would then see these, making the connection between the trio. They would also see certain aspects which link to the trailer and magazine, this would help the film stand out by a strong margin from others by having a wider variety of marketing strategies which would build up the existence of

our production in their minds.

In this poster (similarly to the trailer) I have presented the female protagonist as a strong lead role. Here her head is in a strong looking position making her look like she has authority, she is also giving off a look like she is in control. I shot the photograph from below her also to give the sense of dominance. I believe that this would attract a wide audience of women and feminists because its not very typical to see a lead female protagonist in a popular crime film, I think they would see this as empowering and would want to watch the film.

When you look closer underneath the text you can see that the girl is holding a gun, this shows that she is in control but also as it is a typically used prop it signifies the film genre.The way in which she is holding the gun to her head tells the audience that there will be violence in the film, it also adds depth to the image as to why she would be doing this in the situation of a bank heist…I think the combination of male and female main characters would attract a wider audience of both genders.

To bring more focus towards the main protagonist I used a great depth of field on the two other characters and focused more on the props which they were holding. I did this to enforce that fact that they are less important and to subliminally tell the audience who the narrative revolves around - Sam (Beth). The text ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ reflects the image as the character is holding a hand of cards and dies later in the film, this is also the same case with the other poster where the character’s hands are full of money and he also dies. This is also one of the reasons why they are both out of focus and Sam (Beth) isn't, because they both die in the film and she is the survivor.

In the left image the character is holding fake money which we created by taking images of £20 notes off the internet and resizing them to fit the scale of ordinary bank notes. We then printed these out and stuck them onto wads of paper which we had also cut to size, this was then completed by wrapping a thin piece of card around each of the wads.

At the bottom of each of the posters I added the main title and below it the slogan ‘A heist is going down’. This re-enforces the hints to the genre and the content of the film. These titles are also featured in the trailer which allows the film and posters relate to one another.

I believe that this trio of posters fits well with the trailer and communicates with it well. This is achieved by the posters featuring the same props which are featured in the trailer i.e. money, cards and guns.The style which we have presented our film in relates well to other famous crime films which would attract bigger fans of the crime genre.

MAGAZINE COVER RESEARCH & INSPIRATION

To further the marketisation of our film we would try to feature our film on magazine covers such as Sight and Sound, Little White Lies and maybe Empire, depending on the attention on our film and its success.

The target audience of the issue would have to be similar to our other ancillary products (male/female age 15-25) otherwise it may be advertised to people who take no interest in our film and the marketing strategy would have no purpose.

Here are two exemplary magazine covers produced by ‘Sight and Sound’ magazine, I believe that our film would be featured in this magazine due to the fact that it is an independent film being produced by a new upcoming director. If we were to create a magazine cover like one of these then we would need to present on of the creators of the production e.g. director, actor etc. this is because they are more interested in the artistry and creation of the film

Here are another two exemplary magazine covers which have been created by a company called ‘Little White Lies’. This is a magazine which aims at a younger audience who take more interest in independent films which I believe is an ideal for us because our film is rated a 15 which would hopefully widen our consumer population. All of their magazine covers feature illustrations as the main cover which gives their magazine a strong USP and helps it stand out from other magazines. If we were to feature on this, then we would have to produce some sort of illustration or artistic design representing our film. I believe that this would be an ideal magazine for our production to feature on because it would fit well with the artistic concepts that our other ancillary texts carry.

DEAD MAN’S HAND MAGAZINE COVEROn the far left is our final magazine cover. Before producing this we researched and looked at other Sight and Sound magazine covers to get a gist of how we should present ours. After researching we found that they don’t show anything to do with the film, but the people behind the production e.g. actors, directors etc. For this reason we decided to show an image of the editor/ cinematographer, we did this because our film trailer is quite visually artistic and creative which is part of its USP. To challenge other magazine covers we decided to make our subject more interesting by giving him a slightly mad expression and feature some of the props from our film (mask and poker chip), this contrasted to other Sight and Sound magazine covers which typically feature the subject in a monotone perspective with basic visual accompaniment. We believe this would stand out from other magazines because it is out of the ordinary and features a new and upcoming production artists which might take peoples attention due to the fact that it is the directors which are most commonly featured. We featured the props in the image because it allows him to relate to aspects in ‘Dead Man’s Hand’, this would entice the viewer to read about what is so special. I believe this would attract a wide mixture of a mainstream and an independent audience because Sight and Sound is a famous independent magazine which features the best new releases. I think this works well together with our other ancillary texts because it features some of the main props of our film which signify aspects and elements of the production. It also shares the title ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ which allows our target audience to identify it and relate it to the subject and the posters and trailer.