Audience and Institutions Practice Essay

Assess the Importance of Marketing in the Media Area you have Studied?

Marketing in film, to me, is one of if not the most important step in the film process in terms of captivating an audience's attention. The marketing aspect of a film not only tells the audience “hey here’s an amazing new movie we just produced please go watch it” but it also manages to portray to an audience the most important and action or drama-packed scenes that would make someone want to go view the movie. Marketing also helps a ton in the film industry as it works to reach out to all of the age ranges the movie is suited for and also getting them to want to watch the movie. The extensive marketing campaigns films and franchises put in place from not only the beginning of the release cycle but even during production of the movie amplify and seek out maxim revenue for the movie being produced. Marketing, in a sense, can never hurt a movie as its only meant to gain attention for the movie however if marketing is placed incorrectly or distributed late or at the wrong times its effect on the movie and audience could take a toll. 

The use of Marketing through merchandise like clothing, games and toys, and even posters gets an audience pumped about a film and reminded of its glory, or failure. The merchandise released after or before a movie is placed in theaters makes a big difference on the audience depending on what it is. The movie Jurassic World which was released back in 2015 and made 1.7 billion dollars worldwide released limited edition posters, video games, lego toys, and even an app. All this marketing put them out in the world to access all audiences and age range starting at 3 years old (with legos) up to any age. However, another movie, The Lego Movie, grossed about 469 million dollars worldwide and marketed much less than Jurassic World. They used their lego platform to promote the movie and worked with Warner Bros yet still made significantly less. This can be because it didn't reach out to such a wide range of audiences, however, they could have marketed in a vaster way to reach out to more age ranges. The brand could have tried marketing themselves and the movie on more adult consumed things and areas. For example, laundry detergent, in partnering with a brand to promote themselves or everyday household items that are typically used by adults. 

Marketing in film also manages to work seamlessly in immersing an audience into the movie by releasing sneak peeks of what’s to be seen either on their own or through the use of other platforms. Merchandise is one way an audience can see what to come, through the use of pictures or game characters, however, so is a trailer or the release of something before the movie even comes out. For example, the live-action Beauty and the Beast movie was seen to be putting out posters to promote the movie months before it had been even released or in production. In July of 2016, the official Beauty and the Beast twitter account released a poster of a single rose encased in a beautiful glass cover with the title of the movie and read “Coming Soon March 2017.” This got many fans extremely excited to see what’s to come as it was a brand new remake of such an iconic Disney movie with such an extensive and creative cast. The movie then was released and used another multiple marketing schemes like games, toys, merchandise, and more just like any movie however, grossed only 357 million dollars worldwide. Although their marketing tactics were phenomenal in getting an audience immersed into their movie almost a year before it was released, it still didn’t attract many people and overall made less than the Lego Movie which reached out to a much more limited age range audience. Another movie, Spiderman Homecoming, was seen to have followed in some similar marketing footsteps like Beauty and the Beast. They strategized by releasing merchandise before the movie came out to create hype and generate buzz and when the movie first came out there was a huge premier held to promote what was to come. They then released the movie along with any other games, toys, clothing, and synergy uses (they partnered with Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the cereal boxes) back in July of 2017 and generated a gross amount of about 880 million dollars worldwide. 

Overall, the use of marketing in all four of these movies worked in their favor as it generated buzz about each movie and also all, with the exception of Beauty and the Beast, met the average amount of money a movie makes in the box office worldwide of 373.2 million dollars. I believe that although all marketing strategies don’t work to reach some goals of movies it is still an extremely important process for not only any film to be released but products as well. Without the use of marketing and telling people a new film is coming, generating excitement around a long-awaited sequel to a saga, a stand-alone movie, or an original movie, much less money would be made by companies and producers. Although the process of making a movie is not always solely for the making of money and more for entertainment the production studios still need to make back the thousands, millions, and billions of dollars put in to even make the film. This is primarily a reason why all of the marketing aspects come into play for people to buy, use and wear as a way for them to get excited but also in a way promote the movie for the company. Clothing, toys, video games, websites, and even apps are all used as marketing strategies to reach out to all age ranges suited for the movie and as ways to create excitement or suspense to see what’s to come. 

Practice Extract Essay 24

During the extract of this movie “24”, it feels as though the director is trying to convey a sense of urgency about a potentially dangerous situation. The way in which the characters are interacting with one another emphasizes the urgency from two different viewpoints as it seems each character wants to go about the situation in a different way. The director clearly wants to instill a sense of suspense and thrill in the audience leaving them dramatically confused yet interested in what’s to come. It’s definitely seen that the message being portrayed is that of cautiousness. The characters are both so concerned about the issue at hand that they each want to resolve it in their own ways and can’t come up with a. way to work together to find a solution. The audience is left on a cliffhanger at the end o the extract wondering what to happen next. 

As I’m not aware of how to determine the beginning and end of different scenes I wanted to take a different approach to this extract. I have decided to break it down using the T.E.A format into three parts, beginning middle, and end simply as that. The extract lasts three minutes so each minute I will analyze differently. Within the first minute, the audience can see various uses of camera angles, editing techniques, use of sound, etc. For one, we can see the use of the over the shoulder shot which is also used all throughout the extract.  The shot expresses a way of seeing different points of view from characters and ways to see and understand dialogue from other perspectives. Another commonly used technique/ factor of this first minute is the use of dark lighting. The lighting is once again pictured all throughout the extract and it helps to develop the intensity and suspense of the scene as not everything is clear to see. These two factors prove my thesis to be true on the director's intension of portraying suspense, and mystery in the extract through the use of camera angles and mis-en-scene.

The second minute of this extracts develops intensity even further as the audience now sees some tension building up between the two characters. The audience now beings to experience more of the use of incidental music which amplifies the suspense of the moment. The male character begins to get more aggressive trying to get information out of the female already intensifying the scene. However, this of the music used all throughout the suspense amplifies as the music matches the occurring situation. Another small yet important aspect of this second minute is the solid metal doors and furniture and the way it used in the scene. Although it is something that tends to be overlooked, furniture in scenarios like this play a vital role in developing plot and emotion in the audience. The furniture itself already gives off the feeling that this is not a place that’s generally considered a safe space for people. It’s already pretty empty and the use of plain, boring, sturdy decor and furniture only amplifies that. As well as how the male character throws the table across the room in a blast of anger. The sound the table emits frightened the audience whilst building suspense. Small, overlooked aspects as such play very important roles in developing a director's invention in terms of the portrayal of the scene to the audience. This further develops my point in stating the director's purpose, through the use of mis-en-scene and sound, is to instill a sense/ feel of suspense, intensity, and urgency in the audience. 

The last-minute of this extracts continues in building the tension between two characters however at this minute we also begin to see that tension dies down. The interference from an outside source rushes to the rescue of the female main character and suppresses the situation. One big element the audience sees here is an editing technique that isn’t so commonly used in movies anymore, called split-screen. Split-screen allows the audience two to experience two moments happening at the same time in different locations. The split-screen here depicts two people rushing to the interrogation room to stop the man in the room from choking and killing the woman. This, once again, develops a sense of urgency throughout the extract is not only solving the issue but saving someone that seems to be a vital part of the operation. One last thing that’s used much more in this last minute of footage through more than two characters is dialogue. The dialogue is clearly used throughout the entire extract for the audience to be able to understand what’s happening but now in this final minute, we can see the dialogue between more than two people. The dialogue is rather intense in this minute as the man gets much more aggressive and needs another stop come in and suppress him. The others that come in also use very strong dialogue in telling him to stop hurting the young girl. This use of dialogue expresses not only the emotion between characters, as all dialogue should, but it also develops the plot and intensifies the situation. 

To summarize, I feel as though the director's purpose with this extract was to build intensity, urgency, and suspense in the audience's emotions. Through the use of the mis-en-scene like lighting and furniture, shots like over the shoulder, and sound like incidental music and dialogue the audience can really see and understand not only to the situation at hand but the emotions it portrays. Through the use of sound the audience can experience the intensity on different levels from beginning to end starting low moving high and then a “happy” medium. The mis-en-scene, although overlooked, adds small yet vital aspects to scenes that help to portray urgency in the situation with the way they are used. Lastly, the camera angles and shots used to allow the audience to experience the emotions and purpose from different perspectives seeing not only the situation from one point of view, rather multiple points of view. Overall, the audience can experience the three factors of intensity, urgency, and suspense develop throughout the extract rising and falling during certain scenarios. 

Practice Extract Essay T.E.A Worksheets

Movie CCR

For my CCR this time I decided to take a more creative approach to it based on the times that we're living through right now with COVID-19. On the news now I've lately been seeing a lot of interviews done through zoom and other platforms or people can do social distancing. I've also seen this through a lot of talk shows like Jimmy Fallon Jimmy Kimmel Ellen etc. Therefore I didn't want to do just a simple interview face to face with somebody who is still creative I wanted to take my own little twist on it. I did it with my mom and she went to one room and I went to the other and we use zoom as a platform so she could ask me questions and I could enter them. I thought this was a really fun way to do my CCR as I'm sure nobody else has before since we've never lived through a pandemic like this in recent times. And I also thought it would be something that I would enjoy just creating and producing and putting out for somebody else to watch. It would be something that I'm very confident in putting out in terms of creativity and with my answers and something that overall I am just proud of. I thought it was something creative and I've never heard of anybody do something like this before and so I thought why not be the first. The weather I recorded it wouldn't allow me and my mom to be featured on the screen at the same time it would feature who was talking but I'm still very proud of the way that I made this and the fact that I was able to think of something like this is something I'm very happy about. 

Original Movie

Once again something I'm so extremely proud of this movie is that I even got it finished. By finished I mean the majority of it was done and it created a concise storyline that I was happy with. Due to COVID-19 as I blogged before I was not able to finish my movie. I didn't get to go out and film what it would have been the last 10 to 15 seconds of my movie which would have been the cliffhanger and the suspense builder to what would go after those two minutes. I'm very disappointed that I didn't get to do that as I feel like I'm handing in an incomplete movie however it's something that people face in the real world in the movie industry and is happening right now. Although some may not be putting out the work that they're not finishing I have to because I've worked way too hard for this to go unrecognized. Nevertheless, I am still very proud of the partial movie I produced and this storyline that I was able to come up with as I did work independently this time. I chose to not have to rely on anybody else like my other two projects and work on my own so that I could really have creative freedom. Although some of it led to my downfall I think I took it more as an opportunity to grow and learn from my mistakes than something to bring me down. All in all, I'm very proud of the work that I've put out and would only critique myself in the way that I'm disappointed I didn't get to finish those last few seconds that really would have pushed my movie over the edge to make it something I would be extremely proud of. 

Music Video

Some things from my commercial that I'm very proud of was and our just meeting the time requirements that we had to get through with that music video. My group and I encountered a lot of problems through the process of that music video from coming up with ideas to storyboard to planning to even film. The fact that my group and I even got that music video done amazed me because of the fact that a lot of the work that we did was separate but together. By that, I mean that somebody would go off to do one thing and somebody would go off to do another and in the end, we would just slap everybody's name on it and call it a group project. However, I'm glad that we managed to work as a team in some circumstances and decide to say listen up we can't keep doing such separate work and putting our names on it we have to begin to work together. The fact that my group and I were able to realize that we were not working cohesively is something I'm very proud of because sometimes people can't realize that and it leads to their downfall. All in all the most thing I'm proud of about this music video is that my group and I were able to come together and get everything finished on time and still put out a product that we were satisfied with. 

Commercial

For my commercial, some things that I'm very proud about it was the fact that it was just finished in the 1st place as that was one of the first media projects I'd ever done and was not familiar with how to do anything that dealt with filming and editing, etc. I'm also very proud of how my group and I handled the situation 4 our commercial as we took two days to film. Although the editing is a bit choppy and could be more cohesive I'm proud of the way it turned out as me and my group mates had never worked on a project like that before and weren't extremely familiar with how to get this stuff done properly in a sense. For that project, I definitely thought it was going to be a lot easier than it was And I didn't think we would encounter so many troubles as I didn't think it was going to be as difficult as it was even though it was so easy. Comparing it To my music video and my movie it was by far the easiest out of three as it should have been. I got to film at school which was a lot easier than having to take out my own time to film And I had a group of people that were basically on the same level of knowledge as me so I didn't feel like I had no point in being in the group because I didn't know anything and everybody else did. Overall I think it was a really good basis of starting my journey through this class and help me learned a lot on how to use the software on how to film and how to partially direct.