RESEARCH: HOW THE CAMPAIGN WORKS

PRINTS AND ADVERTISING:

Types of Release:

The majority of UK films are launched on fewer than 100 digital copies, and limited releases will not have the huge marketing campaign that big blockbusters do. Only 5% of films are released with over 500 copies with huge marketing campaigns.

Over £350 million was spent on film advertising in 2014, and around £190 million was invested in above the line advertising, with the remainder being spent on production, trailers, materials, premieres, press junkets and delivering copies to cinemas. Usually, the bigger the movie, the bigger the box office intake, leading to a bigger budget to market the film.

Advertising: 

The majority of marketing budgets will use avenues like websites, trailers, posters, tv and press spots, radio spots, merchandise, social media and cross promotion.

The Poster:

The poster must inform an audience of the unique selling points, the reviews from critics, famous actors or directors, and must give a sense of what the film is about.

The key art is central to informing an audience of the identity of the film, and if done properly, will catch the eye, and appeal to the audience, promising an experience they could miss by not watching the film.

Certain rules also apply to sequels and franchise posters. The posters must make it recognisable and fit in with previous franchise films. The original in the series is often very flashy to create an audience, which will carry on to watch the rest of the franchise. Often franchise films focus on large ensemble posters with credits to the most famous on the poster.

A poster has a set few ways to interest a target audience: images used on the poster, using talent in the film, sizing of captions, colour, graphic style and the certificate rating.

Poster Analysis:

Trailer Types:

The film trailer is probably the most cost effective advertising technique available to the film distributor. It can give audiences a sense of genre, what the story is about, who is in the film and when it opens. 

There are usually 3 set trailers a campaign will release: the teaser trailer followed by the full trailer, which is supported with tv spots.

I watched and analysed a trailer for 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies', using questions from the FDA film space.


Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has a building score, which starts off as an average romance film would, but then adds a drum to develop the score into one that imitates an action movie. This is also reflected in the clips used in the trailer. The usual literary adaption scenes are included, such as a dance, and clips of open scenery, before shifting focus to a zombie, to spark the stereotypical action sequences.

Task 3 on the FDA website shows three different trailers for the film Mr Holmes, starring Sir Ian McKellen.

The teaser trailer, lasting 50 seconds, mainly highlights Ian McKellen, the release date and some hints at the plot. It cannot give away too much so it reveals the character of Holmes is much older than expected for it's hook.

The TV spot lasts 30 seconds so is even shorter than the teaser trailer. This very clearly states Ian McKellen is Holmes, and implies something went wrong with his retirement case and so has to sort that out.

The full trailer is the maximum amount of content the audience will see before watching the film. It encompasses what is revealed in the TV spot, but more fleshed out. It shows what characters may be supporting cast alongside McKellen's Holmes. It also shows off critic reviews, and more details about the release date.

Online Marketing:

Often, films will have a website to provide a base for the marketing campaign, where trailers, posters and many behind the scenes segments will be posted to make a fan's experience easier when viewing trailers. For big franchises, these websites may encompass several films, even with individual websites for certain films within the franchise. This can be seen in Marvel's campaign for Captain Marvel, where the websites for Spiderman Homecoming and Guardians of the Galaxy started to release Captain Marvel sneak peeks. This is usually done to appeal to their target audience, which is calculated by looking at other films in the franchise, without having to create an audience from scratch.