PLANNING: PROMOTIONAL PACKAGE CASE STUDY

 I decided to look at a case study for a promotional package, and I chose Paranormal Activity (2007)

The Synopsis

A couple start having paranormal experiences. They set up a night camera and see that Katie has been sleep walking. They contact experts who claim the poltergeist is gone. However, things get worse, and Katie attacks Micah before leaving the house. 

Characters

Katie- a young woman who unknowingly has been possessed.

Micah- Katie's husband who gets haunted and later attacked, left for dead by Katie who is possessed by a demon.

Techniques

The director wanted to create realism and named the characters after the actors. 

He filmed all of the movie in 4 days, filming in real time.

The actors moved into the house as if they were a real couple, and improvised much of dialogue.

Promotional Package

Posters

The posters are extremely dark with mostly a grey-scale colour palette.

The title is in red, the only colour featured on the poster.

Website

Unlike most websites, Paranormal Activity does not have a website, to keep the illusion that it contains real events.

The Wikipedia page only went up once the news broke it was fake and that the actors were alive.

Trailers

The trailers featured only shaky cam shots and bits of dialogue commonly seen in some documentary trailers.

The Campaign

To keep the realism from the film, neither main actors turned up to the premiere, which helped the audience think it was just a documentary. The actors even took it to the extreme and didn't appear in public anywhere until the film was revealed to be fictitious.

Social Media

Paranormal Activity uses Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to effectively promote the film including character posts and shots from the movie as seen below. I aim to use a similar style in my own campaign by introducing character shots with backstories and also revealing subtle clues about the plot through mysterious posts like Claremont shrouded in mist and pictures of Princess Charlotte.