Media distributors have three sections to focus on to make sure that the film is successful and they are: Advertising, Promotion and Publicity. The advertising is the trailer and poster. The trailer will be shown before films in the cinemas to gain interest from cinema-goers. The teaser trailer would be shown around March/April time to begin with, this is early but this then will tease the audience from an early point and the interest would snowball with people visiting the websites and when a further trailer would be shown the interest would already be high. The poster would be shown in cinemas from around late August/ Early September so that the film is visually noticeable and in peoples mind to have tickets booked.
Publicity would be magazine as it is not run by the film or film company therefore it is an outside opinion and view on the film and with the film featuring on the front cover means it is of interest, this is uncontrolled by the film company and can be a "make or break" decider for a film. The promotional pieces are interviews and tie-in merchandising - things that the film company can control. The interviews featured in the magazine would be aspects of both promotional and publicity, the interviews themselves if they were set up by the film company would be promotional where the questions, and what is actually printed would be the magazines and therefore a form of publicity.
My media trailer states that it will be released 10/10/10, the date is memorable for the audience and also relates to some underlying story aspects of the trailer. October 2010 is set for many film releases, with two horror heavy weights (Paranormal Activity 2 and Saw VII) so 'Bloody Mary' would be released the week before attracting viewers and gaining in box office takings. This stops the film going up against too much competition in the form of horror films during its opening weekend, as this is seen as the "make or break" time for the film. The film would be seen as memorable due to its unique release date.
The trailer is vital to the project. They are single biggest marketing technique, the teaser trailers show the best parts although mostly using footage from the early parts of production, the trailer's aim is to show a very delicate balance of the film, as to not give too much away but to give enough away to attract the audience. Horror trailers use a range of styles of bringing the audience in, common ones are things such as: dating the film for a school holiday release, using a range of stars and well known directors. Some more interesting techniques are as follows: Asking questions, some trailers (and often the accompanying posters) ask many questions to the audience or during the trailer that will be answered in the film (Such as, Who's eating you? from "Jeepers Creepers" (2001)), some will threaten, offer warnings or dare the audience to watch the film, this often suggests that the subject matter is very gruesome and gory (Such as, To avoid fainting, keep repeating 'It's only a movie...It's only a movie... from "The Last House On The Left (1972)). Other things that attract people to the films are advances in techniques such as 3D, digital film quality and surround sound. We used Final Cut Pro to upload and edit the trailer, this was the central programme used in the production of our trailer.
The poster is dark and shows little of the film but uses a haunting shadow to give an idea of the film being of horror genre. The poster uses a rhetorical question to the audience, rhetorical questions always tend to be used as a hook for the film. The text makes a self referential comment because it speaks of Bloody Mary being a myth, which she is seen as in the film. The poster can be harder thing to produce than the trailer because it is a still image which has to sum up the film's genre, theme and storyline to create interest with the audience. The poster needs to be eye catching and too the point, a crowded poster full of too many characters and locations can be seen as too complicated by the audience. Sometimes a teaser trailer will be released a longtime in advance to whet the audiences appetite, this often works well with sequels (Such as the early posters for "Shrek 2" (2005)) Just featured a number two with the 'Shrek ears' on it to make the image recognisable to the public. We used Photoshop to create our posters, The programme was simple to use and we could make the products look professional due to the wide selection on tools on offer.
The magazine is also a huge part of the publicity work. It can attract audiences that may not have been to cinema recently or people that would not normally watch that genre of movie. I produced my own magazine which would be aimed at film goers with many exclusive and promotional interviews and stills from the film, hence the name - Promo. I found the magazine to be successful, I felt that it included many hooks to pull in the audience and attract many. I used the advertisement of the Oscars to bring in a wide range of people who would be interested in awards buzz.
I feel that the pair work well together, the poster is simplistic and yet sets the tone, theme, genre and atmosphere of the film nicely, the trailer then shows a basic version of the plot along with face paced action and events to attract the audience. The trailer leaves many unanswered questions (Something that was noticed in my audience feedback) which will be answered and developed in the film. Both texts build up the film and work well in promoting the film and creating a buzz about it. The magazine shows a different look to the poster and trailer to reflect that it is another view on the film and it ties in aspects of the review and synopses to create the tag line "The Mother of all blood baths" The statement is very definite and shows that the review is very positive and high recommending it as a film as it is showing it as mother of the films and the "Mother" reference is also a reference to the storyline as the mention of it being a "Bloodbath".
This is an annotated image of my film magazine.
This is an analysis of the movie poster, addressing why I decided on certain things and how they relate to the horror genre.
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The magazine is NOT promotion. There are three elements to a campaign, advertising, promotion and publicity. The mag is something the distributor would hope to achieve through its publicity strategy - please research this and say more about it. Also, I think you could be more specific about some of the ways that your poster and teaser reinforce or fail to reinforce each other (remember an evaluation discusses things which could have been done better as well as successes).
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