Audience and Institution

Assess the importance of marketing in the media area you have studied.

    In the film industry, marketing is very important to have the movie be seen. Many films that do not go through the complete marketing process tend to not be as successful as their counterparts. This is because marketing is the way a film may build its traction. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, for example, was produced by Walt Disney Studios. This production company is very big and therefore, was able to make many connections to market the film. Their cross-promotion partners included many food companies and miscellaneous companies including Geico, Ford Motor Company, Hanes, and Lego. There was also a soundtrack for the movie released titled “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Awesome Mixtape Vol. 2.” This generated buzz for the upcoming public release date of the movie. In collaboration with Hasbro, Disney released a Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 version of Monopoly. This built excitement leading the audience to believe that if they saw this movie, they would be a part of the select few who would get to play this game.

Spiderman: Homecoming was another Marvel movie with an affiliating soundtrack. The soundtrack included MGMT and The Rolling Stones, whom both have audiences constantly excited. The marketing team also used toys as a way to grab the children’s attention. They released both toys from exclusively Disney stores and teamed up with Target to release action figures. The only other marketing strategy that Spiderman: Homecoming used was partnering with Cinnamon Toast Crunch to add some Spiderman images on the box and a themed toy inside. This movie spent fewer resources on marketing than Black Panther did, possibly leading to the lesser success of Spiderman. 

Beauty and the Beast is also a Disney movie, however not affiliated with Marvel. Disney recruited Khol’s in creating exclusive offers and merchandise. This created interest in the movie as related toys and clothing items could reveal a bit about what the movie would look like. Audiences were anxious to know more about this because remakes of older cartoon Disney movies were only just beginning to become popular, each looking different than the last. Disney also had the original Beauty and the Beast playing more often to spark interest in seeing the newer one. This was an especially outstanding approach at marketing due to the unique circumstances of recreating an older movie.

During the distribution process of Jurassic World, Universal Studios put out a Jurassic World website, treating the scene as if it was a real place in the world. They a trip planner, weather information, and even a schedule of feeding times of the dinosaurs. Although the website is still available today, it presented a countdown until the movie was released. The movie was highly anticipated by audiences as Jurassic World was the third-largest grossing movie of all time. Jurassic World also had many other marketing strategies. Lego distributed Jurassic World themed playsets which unarguably appealed to younger audiences. NBC, USA, and the Sci-Fi Channel all aired the original Jurassic Park in a special whilst Chris Pratt and Steven Spielberg hosted.

Marketing is vital to films of any genre. For instance, the difference between the amount of marketing that goes into superhero films relative to the success they accumulate is proven in the box office contrasts in Black Panther and Spiderman: Homecoming. Marketing initiates anticipation, excitement, and builds traction.

Intruder Alert: Finished Project

This is our finished product, Intruder Alert. It is a thriller film about an intruder who breaks into a young girl's home. She is captured and tied up. She is then told not to make any sounds if she'd like to live. After she makes a sound, the screen goes black in order to create suspense.

Intruder Alert: Finished Product (CCR)

Commercial Blog

Our commercial was the first film project that we completed in our AICE Media Studies Class. Unfortunately, we were unable to recover our commercial. This is because we did this assignment on our school computers and film equipment. This ensures that we do not have access to our footage and filming. The pandemic of COVID-19 has forced us to be quarantined at home, therefore we are unable to enter school to retrieve those necessary items. After we first finished our product, we emailed it in to our teacher. We thought, in hindsight, we would be able to access the video through the email. This proved to be an embarrassment to our thoughts. However, consoling us, this has happened to many other students in our class. I would have preferred to include the video. It would show our improvement. However, we still have blogs to show.
 

Music Video Blog

I completed this 1:13 second video with my group of three. This music video was very fun to make because I got to listen to this fun song with my friends. While we were dancing to the song it worked out great because we were able to add that footage into the film.

Re-shooting- Intruder Alert

Since my groupmate and I did not need to reshoot, we could get straight to re-editing. We could not get together in person because of the Coronavirus outbreak. We just wanted to be careful because of how contagious the disease is. So, we decided to edit our film together over FaceTime. We used iMovie to re-edit our film, just like we did when we originally edited it. I edited the film on my computer, while FaceTiming my groupmate on my phone. We watched the film together and then talking about what we thought needed to be fixed. First off, we decided to fix the lighting. I made the entire film a bit brighter by using the brightness tool on iMovie. We made sure the lighting was bright enough for the viewer to see, but still dark enough for it to seem like a nighttime horror film. Once we were satisfied with the lighting, we moved on to transitions. We originally made the transitions sort of choppy to create anticipation. But, our peer reviewers said the transitions looked a little too choppy. So, we made some of the transitions look smoother, but still left some “choppy” to create a shot reverse shot effect. We then moved on to fixing the titles. We changed the font and positioning of the titles to make them easier to read. We also fixed the timing of the titles. Some of them were too close to one another and looked sort of rushed and cramped. So, we spaced out the titles better to make them flow nicely with the film.

Re-shooting- Intruder Alert

After doing peer reviews with our classmates, it was time to reshoot. Based off of the peer review we received, we didn’t feel the need to reshoot any clips. The feedback we received was mainly about editing and fixing lighting and titles. We also were unable to reshoot because of being in quarantine due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Luckily, we didn’t need to reshoot. We were able to fix our movie to make it the best it could be without having to refilm anything. Before the coronavirus outbreak, my group mate and I did plan on refilming just incase we decided we didn’t like some of our clips. But, since it wasn’t a necessity for us to reshoot, we figured it was best to just stay in quarantine and not re film. Based off our peer review, the mistakes we made can all be fixed by editing. We need to fix the lighting a bit, but that can be done in iMovie. We intentionally made our film a bit dark since it is a horror movie. We plan on making the lighting a little brighter so it is easier for the viewer to see. We also need to fix the timing of our titles because they seem a bit rushed. We are going to change some of the transitions as well to make the title sequence and film look smoother. My group mate and I shot a lot of extra clips when we originally filmed our video. This makes it good for us so we don’t have to reshoot anything. While we are re editing, we can always use one of the different clips if we really do not like a clip we used in the film originally. Because of the coronavirus, it is better to be safe than sorry, therefore we won’t be getting together to reshoot.