Audience and Institution Practice Essay

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

In the film, industry marketing plays an important role in the distribution and profit of a movie. Through a variety of techniques, marketing can help your film reach your audience or potentially scare them away.    

To begin with, marketing is very effective at spreading knowledge of an upcoming film. For example, many people including me thought that the Harry Potter series was over, however, I came to find out along with many others through the use of cross-promotion that soon a new movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, within the Harry Potter timeline would be released. Although the original Harry Potter fans most likely made up a large portion of the revenue, if the preconceived excitement wasn’t enough, Warner Bros. Partnered with a variety of companies to produce merchandise and promote the film to draw in new fans.    

However, having an existing fan base does not guarantee a successful movie. For instance, STX Films released a movie based on a widely known brand of toys “Ugly Dolls” and the outcome was not as expected. Despite a relatively large fan base, the movie tanked. However, marketing is not where they went wrong Adam Fogelson chairman of STX Films, has a reputable marketing background and went above and beyond in that area advertising through cross-media convergence with McDonald’s, Hasbro, Walmart, Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s, Pinkberry, Ferrero, and Pez Candy just to name a few. The issue seems that the audience felt this line of plush toys did not need a movie to go along with it not to mention the release date just days before the release of Detective Pikachu, a much more popular movie also aimed at a younger audience. This goes to show that while you may have sufficient marketing for your movie, it is not a guaranteed success.   

To add on, in the previous case studies I discussed they had an existing fan base. The importance of marketing shifts when you go from an existing fanbase to a completely original idea. It is harder to get audiences excited about a movie when they don’t already know of a product surrounding that idea. The movie Baby Driver is a good example of this. Sony, the production company had to heavily rely on marketing to stir up excitement. One of the main techniques they used was cross-media convergence. A selling point of this movie was the soundtrack and the production company used this to their advantage by producing CDs with the soundtrack. The producers of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Spiderman: Homecoming did something similar by producing a mixtape of the movies' most reputable tracks. My generation is easily influenced by music and it was a smart idea to appeal to a teenage audience through the use of music.   

Finally, the most important form of marketing, in my opinion, social media. I find this area important for films because it is the most unlooked form of advertising. Most often people overlook posters, or advertisements on cereal boxes but seeing that trending tag on twitter or the hashtags on Instagram is eye-catching and hard to overlook. Additionally, it is, for the most part, out of the production companies' control. Teenagers have the ability to make or break a movie solely based on memes they have created.   

Overall, while the level of importance differs marketing still plays a role in the success of movies. It shares knowledge, produces, excitement, and increases the audience.   

Extract Practice: 24

In this extract, the director is trying to convey the theme that “In dire situations, you may have to trust untrustworthy people”. They portray this through the use of camera angles, camera movement, shots, editing, sound, and mis en scene.  

In the first scene, the director uses the dialogue between the man and the woman to portray that there is a lack of trust. The man talks in a very direct tone and the woman provides very little information showing that both parties do not feel comfortable with each other. Additionally, the eye-line match used when the woman looks at the clock expresses that they are in a time crunch. This contributes to the theme by showing that they have little time to solve the problem, so the situation became “dire”. Finally, the director chose to use cross-cutting to cut from the interrogation scene to the observers. This allows the audience to infer that the woman is potentially dangerous and is not to be trusted because she requires observation.  

Next in the second scene, the director added incidental music after the man’s first outbreak. The function of that is to signify the intensity of the scene, something bad is happening or going to happen. To add on, the close-up during the second outbreak shows the anger the man possesses. He is angry at the woman due to her lack of accountability and possibly because he knows she will not do the right thing in this situation. Also, in the second outbreak, the director used a split screen to express the urgency the observers have to ensure the woman stayed unharmed, therefore pointing out her importance.  

Finally, throughout the entire extract, the director maintained dim lighting. The effect this has on the audience is to show the gloomy scenario. The situation is not happy or exciting and that is shown through the lighting. Furthermore, the setting of the scene is an interrogation room. The usage of an interrogation room helps express to the audience that the woman is most likely a criminal. This further enhances the idea that she is untrustworthy.  

Overall, the director displays the theme through a variety of techniques to show that the woman is untrustworthy as well as possibly dangerous however incredibly important. The man knows this and is angry that she is the only solution to the problem causing him to have to trust someone he deems untrustworthy in this seemingly dire situation.  

Final Task

Final Task CCR

Progress Blog: CCR for music video

Progress Blog: Music Video

Progress Blog: Commercial