Audience and Institution Essay: Assess the importance of marketing in film

Marketing is one of the most important steps in film making. Yes, a film can be a masterpiece that is extremely well made. But if no one knows about the film, then no one will go watch it. Without marketing, filmmakers would not reach a wide audience of people and would not make much or any profit from the film. On the flip side, a decent or mediocre movie could make triple the profit that it should make if it had greatly executed marketing.

First of all, movies flop all the time due to bad marketing. “V for Vendetta” was a movie that suffered from its trailers. According to an article by the Taste of Cinema, “‘V for Vendetta’ was loved and hated by fans of the novel and eventually found an audience through home media, but the misleading trailers confused and disappointed a wide selection of cinema fans.” Another example is “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.” Its marketing was basically non-existent. With only small ads and a toy line, the film made less than half the money the original made.

Secondly, average movies can make a ton of money from ingenious marketing. “Jurassic World” is a film that became the third-largest grossing movie of all time dominating the box office and was nominated for a considerable number of awards. Even though the film has a Metacritic score of 59 and is widely considered not to be as good at its predecessors. It made this amount of money through its clever marketing. Superbowl ads, mobile games, an online treasure hunt, the list goes on with how many marketing strategies it employed to grab the world's attention and make known that it exists.

In conclusion, it goes to show how important marketing can be for a film. Great films fall to the bottom, making only scraps of money and barely breaking even. While other run-of-the-mill films reach record-breaking numbers and roll in cash. And it is all because of marketing.

Practice Extract Essay

In this extract, 24, I believe the director’s vision is to engage audiences in this with a heated interrogation scene. The director uses many filming and editing techniques to involve the audience in the situation. The use of camera movements and shots along with sound and set design really grab hold of the audience’s attention and does not let go.

The the entire scene involves the Detective walking into the interrogation room where the Suspect is already there, chained up and sitting. The use of an eye-line match shows the detective sees the camera and knows that people are watching them. The score is an ominous track setting the scene with uncertainty and caution. Over-the-shoulder shots are used almost like POV shots and shows the suspect looking directly at the Detective. Close-ups are widely used to display the expressions on each of the characters' faces. And the use of low lighting shrouds the characters in mystery, almost like someone putting a flashlight underneath their face to tell a scary campfire story. The dialogue starts a little later in the scene which reveals the motive of each character. The Suspect wishes to be taken to a separate place where someone there will tell them where the bomb is. The Detective wants to know who the someone is while the Suspect wants to keep that a secret. Zooms are used in conjunction with eye-line matches to show that a character notices something. For example, The Suspect looks at the clock before she starts talking because she notices she is running out of time. After the Detective throws the table across the room, it cuts to a reaction shot of Observers, worried about the instability of the situation. The score also plays into that worriedness of the Observers when it shows a close up of their faces. When the Detective finally loses his cool, the scene breaks up to a split-screen. One of the situation in the interrogation room and another of multiple shots of the observers running to the room to try and break up the situation. The score increases in volume and handheld shots are used to immerse the audience into the scene. When the Observer finally breaks up the commotion, the score settles down just like the Detective.

Overall, the director uses multiple methods to engage the audience into the scene. All of these elements are used to increase the intensity of the scene and grab the viewer's attention.

My Final Task CCR

        It took a while for me to make this CCR. The whole record yourself aspect of it frightened me and made my delay recording. But after I made my script and pushed the recording button, I finished it in a jiffy. Honestly, the hardest part of the CCR was the editing. We were told to make it creative and not just 12 minutes of ourselves talking into the camera. I decided to make it creative by doing the thing I know how to do best: editing. I included many stock image photos to try and relate to what I am currently saying in the footage. For example, I would be saying that my product will engage with teenagers, then show a stock image of teenagers. It was pretty hard for me to hit the minimum time limit of 12 minutes. I could not reach it with the base 4 questions. I had to add some questions of my own. I also put in some snippets of the actual title sequence. In the end, I barely made it to 12:01. I am not that much of an actor. I am very shy on camera. It took me about 5 tries for each filming segment. I stutter a lot so it was really hard. I also had a hard time looking at the camera. You can notice in the CCR I would look at the script or look at something in the room. My family would also walk in on me so I would be distracted and retake the whole segment. So yeah, this was the toughest assignment of AICE Media Studies.

My Final Task

              This is my Final Task of AICE Media Studies. I worked with new people for this last project. I still worked with Emily, the director/camerawoman for my last projects. The new people I am working with are Mariapaula and Darwin. Mariapaula was the love interest for the music video I recorded. She also was the one to let us use her house for that exact video. Darwin is someone that Mariapaula worked with for her own projects. With this group of people, I feel as though we could get stuff done. Everyone played a part in this project. No one was slacking. It was all hands on deck. Emily played the same role she did for the last projects: director/camerawoman. I assigned myself to the editor role. Mariapaula was the star actor/producer: since we used her house. And Darwin was the co-star. I used my previous knowledge of editing and fully went all out on this project. I used precisely timed transitions. I made sure each and every title was clear and to the point. I fully mastered the audio and customized it to please the audience. I fully cracked my knuckles and felt proud when I finally finished this project: My Final Task.

My Second Project: Music Video

        This was my second project for the class. I made a music video using the song "We Are Young" by fun. Here I felt as if my editing skills really improved. I learned a lot of new techniques. This time around there was not much editing. I played a minor character in the video so I did not really "act." My other groupmate Angelo was the main character of the video. A friend of ours, Mariapaula, let us use her house as a setting. She also agreed to play the love interest in the video. Emily was still camerawoman and was doing a fine job at it. This project was a bit more stressful than our previous project. We had some complications with Angelo. He couldn't show up on the first filming day because of personal reasons. I remember vividly Emily being enraged that day because of him. Thankfully we got all of our filming done the second day. I used some pretty neat editing tricks for this video. I slowed down some shots. I would also speed up other shots. I did this so the actions in the footage would be in sync with the rhythm of the song. It was pretty challenging. But in the end, it was a great learning experience.

My First Project: Commercial

          This assignment was a great learning experience. This involved filming an infomercial about vaping in school. Angelo was great at acting and Emily was getting the hang of the camera. At first, I was a bit nervous about my acting. I would stutter a lot and mess up my lines. I was not sure if Media Studies was the right class for me. But once I started to edit, I felt much more at home. It is then when I realized that I mainly belong behind the scenes for videos, not in front. I was able to manipulate the video just the way I wanted it. If I needed to change anything I could do it in an instant. I wouldn't have to rely on someone else to get the finished product. And since I am the one editing, I can be super critical without having to worry about hurting anyone's feelings. Once I started editing, everything I envisioned while my group was coming together. Each small detail that I wanted to add in was put in place. It worked out pretty well for my first project. The acting was a bit on the rough side. So to compensate the subpar acting, I tried to make it look and sound as cheesy as possible. I was the one who made the fake mustache for Darwin. I also included cheesy sound effects. I think getting the video down to 30 seconds was the hardest part of the process. We filmed a bit too much and the video was like a story. If we wanted to remove something, it would have made the later scenes make no sense.

Editing: Adding the Song and Messing with Sound

          It has been a long time since I last blogged. The whole pandemic put everything on hold for a while. Luckily I have the luxury of editing while at home. After I finished trimming the film, I needed to add the background song. We discussed what song we should use during our planning phase knowing that one would be required. We decided on a happy-go-lucky song awhile back. Darwin suggested it because it would contrast the eerie mood that would take place on screen. While I agreed with him back then, I'm on the fence about the song choice now. Although it does fit Carolina getting ready in the morning, Kenny does not do anything sinister so the contrast Darwin talked about is not really there. The song Mariapaula suggested was "Summertime"-by Egozi. It pretty relaxing and chill and fits the morning scenes just right. After I added the song in, I had to mess around with the sound. I wanted to make sure you can hear everything in the scenes I want you to hear. The song was really loud in the beginning, so I had to lower it quite a bit. I muted some scenes that I found the sounds unnecessary. Also, I lowered the song during scenes that contained dialogue so you can hear what the characters are saying. The red audio track contains the sound in the scenes. The teal audio track contains muted scene sounds. The purple audio track is the music. And finally, the small yellow audio piece it a slight sound that I wanted to keep in and make it louder than anything else in the scene.