The horror teaser trailer, poster and magazine cover i have produced altogether add up to one whole promotional package which can be used to promote a film prior to its theatrical release. Normal movie trailers explore narrative and protagonists a lot more than teaser trailers, so combining my teaser trailer with a poster and magazine article aims towards promoting the trailer through word of mouth. It's the anticipation of the movie that will make people talk about the film, and rather than know everything that's going to happen in the film, they will not know what to expect.
Trailers are not the only means of advertising the movie and posters are often used just as much. Generally speaking the posters can appear anywhere a lot of people will see them (billboards, cinemas, online etc.) to try and get the movie out to the largest demographic as possible. Also, having my film the cover story on one of the largest film magazines will also promote the film to Empire's devoted fan base that are likely to go to the cinema often for their love of films. This will increase the demographic that the films promotional package is reaching.
In turn it will make the films financial success greater due to the amount of people going to watch it. However, to ensure this the trailer and poster combined must create a strong sense of identity for the film in order to make it stand out from the crowd of other films out there. It is for this reason i decided to create a sense of unity between all three media texts. For example, my teaser trailer contained a lot of green filtering, unique for any standard horror but it does create a strong sense of identity for my film. Because of the originality i also placed a green filter on my poster as it would directly relate to the trailer. If a person sees the trailer and then later sees the poster on a billboard, they are likely to think - 'oh, i recognise that', therefore grabbing the attention of a potential consumer. The green of the poster and trailer is also reflected within the magazine cover with it being the dominant colour. The colour scheme was green, black and yellow because they are very closely related colours that do not clash and represent the film well. The film title that is on the poster and magazine cover is the same unique font that i created also helping to create that strong sense of identity needed to grab the attention of potential consumers.
The imagery on both the poster and the magazine cover suits the horror genre as they are all low key photos that reveal part of someone's identity, but does not give away the character. This sense of mystery can also help to create an enigma that consumers will want to solve by going to view the film. It will also make the film recognisable as a horror, so horror fans will know exactly what the genre is and may look forward to seeing it. If the photos were not so 'avant-garde' then potential consumers may not realise what film it is. For example, they make think it is a romantic film about a necklace given as a gift between two loved ones - completely different to the actual narrative plot.
As my film does not have any production values in the form of big named celebrities i decided to leave out any obvious naming on the poster or magazine simply because the target audience would not know that names of the actors/actresses within the film so would be irrelevant to what they want to see.
To help achieve the sense of unity needed between the different media texts to work well as a promotional package i also placed screenshots of the film, which are also in the trailer, onto the magazine cover. These are iconic images within the image, in particular the shot of the girl alone in the room as it is very unusual and actually, very freaky. Also, the green filtering on this shot helps to mix create a sense of unity between the different parts of the cover as it is using the same colour scheme. I chose to change the colour of the Empire masthead on my magazine purely because i believe that the change in colour will make that issue unique and stand out to regular readers promoting my film even more. However, i do realise that i would have no control over making decisions if the film magazine was actually being distributed by Empire as that part of promotions is created and edited by Empire's own team, and not the production team on my film, unlike the poster. Instead Empire magazine would be a marketing tool for my film generating favourable publicity across a broad selection of film fans. In order to be featured in the magazine the distributor would have to make use of many marketing techniques available today. One of them is to let journalists into the set during production who can positively generate exclusive news from the film. The publicity team with the distribution company can also organise interviews with the films cast/producers/directors etc. at press junkets or fim premieres which can fulfill the current need for exlusive news which is dominating most media platforms at the minute.
Taking advantage of other big name films is also part of my magazine cover as it mentions a few of the biggest and newest film releases in the UK and will help to maximise sales of the magazine as a lot of people will want to read about them films. If people buy a magazine to read that story the chances are they will also read the other stories within the magazine, such as my story. The promotional package I have put together is to create as much possible publicity whenever possible.
Some of what you write here is very good but some aspects of its are somewhat confused about the institutional context of film distribution. You need to show that you understand what a distributor does when it creates a marketing plan for a movie. There are three strands to this; advertising, publicity, and promotion. To your products are advertising products and should be discussed in terms of the way they create a coherent advertising image which is appropriate to your target audience. The movie magazine is an example of publicity. A film distributor will attempt to generate favourable publicity such as getting its film on the front cover of a magazine but this is by no means guaranteed. How does a distributor attempts to do this? You need to consider press packs, press junkets, the arrangement of interview rounds with stars and directors etc. You can find out about this stuff on the launchingfilms website.
ReplyDeleteYou are using the term synergy slightly incorrectly. I think you are talking about creating a coherent and unified advertising concept appropriate for your target audience. Synergy is when media texts created by different companies within the same media conglomerate cross advertise or support each other in other ways. The film magazine publisher would be nothing to do with the film distributor, and the poster and trailer would be created by the same company, so synergy is not the appropriate term in either case.