Blockbuster Marketing

While we are usually desauded from using Blockbusters for Film Analysis, one area they are very useful to look at is marketing. Often in Hollywood Blockbuster cinema, marketing and distribution will be more important to the studios than the overall quality of the film. It helps not only to understand how Hollywood does buisness, but teaches us how films are products, for making money as well as art and entertainment.

We watched a documentary on Trainspotting (1996), an independent film whose success was built on it's powerful marketing campaign. This was a film that couldn't rely on blockbuster spectacle, so had to create it's own media buzz through strong marketing. You can take tactics used by the Trainspotting Production company and apply them not only to the film I have studied for my Marketing Article, Star Trek (2009), but also to other media products.

There are a few key points I picked up on watching the documentary. Firstly, start early and start strong. They started promoting and trying to sell the film during Pre-Production, trying to spread good messages, get the directors vision out to the Distributors. Similarly, Star Trek's director went on a press junket/tour of international distributors before the film was complete, increasing confidence both back home in the US and with International distributors.

Nowadays there is also an increasing Media race to get your work out to the public as soon as possible. For instance, upcoming 2012 release, The Dark Knight Rises got it's first teaser a full year before the film is to be released. Made up of footage from only a few weeks of production, the demand and response for the trailer was huge, but at time of writing, the film hasn't even shooting yet. Create media hype by getting your product out there quickly, is a key point. Similarly, Star Trek had a similary premature teaser trailer, which built massive hype for the film, and even one it award, a year before it's release.

Next, market your film to your target audience. Trainspotting became part of the BritPop cultural trend, which had taken British Youth culture by storm. You could even see this from it's poster, it had the bright oranges for the punky feel, it had the black and white degraded look that was popular in 90's design and it featured a female on the poster to avoid the idea it was a Lad-Centred movie. Compare this to Star Trek, whose target market it is a larger mass audience, mainly teenagers and slightly older family audience as well as existing Trek Fans. The poster features, aliens to appeal to "Trekkies", good looking actors to appeal to a youthfull audience, a female character to appeal to female market, and the poster is designed with mysterious black and white, shadowed style where faces murge into each other. This is similar to other teaser images for say, Termionator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) also a blockbuster Sci Fi. We can see how each film has a different audience but the same ground work in the posters.

Similarities and Differences: Trainspotting & Star Trek

I will be looking at a range of Marketing techniques in my article, taking note of obvious materials like Trailers and Posters and also modern specialost types, looking at the internet and the global village, and the importance of the consumer and mass market.

Comparitive Study - Remakes

Hollywood is currently going through an age of remakes, with a large number of films being reworked and repackaged for the modern Cinema audience. Examples like The Karate Kid, The Italian Job, Clash of the Titans etc are all new versions of old films. But what is the relevance to us?

Well we can look at the differences in production bought about by time. How were films made back then, and what has changed now? I've been comparing 3:10 to Yuma, first made in 1950, remade in 2007. There are man ydiffering factors, from how Hollywood was run, to the themes and content, to marketing etc.

While both films follow the same plot, they differ in nearly every production context. Take the first scene of both films for instance. The '57 version has a song sung by a popular recording aritst, while images of a stagecoach crossing the frontier play out. Come forward to '07, the film is darkly lit, with no soundtarck and a violent attack on the ranch. From one scene you can see the difference in cinematography, sound, levels of violence and storytelling. The modern audience wants violence. As I have explored in Media Studies, the Westernised US/UK Audience is strongly decensitised to violence, and also they seem to enjoy it. It's why games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Call of Duty are big sellers and horror films like the Final Destination series, which take pleasure in violence are still going. So thats why there is a grittier, violent feel to many modern remake.

The remakes opening scene is shot in an interesting way, using candle light and natural light to light the scene. It also uses the modern favourite of Hand Held camera work. It feels grittier and more realistic. The original however has sharp cinematography and everything is purposefully shot. They both have a bold visual style which appeals to the different period audiences.

I will use my comparitive essay to further explore these ideas and find out what has really changed, espcially beyond some of the face value material I have discussed above.