Audience and Institution Practice Essay

1. Assess the importance of marketing in the media area you have studied. (film)

Marketing is one thing filmmakers don’t take into account when producing a film but it is the main factor in having a successful film. You will typically see producers in the film industry selling their films to agents and film distributors and they will be responsible for drawing up a marketing strategy for the film they've bought. Now if a film doesn’t get bought that usually means they will move on from the project. With no marketing, it is very difficult for your film to be noticed.

To start, a very common question would be how do you start a film marketing strategy? Well, there are many answers to this that include asking an expert, start putting together objectives and goals for your film, or figuring out how you’re going to get out there. Getting out there could mean placing ads, advertising on a website, or social media. The more platforms your film is on the more it’s going to get noticed. For example, on average these films “should spend at least 20-25% of their budget on marketing.” Big studios might even “spend up to 50% of the cost of the film for promotion and marketing”. This sounds like a lot but it is what attracts the viewers. All the publicity you can get makes a difference because it shows people how good your film is and that they should watch it.

Furthermore, a film needs to be marketed for potential viewers to even know it is coming out. If you had no prior information on a film how would that attract you to watch it? For example, the Show “Money Heist, also known as La Casa de Papel, is a Spanish series released in 2017”. It recently hit number 1 on Netflix, having everyone around the world going crazy over it. They worked on many unique ways to get their show out “Netflix did a very impressive job is at using non-traditional mediums to promote their show”. Another thing they were great at while filming season 3 was how well they knew their audience. According to the entertainment media Deadline, “the promotion had been the biggest in France and Italy” so they benefited from impressive wall-to-wall promotion, having the other countries wanting a piece of it as well. They continued to step out there comfort zone, making sure people all over the world would partake in watching the series. They even cobranded with “Domino’s Pizza, Spanish automobile manufacturer Seat, and Swiss chocolatier Lindt”. I was introduced to this television series because I had seen it all over Netflix and Instagram. Friends and family all over the internet were talking about how great it was so I took it upon myself to watch it as it caught my attention. Most of my movie streaming comes from Netflix, so usually if it is on the top 10 I am interested.

To conclude, film marketing uses the media to try to get people interested in a film enough to invest their money to go see it. Advertising platforms used in film marketing include trailers, posters, billboards, and contact with social media. Marking is essential in the film industry and no successful film is made without it. 

Extract practice 24

The extract I decided to watch was called 24. I thought choosing this extract over the other one would be more interesting because I have never heard of it before. While watching the video for the first time my gut was telling me that a crime scene investigation was taking place. I personally believe the director wanted the audience to fell curious and anxious as what was to happen next. The director made sure to make certain shots dramatic to emphasize the situation. This would probably fall into the genre of mystery or drama. The reason I say mystery is because in the extract the guy is questioning the women and she is not cooperating so it makes him more frustrated. You can tell he wanted to solve something and he is not given the answers he wants. I also believe it could go into the drama category because its like a he said/ she said situation. Drama must be between them because you can tell there is tension in the room and they don’t like each other. I believe the message the director could be giving us is that there is always a good and bad guy. In this situation it is hard to say which is which because they both seem to have aggression towards each other and hiding things.

              The scene first starts off in a dark room. It is pretty obvious that the setting is taking place in an interrogation room. The director chooses to make it low key lighting/dark lighting to dramatize the scene. Usually bright light is connected towards happiness and calmness but darker lighting is more serious. This already sets the tone for the rest of the scene. This goes towards my view that the director is trying to real us into the video because we are interested in what is going to happen next. The first camera angle that is shown is an over the shoulder shot. This shot shows the back of the shoulder and the head of the person is used to frame the image the camera is aiming at. Usually this shot is taken place when two people are having a discussion and that’s exactly what is going on in the scene. It is common for this to come after the establishing shot so the audience knows where the scene is taking place. After that the camera zooms into the women’s face. You can infer she is nervous by the look on her face. The reason the director might have included this is to provide a closer look into what the charter is thinking and how they are reacting. The scene also starts of with lots of non-diegetic sounds. This includes the noise of the door being closed or the paper being put on top of the table. Dialogue is taking place for a while so it leaves the audience confused and wondering what is happening. By adding these non-diegetic sounds, it shows panic and confusion.

              The following scene is quick view of a man and women looking at two TV’s. In the background you can hear the noise of computers and technology so I would guess they are in a control room. They seem to be watching what is going on in the interrogation room so by this I can infer there is a whole investigation happening. By looking at the characters facial expressions you can tell they are worried. The jump cut that was included in this scene was to show the back and forth and how fast everything is happening.

              Moving back to the investigation room the camera starts to zoom into objects to show the audience what is in the room and to give us more of an idea of where they are. This included zooming into the security camera and the clock on the wall. By getting a closer look on the clock on the wall you can make a guess that the director is trying to show the audience that they don’t have time to waste. Finally, there is some dialogue included. The women begins by saying that she needs to be on a plane right now which connects with the emphasize of the clock. By listening to the dialogue, the characters are calm yet there is tension between them. The camera tends to move from side to side which is also called a pan to portray that the guy is anxious that’s why he wont stop moving. Lots of people tend to move from side to side when they are nervous. Lots of close up shots are included on the women so we can see her facial expressions. She manages to keep a serious, calm face throughout. Another zoom is included when the man becomes frustrated and flips over the table. He gets into the women’s face and starts yelling. By this point tensions are rising and you can tell he is not happy. The importance of the eye-line match in this scene is to show the significance of the conversation.

              The camera is quickly moved back to the two people behind all this in the control room. They are clearly worried with what is going on. The camera is showing both of them at once so this would be a two shot.

              Switching back to the interrogation room it is an extreme close up of the man and women continuing their conversation. The woman is talking calming while having a smirk on her face. This obviously frustrates the man because he runs up to her and starts choking her.

              A split screen is quickly shown, showing the guy choking the women while the control people are rushing into the room. This is intensifying the situation because you can see both sides at once. Another thing that was easy to spot was the fact that the camera was really shaky which means it was a handheld shot.

               The last scene is everyone running into the room to stop the choking. These continuous jump cuts help portray that the director wanted everything moving fast and leaving the audience curious. The scene finishes with the man leaving the room while the women is still in the chair while everyone is with her.

              After all, the details helped prove that I was right on the director’s visions. The director wanted to keep the audience engaged throughout by slowly intensifying the scenes. The same lighting and characters were shown throughout. The director did a good job of leaving the audience curious as to what would end up happening.

CCR video for movie

The process for completing the CCR for our final movie was difficult. Because of the whole corona virus pandemic my group member and I weren't able to continue filming. This resulted in us only having half of our movie complete. Its a shame because we only got to film the introduction and basically didn't get to finish a majority of our film. We already had everything planned out because we did story boards before this. Those storyboards were keeping us on Track and were very helpful when we needed to film. If it weren't for the virus right now our movie would be complete. Not only are we effected, people all over the whole are too. Everything is shut done included the beach, stores, and restaurants. There is a Order to stay in your homes. Because of this pandemic it is causing to one to see each other. And if people were to see each other you have to be 6 feet distance at all times. As a result of it, My group couldn't finish filming. This made it harder to answer the CCR questions. Although these questions are independent so we have to do them individually we don't have a finished product to talk about. When answering these questions I tried my best to provide as much detail and thought into every answer. As difficult as this was to finish I knew this is what needed to be done for Cambridge. We were just informed the other day that AICE testing is cancelled but no one was sure about how the testing was going to work. I haven't received any information on it so the best option is to do all my work and turn it in. Hopefully Cambridge sees all the hard work students have been putting into their work all year and give us credit for these classes. Shown above is my final CCR video explaining the process of our movie.

Final Movie

Attached below is my groups Final movie. We were not able to fully complete it. Because of this global pandemic my group member and I weren't allowed to see each other. I wish we were given more time before school ended to finish this film. We were supposed to have another whole month to finish filming if we needed but they shut down all schools. They also ordered everyone to stay inside and that there needs to be social distancing. This has resulted in our video not meeting the time requirements. Some things we were able to include were background music and titles. The clips that we were able to film turned out really well. We followed our storyboard throughout. This helped the filming process speed up. I would say about 90% of it is following our story board. As of right now this video is 1:13 seconds. Orginally it was supposed to be about 1:50. The video portrays the introduction to what would have happened later on in the film. My group memeber and I directed all of it and worked on everything behind the screen. We made a good team together. The main character is one of our close friends that agreed to star in our film.

Nike Commercial CCR

Creative Critical Reflection

1.     How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?

-       Our product for the commercial was Nike. Our product used conventions because we wore all Nike clothing. Usually Nike revolves its commercials around sports. For this reason, we decided to film on the track. In our video we portrayed how runners look fierce and strong in Nike gear. The type of social group our commercial would represent is Track runners. Our video is directed to them. Nike encourages people to strive for greatness and that’s what we tried to represent in our video.

2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?

-       Our product engages with audiences because Nike is a very popular brand. An example of were a Nike commercial would air is at a sporting event. If you are at that type of event its because you are interested in sports and the Nike commercial will catch your attention. Because you are already interested it will persuade you to buy their product. They will be more inclined to buy the product that is being advertised. A lot of people can relate to Nike commercials because they are active or play sports. These commercials grab the audience’s attention because Nike sends powerful meanings through their videos.

3.     How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

-       My production skills developed a lot throughout the project. Before starting this project, I didn’t know how to use a camera or tripod. I learned all about the correct buttons you had to use on the camera and what there uses were. The tripod is also a very cool tool I just learned about. It holds the camera up, so the shots won’t be a hand held shot. I though the tripod was very useful, and I was glad we were able to use it to film. I also learned out to Put the camera on the tripod and how to use it like that. Before the project I also knew nothing about the school software that we were supposed to use. As time went on, I got better with the editing and using the software.  I would personally say my production skills developed tremendously.

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

           

- In this project we used many different types pf technologies. This would include the camera, SD card and tripod. The camera was mandatory because that’s what we needed in order to film. The SD card held all our footage that we filmed. The tripod was used for the camera to rest on so we could get clear easy shots. We also included the Sd card reader because that’s what we needed to get the footage onto the computer. We came to a slight issue when editing which resulted in us not being able to use the computers. Because of this we had to use the USB drive. This was a safe and easy way to make sure we didn’t lose any shots that we took. A big technology we used was the actual editing software. This helped us create and edit our whole video.

Nike Commercial

Attached above is my Nike commercial. I worked on this assignment with two other people. I personally really enjoyed working on this project. My group and I decided to do Nike because we are all into sports. I had the idea of going on the track to film because I run track at school. I remember the only issue we had was dealing with the heat. We needed to make sure we took enough shots so we stayed outside for a while. Adding in different camera angles was super beneficial. Another thing I learned during this process was how to work the camera and tripod. We took notes in class so when we looked back at them it wasn't to difficult working the camera. We had a little bit of a hard time dealing with the tripod. It was incorporated in some clips but for the majority of the commercial we took hand held shots. Dani was in charge of the placement of the shots because she wanted to be behind the camera. However Jorge and myself were willing to run and perform. We incorporated many Nike items to show off the brands. These would include a Nike backpack, t-shirt, shorts and shoes. I believe we really did a good job on our commercial. We put a lot of time into filming as well as editing. To edit this video we used pinnacle studios. We also had to download all of out clips on to the computer before doing so.

Music video CCR