Semiotic Analysis - Inception

This is the second trailer analysis I have done, this time I analysed the Inception trailer. I have included things regarding media terminology, institutions, the different representations of the trailer and genre.

Semiotic Analysis - Taken

This is a Prezi I have made for my analysis of the Taken trailer. The topics I have included are ideologies, media values and representations, genre and specific media language.

Semiotic Analysis - The Da Vinci Code

In class, we analysed The Da Vinci Code trailer as preparation for the semiotic analysis that we need to do on two film trailers of our chosen genre. Here is a Prezi I made on our The Da Vinci Code analysis.

Pitching a Film Research

This is a Prezi I have made on why it is important to pitch a film and also how to pitch a film. I have included sections on the different type of film pitches and good ways to pitch a film.

Conventions of the Thriller Genre

We decided that our film/film trailer would be a thriller with elements of crime and action. Since we have chosen to make a thriller trailer, I decided to research the different conventions of the thriller genre in a Prezi.

Why Are Films Made?

Generally, films are produced to make money, but there may be other factors at play. Looking at the films covered in the last post about promotional campaigns, I will research them further and find why I think they were made.

The Blair Witch Project - The Blair Witch Project may have been made for a variety of reasons.
At the time when The Blair Witch Project was made, in 1999, horror films were extremely popular, however, The Blair Witch Project broke the conventions of a horror film and came across to the audience as extremely authentic and real. After all the marketing, with much less access to the internet than there is now, it would have been hard for people to know if the film was based on real events or was a fictitious story. The promotional campaign suggests that people would have been genuinely intrigued to see the film and the film was designed to leave them not knowing whether the story was real or fake. Another reason why the film was produced is The Blair Witch is a popular American myth.  Also, directors, Myrick and Sánchez, had been planning the film since they were film students. It is likely that they had a passion and a desire to make the film and knew exactly what they wanted to do from the start. Finally, Myrick and Sánchez knew that the film had to potential to do well if everything went to plan.

Batman: The Dark Knight - One reason why I think that The Dark Knight was produced is because superhero films are extremely popular at the moment and will be likely to produce a good return and would have a good chance to be successful. The film is also based on the popular DC comics and continues a series of films, continuing on the Batman franchise. It is also part of a trilogy of Batman films. Finally, while The Blair Witch Project is an independent film, The Dark Knight isn't; therefore, the budget would be much bigger, which would allow for large name actors to star in the film and expensive special effects and graphics could be used.

Dunkirk - Dunkirk could have been produced for many different reasons. The evacuation of Dunkirk would have a personal meaning to director, Christopher Nolan, as his Grandfather was a navigator on a Lancaster bomber and died near Dunkirk in 1944. Also, Dunkirk is a different type of film to anything Nolan has done before. Nolan has previously directed films like The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar and Man of Steel, all of which have been successful. So Nolan may have wanted to try something different and see whether he could produce another successful film of a different genre.

Film Trailers and Reasons They Were Made

The Blair Witch Project

In The Blair Witch Project trailer, there is a real sense of authenticity and realism. This is shown through the trailer by there being hardly any visual footage and a lot of audio. The clips shown also show the film was filmed on handheld cameras to increase the level of realism. There is also a few lines of text that appear over the black screen, with audio playing, saying what the premise of the film is.

The Dark Knight

In The Dark Knight trailer, many of the important features of the film are highlighted. Firstly, the trailer shows big name actors like Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman. Also, the large production budget the film had was evident in the trailer through the use of the special effects and graphics shown and the big name cast. Finally, the trailer shows some of the action and plot/story.

Dunkirk

Firstly, as mentioned before in my research into the Dunkirk marketing campaign, the trailer gives the audience a perspective from the different scenarios the different types of soldiers would have encountered. The trailer gives perspectives from the land and beaches, the sea and the skies. The trailer also shows the director, Christopher Nolan's, previous successful films. Finally, although the trailer shows the events of the film in a non-chronological order, the narrative/story of the film is still shown.

Promotional Campaign Research - Dunkirk

Dunkirk (Hollywood Film)

Dunkirk is a war film centred around the evacuation of Dunkirk during the second world war. Christopher Nolan is a very successful film director and has produced many successful films in the past. This would attract viewers as Nolan has an excellent record for making successful films. The film would have also had a high production value and budget. Moving on to the trailers released for the film, they were specifically and strategically placed before other large films  at the cinemas. The first trailer was a one minute long clip which ended on soldiers ducking to avoid plane fire. The main aim of this was to establish the title of the film and provoke curiosity from the audience. This trailer was shown before DCs superhero film, Suicide Squad.  Then the second trailer released was a 5 minute prologue shown before Star Wars: Rogue One and other IMAX titles like Kong: Skull Island and Wonder Woman. These films were likely chosen as they would all have large audiences who would see and potentially be interested in the trailers. The longer trailer was never released or made available online or on any other platforms. 30 second to 1 minute long clips were included in television adverts at peak times like series finales. Finally, there were a few virtual reality films and experiences produced for the film. Google Chrome produced an interactive film where the viewers made decisions and would be conflicted whether to fight to survive or rescue others. Then there was Save Every Breath: The Dunkirk VR experience. This was a short virtual reality film that showed the various situations the soldiers and pilots would have faced and placed the viewers underwater, in the skies and on the beaches. This gave the audience a perspective of the 3 different scenarios of the Dunkirk evacuation, they got to see situations from the sea, the beach and the skies to build interest.

Promotional Campaign Research - The Dark Knight

Batman: The Dark Knight (My Genre)

Batman: The Dark Knight used a range of different marketing techniques, both online and in the real world, to promote the film. The Dark Knight set up websites for the main characters of the film. The Joker had his own website, as did Batman and Harvey Dent (Two-Face). These websites had artificial police reports on and fictional government documents and CCTV footage. As well as these websites, promotional packages were sent to fans or visitors of the website. To go alongside the online campaign, there were also real life events taking place at different places in the world. Fans were encouraged to take photos of themselves at these specific locations with their face painted as a character from the film. Another part of promotion came through news channel CNN. The Dark Knight was Distributed by Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner and CNN is owned by Time Warner, meaning that the promotion through CNN was all internal and would have saved money.

Finally, as the online marketing campaign continued, the websites were defaced to leave clues. This led fans to follow these clues across the internet and the real world, unlocking exclusive trailers and content along the way.

Promotional Campaign Research - The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project (Independent film)

Independent films usually have a much smaller budget than large films produced by the big Hollywood companies, which is why marketing is much more important for independent films than it is for big name Hollywood films. The Blair Witch Project had a budget of around $20,000 to $25,000. The footage was filmed on handheld cameras, one of which was returned to keep the costs low. For the promotional campaign, the directors, Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick, used their production company, Haxan, to create a basic website for the film. Distribution company, Artisan Entertainment then bought the rights to the film and decided that the website would be the main focus of the promotional campaign. Fake police reports and newsreel-style interviews were added to The Blair Witch Project website to keep up the sense of realism. The benefits of doing promotional campaigns online is that they can be shared around easily. The total cost of promotion came to around $1,000,000. However, The Blair Witch Project returned over $248 million  at the box office, the second highest return on investment of any film. There were also promotional trailers posted online and shown on television. The trailers were shown at colleges and were featured on Sci-Fi channels. This helped save money by avoiding cinema advertisements and giving the audience a sense that they found out about the film themselves. Also, the attention to detail was so precise, that on popular film website, IMDB, the actors of the film were shown as 'missing, presumed dead'. This level of detail made it difficult to tell if it was actually real or fake.