I am either going to choose between a short film or a film trailer for my final product.
Short Film
A short film is a film that lasts between a minute and 15 minutes. A short film is any movie not long enough to be considered a feature film (movie). The official definition of a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". However, the term is used by many as a catchall for anything less than 90 minutes in length. A feature film or movie often runs from between 90 to 120 minutes but can sometimes be as long as 180 minutes. short films do not usually have a large budget and are often made by amateur film makers to gain experience. short films also follow a narrative and aim to tell that narrative within a short amount of time, which is what i will be aiming to do when I make my product.
Trailer
A trailer is a sort of preview to a film that is also a form of marketing, trailers usually last between 1 to 3 minutes and allow the audience to see a basic and very simplified narrative of the film and show the best parts of the film to entice the audience. Trailers do not give much of the plot away but just enough so that the general idea is stating to get figured out. Nearly every film has a trailer as it allows the audience to see a preview of the product, by doing this it can lead the audience to get excited and see the finished film when it is released. If I decide to make a trailer I will make it short and make it so that the audience's attention is grabbed, making them want to see more. Trailers usually follow a non-linear narrative and uses a montage of shots to show it based more on Russian cinema ideology of visual colliding together to create meaning.
There are multiple types of promoting media as it could be by audio or visual, however visual is the most common style of promotion as it allows you to actually see what is being promoted rather than just listening to what is being promoted. films need to be promoted in order to gain an audience because if the movie is not well promoted then it will not be as successful, for example the Marvel films such as Captain America: Civil War was very well marketed which allowed it to gain a large audience, whereas Dredd (2012) was not successful at gaining a large audience and this was put down to the film not being promoted on a large enough scale and it was also said that nobody really knew about the movie until it was being sold on DVD, this shows just how crucial marketing and promoting a film is to gaining a large enough audience.
Types of promotion
Trailers are the most common as they allow the audience to get a sort of small 'sneak peek' of the media product, trailers are also short and usually last between 1-3 minutes, the shorter the trailer, the less it gives away to the audience - for example the Dunkirk movie trailer which does not reveal much at all, whereas if the trailer is longer it usually reveals more of the plot and the characters - for example the Wonder Woman trailer reveals more about the character and the narrative of the film.
Posters are also widely used as they can be put up all over the place which increases the amount of people who will see it, whereas trailers can only be seen via the Internet or television which can restrict the amount of people who will be able to see it. Posters do not reveal much about the film as they usually only show the main character(s) with some sort of backdrop, the backdrop may reveal some things about the film but not much.
products such as toys and other merchandise is a good way of promotion as they are more interactive than posters or trailers, they also allow a wider audience as if they are sold in shops that means that a lot of people will see the merchandise and possibly get interested in the film.
innovative marketing technique
when promoting The Dark Knight Rises, an unusual form of marketing took place as there was 'bat graffiti' in numerous countries in cities and the Warner Bros. marketing team would give the location of the 'graffiti' which would in turn reveal a frame from a new trailer of The Dark Knight Rises. The people would then have to submit what they found to a website which would then start to piece together the next trailer frame-by-frame, this allowed audiences worldwide to participate in this activity, and also by doing this it encouraged more people to go out and find this, which would have allowed them to see more marketing of the film instead of having just one form of marketing.
Proliferation of hardware and synergy's affect on marketing The promotion of films has been forced to change over the recent years to keep up with ever-changing society. Now there is more technology a large amount of companies have made the change from traditional forms of marketing to more Internet and web based forms of marketing. The proliferation of hardware has lead to a higher demand for this, as there is an ever-growing amount of devices that you can watch films on, for example a laptop, as many films are marketed online which allows a wider audience to view it and for less cost than going to the cinema. Google is a search engine and Internet giant that has formed synergistic links with conglomerates to promote films. An example of synergy is Fury (2014) who teamed up with the game, World of Tanks who released an in-game version of the 'fury' tank from the film that you were able to purchase, it also featured a specialised crew to go with the tank which mirrored the cast in the film.
I'm Rob and for this year in Media Studies I am going to do either a short film or trailer for my product. I am considering doing a war genre or thriller as these are the sort of film genres that i am a fan of. I think I will enjoy this year more as I am able to do my product on a genre that I find interesting and base it around something of my interest. By doing my product on something I like it means that I will be able to make it more realistic and put a lot of effort into making it.
For my A2 film I was thinking of doing either a war film trailer or an action/thriller trailer.
I have been looking at trailers from both genres for inspiration, I have also been looking at war films based in different periods, such as 'Black Hawk Down, that is based in the more recent war in Iraq and also 'Passchendaele' which is set in the First World War.
