Mattie_white AS Media

'Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon production practices.’ To what extent do you agree with the statement, within the media area you have studied?

Christopher Nolan’s film ‘inception’ spent $100 million on marketing alone. Warner Bro’s company felt that marketing the action film was crucial to determine the films success. The marketing team of Inception created 7 posters that were unique to each character in the film. This is a clever way of advertising because fans of the specific actor/actresses will want to see them in the new film ‘Inception'. Two teaser posters were also released before the other seven, this created anticipation from the public. Multiple international trailers, nine TV spots , and billboards were produced in order to aggressively advertise the film through mass marketing techniques.  The films website automatically plays the soundtrack and displays photo's of the film stairs, Leonardo Dicaprio, Marolin Cotillard and Ellen Page to name a few. The Website also features spin off marketing products up for sale such as the dream catcher. This personal technique of marketing the film entices the consumer the Christopher Nolan as a ‘brand’ helped the marketing of the film. Each of the trailers mentioned Christopher Nolan’s previous success ‘The dark Knight’. Meaning the film had instant recognition.

After the UK premier in July 2010, Inception was distributed to thousands of screens across the UK, US and worldwide. Meaning the filmmakers had to consider subtitles as well as age certificates that both determined the audience of the film. As well as being distributed to cinemas on digital film, Inception was also screened in IMAX cinema’s meaning the filmmakers had to use a wider film of 65mm to achieve the full IMAX experience. However this allowed the film to be viewed by more people, resulting in more money for the filmmakers. Inceptions plot in itself requires concentration, meaning the film was predominately aimed at people aged 16-37.

The British film industry tends to spend less money on marketing and production. Take ‘Attack the Block’ as an example. The film was directed by Joe Cornish and follows a group of youths fighting aliens in London. The budget for the film was £13,000,000, which meant that Cornish would have to think carefully about how the aliens were going to be created because the cost of GGI would be expensive for a lower budget film. Therefore CG effects were only used when absolutely necessary to make the aliens look more realistic. When it came to marketing the film, viral methods such as social networking (Twitter/Facebook) were used to advertise the release. Videos on Blogs and YouTube were also used, this meant that the public anticipating the film could see the actors/actresses behind the scenes of the film. This method of marketing is cheap and often free. It’s also a more personal way of addressing the audience e.g through social networking sites that young people (target audience for the film) use. Therefore the marketing of lower budget films seems to be more important, the marketing is done in a cost effective method meaning it’s not actually costing the filmmakers any money yet the film is being advertised globally in some cases. The film was distributed in cinemas and also shown on Film 4, a production house that’s committed to ‘enhance the British film industry by nurturing and funding new talent’. Which suits ‘Attack the Block’ who used unheard of actors/actresses from the London area where the film was set.

Simon Peg and Nick Frost also wrote the sci-fi/adventure/comedy film ‘Paul’ released in 2011. Greg Mottola, who used CGI effects to create the character Paul, directed the film. The cost of using CGI actually made up a third of the films budget. Meaning the filmmakers were clearly concerned about making Paul the best quality and paid great attention when it came to the production of the film. The film was distributed onto a Blu-ray disc that featured a theatrical cut, unrated version, bloopers, Photo’s, Behind the scenes, a digital copy of the film and access to ‘my movies’ which is an exclusive device that allows the consumer to stream the film onto their phones, laptops or IPods. The filmaker’s may have chose to release the film onto Blu-ray because it can be more personal to the consumer e.g having behind the scene features. Another reason why they might distribute the film onto Blu-ray is that due to the streaming devices, the film can be carried around with the consumer (future possibilities of good word of mouth).