Evaluation - "Who would be the audience for your media product?"/"How did you attract/address your audience?"

Our final film piece, "The Lads" appears to have a fairly distinct appeal to younger people - and this is something we've played on whilst putting the piece together, due to the success of the likes of The Inbetweeners.

We can see that our film has had a positive appeal to younger people (of the age 0-20 bracket) from the results of our audience feedback, from the presentation evening. Whilst statistics certainly don't prove everything (and it's open to debate about just how accurate this interpretation is) we can see that a great deal of the people who provided feedback were 20 or under, and the feedback was positive, which could suggest that our film may have a certain appeal to people of this group (though that being said, just because there's a trend doesn't mean there's a correlation. Some may have just thought it was a well produced film).

There are a number of different things which we have done to attract this audience. The first thing to note is that because our main cast are males, we have expected young males to appreciate the film more as they can relate to these characters. Because of this initial point, we've consistantly tried to appeal to young males with the humour used as well as other attributes.

Character
As mentioned before, they're three young lads. We've focused heavily on their "laddish" behaviour (Oliver getting kicked out of his lesson, them seen drinking in public), which is generally believed to appeal to males.

Setting
They're in a school; teenage kids can relate to this. They know the school culture inside out, therefore they can identify the characters' position within said school (in that they're the rebellious, out of place types). Pretty pictures of our filming location here!

Costume
We can see the characters in school uniforms, with the kind of modifications (Luke's hooded jacket, Samir's hat) that one would expect from these kinds of rebellious school students.

As young people are typically in school a lot they can identify these kinds of people, thus the context of the film will make more sense to them than other social groups.

Dialogue
The characters are heard speaking in very casual means ("just got kicked out", "it stinks!" etc.), which is typically how teenage kids speak to one another. Again, this allows them to relate to the characters even more.

Background Music
During the opening of our piece our non-diegetic sound consists of a fairly heavy bass riff - the kind heard in hip-hop and occasionally rock music, which is typically fairly popular amongst teenage males. We play on this further once the full song kicks in during the title sequence as we start hearing rap/rock vocals coming in (with plenty of over-the-top vocal effects) which is reminiscient of those heard in the kinds of music popular with youngsters (though I like to believe our song isn't quite that bad...).

We've also deliberately subverted this exact point during the scene in the opening where Oliver picks up the bottle, and the non-diegetic sound consists of a really out of place piano motif for humorous effect (thus supporting Bakhtin's Carnivalesque concept which revolves around subverting tropes/expectations for humour/chaos); whilst this completely goes against the conventions of laddish films, the viewer is likely to realise this and see the funny side of it, given what is being shown on screen.

Title Sequence
Yes, we show youngsters drinking, and yes, Common Sense Media would go ballistic about it. But as I looked at previously, showing things which irritate adults generally gains the appeal of the youth. This kind of rebellious behaviour isn't the kind of thing which a parent would want their younger kids watching, thus ruling them out, but it does raise the overall interest of older teenagers. The filter we've used overaggerates this surreal rebellious behaviour further, thus making this more of an impact.

(Responsible behaviour time!) 

Written Titles
For the sake of keeping the appeal of this to older teenagers we've used a sensible serif font for the credits, as this will do the job without looking too over-the-top or childish (which would more than likely put off our intended audience).

(The font isn't over-the-top ridiculous, but it doesn't seem too 'serious' either)

Our title card (which just reads "'The Lads'") is in a slightly more stylised font, though again we've taken care to ensure it has been used in context and doesn't look out of place for a film aimed at older teenage males.

-HM.

(Updated! Now I am home to have taken new screenshots and recycle one!)

Mr. Bean's Holiday - US Trailer Analysis

Because this blog needs to use different forms of media/be interesting etc.. I hate my voice. I am also terrible at commentary in general and so you'll hear lots of "ermmmm" and "like" throughout where I lose my trail of thought.

My case study work is pretty terrible as of now. This needs fixing so I think I'll make a point of fixing it up now. As with before, copyrighted material is used for educational purposes and therefore should be covered by Fair Use.

Ideology pt. 2

This is the long awaited follow-up to the previous thing...

Althusser
Louis Althusser was a French Marxist sociologist who explored the concept of ideology. Ideology refers to the theory that social institutions (such as religion, the education system, and of course - the media) take control of people's thoughts and beliefs, thus overriding their individuality.

As the media is generally controlled by the bourgeoisie, it transmits 'ideals' which conveniently reinforce the class inequalities seen throughout society. This can be seen from media bias which can act as propaganda (Chomsky, 1992) and through class representation (below).

Representation
One of the most obvious examples of how the media can transmit 'ideals' is through the way the media represents different groups of people [LINK]. Mentioning the ideology theory and Barthe's mythologies theory will inevitably end up in a "chicken or the egg" argument - whilst Barthe says that the stereotype based representations are given to satisfy the audience's expectations, Althusser's ideology argument would suggest that those expectations only exist because the media has presented them to the audience previously.

The Marxist belief that the ruling class have control over the proletariat is heavily supported by this idea of ideology; the media presents the audience with plenty of justification as to why they should live their lives in a certain way. For example, if we go with the way that pretty much every programme ever made in the history of television has at some point had a romance based storyline, we can see that the media promotes having a partner to settle down as being an 'ideal' lifestyle. In actuality, this could be seen as taking advantage of how people are more inclined to aim for a good job if they have a partner (and eventually children) to look after, thus motivating the workforce.

Audiences & Institutions
I did previously touch on this in the previous post but it is somewhat relevant to mention again the way in which institutions make use of ideology to sell their products.

Institutions who have a product to sell need to convince the potential audience that it is worth buying - this is done through marketing. Successful marketing revolves around ensuring that as many people as possible buy the product; thus it is important to ensure that the marketing appeals to the masses.

This can be done by first spreading 'ideal' beliefs, then ensuring the product being sold meets the ideals. This is an example of institutional power; once they have created a desired ideal, they are free to market as many products as they feel the need towards this ideal, hence why sequels and spin-offs are usually commercially successful.

Criticism
Post-modern/social action (interactionalist) theorists oppose the idea of ideology brainwashing the population on the basis that they feel that society is instead run on the actions of individuals; and that although the media as an institution may have the potential to promote certain beliefs, it is ultimately up to the individual as to whether they take on those communicated or not.

-HM

Ideology

This relates to the theory of ideology being communicated through the media. Sir mentioned a while back that it is a good idea to make the blog a bit more interesting, so I tried using one of these SlideShare embed things.

Ideology & The Media

As I am particularly terrible at communicating through every medium of the "not writing" variety, I should clarify some of the points I've made here:

The ideology theory says that certain ideals are transmitted from the institution (the media product's creator) to the audience, which can influence the audience's thoughts and beliefs.

The institution can also take advantage of the audience's views of 'ideals', by creating products which appeal to those beliefs.

---

On another note, I am aware I have unacceptable lack of reference to Althusser's theories; this is because I have found little information about them that I can fully understand. As I find more relevant information I will post it.

-HM.

SOPA - Effect on the Industry?

This post is particularly off-topic, but it kind-of relates to film distribution, and I needed an excuse to have a rant. Here goes!

For those not in the know, the US Stop Online Piracy Act is a proposed legislation designed with the intention of preventing online piracy, thus stopping potential revenue being held away from intellectual property owners. However, it just so happens that the proposals appear to have been written by people who know nothing about the way computers, the internet or pretty much anything works.

Instead of just targeting those who share copyrighted files with those who do not own a license to use them, the legislation would target everything on the internet that happens to use copyrighted media.

So why is this a problem? Well, it's pretty clear that nearly all media production companies have made great use of online hype to market a product. For this to work, fans of the company will need to be allowed to talk about it on the internet, be able to share previews and leaks, make their own graphics/videos based on it, start up fansites etc.. If this law passes it will be extremely difficult for this to work, which will make media marketing even more of a challenge than it currently is.

On top of that, attitudes towards media consumption have changed significantly over the last few years. People no longer want to just sit back, watch a film and then forget about it. The influence of online culture now means that people want to take constant interest in the product and its company; they want to be able have easy access to media relating to it, and they want to create their own fan work. It's more or less an unwritten rule now that your product hasn't made it until there is an autotune remix of it on YouTube. This kind of behaviour not only maintains existing fans, but also brings in new ones - meaning that the company has a great chance of success with potential sequels.

Even the big-names would be affected by the legislation; think of all the big American-based film websites out there who review all the new releases. They often have short clips and screenshots from the film, right? That'd be illegal. The new ruling gives copyright owners the power to have sites which share even small fragments of their material taken down, meaning there is massive potential out there for production companies to make copyright claims for the sake of spiting those who give unfavourable reviews for their products. As if media journalism wasn't biased enough already...

It should also be noted that if one inspects the wording of the bill carefully, posting a link to or embedding an official film trailer on a blog/webpage would be a criminal act. A criminal act which could lead to prison time. I don't really need to explain why this is ridiculous.

So in short: if the act is put in place, online fandoms will be destroyed. If online fandoms are destroyed, media owners' chances of marketing a product will also be destroyed. As much as I would like to break up the BVB Army and get the band to stop making their "music" forever, this is most definitely not the logical way to do it.

-HM

Digital Screen Network

This blog has been about as interesting as a Nickelback album over the last week or so, so it's about time I posted something to it.

The Digital Screen Network is a system run by the UK Film Council which provides funding for cinemas to gain access to digital equiptment. The idea behind this is that it is much cheaper and easier for film-makers to send their work to cinemas digitally than by using physical media. This makes it much easier for smaller, independant films to be shown, which both feeds money into the industry and allows for more consumer choice.

So far the Digital Screen Network has invested £12m across 210 cinemas across the country, equipping 240 screens with digital projection technology overall. So far this has allowed for a fair number of non-mainstream fils to be shown in cinemas, which is beneficial to the film industry overall.

Slumdog Millionaire - Case Analysis

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008/2009 film directed by Danny Boyle that is set in India.

The director, producer (Christian Colson) and writer (Simon Beaufoy) are all British, meaning that the majority of the creative decisions made about the film are from a British source, however the film's story is based on the novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup, who is an Indian author. The majority of the cast are also Indian.

The film was distributed by Parté in the UK and Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures in the US.

The film was released in cinemas thorughout the UK on 9th January 2009, where it went to #2 in box office figures. It was later released on DVD and Blu-ray on 1st June 2009.

As well as the English release, the film was also dubbed into Hindi and Tamil, which allowed for a wider audience.

- I'll add some more information as well as hopefully some trailers and stuff to make this post shinier when I get some time at home, sadly YouTube and other sources are blocked in school. -

EDIT: 10/12/2011

I've been able to find some examples of marketing techniques used to promote the film. One of these is through the release of official trailers, including those shown below:



This trailer was released by Fox Searchlight (a subsidiary of Fox) in the US. As well as Fox being a US based company we can also see that this is targeted towards the US audience by the trailer featuring quotes from US reviewers (e.g. The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun-Times).



This is the trailer released in the UK. It's interesting to note that whereas the US trailer was led simply by text on screen, the UK one has a spoken voice-over narration.

On top of the US trailer, Fox Spotlight also released a series of interview clips featuring the director Danny Boyle about the film, including -
Danny Boyle on India
Danny Boyle on Child Actors

These videos are notable as not only do they directly promote the film, but they also help the marketing by letting the director come across as a likeable public figure, which will encourage the public to go and see his work.

-HM.

Mr. Bean's Holiday - First Study

Mr.Bean's Holiday is a 2007 comedy film starring Rowan Atkinson. The film is the second film based on the television series "Mr. Bean".

Whilst the lead actor, director and story writer are all British, the film is set in France and some members of the cast are French.

The film's marketing is unique in that it was the official film for Comic Relief in 2007, and that some of the proceeds from the film went towards the Comic Relief charity.

The initial official reveal was through a teaser trailer in November 2006 (released by Universal Pictures) and soon after an official website was set up - http://www.mrbeansholiday.net/

The physical release of the film saw it being made available on both DVD and the now-defunct HD-DVD on 27th November 2007.

- I'll continue this as I find more information -

-HM.

Media product controversy... a marketing technique?

I'm bored and I have the urge to write something, and it was either go on a massive rant about mainstream popular music or something or do a write-up of something that's (somewhat) relevant to Media Studies. I chose the latter...

Here I'm going to look at some controversial media products and how the controversy has helped sell them.

This ultimately applies in all different forms of media, one of which being the videogame industry. If we look at Activision's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" we can see that one of the first public trailers featured a scene which involved civilians being killed in an airport; there is a strong possibility this was to intentionally cause controversy as public controversy leads to free features in the press as well as the product becoming a general talking point. This carries on to hype the product to people of the general target market.

This also happens in television - some TV shows which frequently draw controversy end up having a "cool" appeal to their target audience, such as the reputation The Simpsons had originally when it started. Controversy can also come across as deliberate in British soaps like Eastenders, where controversial storylines (such as the baby story last year) are teased before they are shown - this gives the Daily Mail and similar sources plenty of time to cause mass hysteria about how disgraceful it is - which again, builds up hype.

- HM