Ancillary Task - Research Analysis - Part 4

For my fourth part in this research task looking into ancillary pieces. I have decided to analyse the magazine cover of 'Total Film' which advertises a range of action films but mainly focuses on the film 'Live Die Repeat'. As before I will aim to analyse all aspects of the poster and aim to use this information to help me in creating my own poster/magazine cover.

Ancillary Task - Research Analysis - Part 3

In the previous tasks I have been analysing both film trailers and their posters. From this I have developed my skills in techniques by looking at real examples but now I am analysing film magazine covers and seeing ways in which these compliment and contrast trailers and posters. From looking at this film magazine 'Empire' I have analysed the print, colours used, the layout, fonts and features, etc.

After analysing the 'Empire' cover I have learnt the techniques and have asked myself how effective they are. To expand opinions I have asked two friends to look at both the 'Empire' cover for 'Casino Royale' as well as the one below produced by 'Starlog' and give a review comparing the two and ultimately picking a favourite.

"I prefer Empires cover because it fits more with the Bond intro, with the classic gun shot scene. It looks more professional, and the Starlog one looks more like it was made on a budget. Also, it doesn't have to say the films title as by saying 'Bond Begins' there is more suspense and hype building. However, I do like that on the Starlog cover that the gun is more aimed at you and is clearer as well as the eye contact making it more eye catching for consumers. Apart from that, the Empire one is significantly better than the Starlog one in all other aspects".

From this review I can take that it is important to audiences that the cover does show an iconic moment of the film and that simplicity can be effective in looking professional. For more opinions I asked another friend the same question to find out their opinions when comparing the two magazine covers.

"I prefer the Starlog magazine cover because it has an old-fashioned retro feel which reminds me of the classic Bond films which are the best ones. I like the fact the name of the film is clear as well as the '007' logo showing it is another film in the franchise. I would agree with 'It's bloody well time for a new James Bond' and this makes me really hyped! I like the blood, however, that is shown on the Empire magazine because I like the violence in these films".

From this review I can understand that people like the classic aspect from the Starlog cover and how it links to previous films in the franchise, however, as we will be making a new film magazine cover this will not be possible and so from these responses and my personal opinion, I think I will be looking at the 'Empire' cover more for ideas and techniques.

Ancillary Task - Research Analysis - Part 2

Similarly to the previous post, I decided to select another poster in which I had previously studied the trailer. My second film poster for analysis would be 'Casino Royale' (2006). By analysing another poster, my knowledge and ideas will be extended helping me in the later stages of the media project. As before I will analyse this poster and focus on the micro elements including the print, colour, layout, font, size and images used, etc.

By analysing another poster I feel I have extended my skills into placement and colour techniques used by poster designers to create a poster that entices audiences without giving too much information about the story. I personally preferred the Casino Royale poster as I felt it left mystery as to the plot of the film whereas Edge of Tomorrow gives it away with the tagline. With the previous post about the poster I asked two friends to write a review. This time I managed to receive a wider opinion from audiences by using one quantitative question 'Do you prefer the film poster for 'Edge of Tomorrow' or 'Casino Royale'? Although I have not been able to obtain lots of information to explain the reasons behind participants answers, it has allowed me to see the basic opinion from other students and is shown in the diagram below. The sample size of this question was 100 people. 

The result from the question shows that the majority of people prefer the poster for 'Casino Royale'. 55/89 respondents said they preferred this trailer which is more than 50%. I believe this could be because of the simplicity of the poster as well as the Aston Martin, Star Power of Craig and the shadow of a female character. I believe the votes received for 'Edge of Tomorrow' could have been for the detail involved in the poster but believe it fell short for looking generic of that genre and making the plot too obvious. I will consider this result although I do believe that out of the sample, more people would have seen the 'Casino Royale' film and may be the preferred film meaning the result could have been unfair or unreliable as they may have a pre-installed opinion. 

Ancillary Task - Research Analysis - Part 1

For the film trailers I analysed I mainly stuck to action films as this is a genre that appeals to both myself and my team. For the ancillary task we will be making film posters for our own film trailer and so analysing and understanding already existing posters is important to learn techniques and gain ideas. I decided to analyse the film posters that go along side the trailers I analysed in the previous posts. My first analysis was for the film 'Edge of Tomorrow' (2014), when analysing these posters I will focus on the micro elements including the print, colour, layout, font size and the images used, etc.

By looking at the 'Edge of Tomorrow' poster I could pick out some key techniques used and analyse them to further my thoughts and knowledge on the techniques conveyed by the producers. As well as analysing the film posters I also decided to ask a couple of friends who have not seen the film to give a review on the poster so I could extend my knowledge on what viewers find appealing about the posters and what is seen as generic or unnecessary.

"The poster is a generic action film poster. The armour looks pretty cool on the characters. I recognised both Tom and Emily but the slogan sounds too cheesy and like the name of a song. It looks futuristic and is intriguing as to what they are wearing and what is going on. The vehicles in the sky are reminiscent of something from Star Wars which makes me worry it could be trying to copy that element. The poster makes me think the film will be generic and unoriginal and therefore does not entice me to watch the film enough". - Tom Cooper (A Level Student).

"The slogan/other name gives away a lot about the premise of the film and the character's armour looks very impressive. The background looks a bit convoluted and the characters look out of place as the background seems to present intense war while the characters appear to be relaxed and stood still at that time. However, the futuristic feel the poster gives off makes it seem like it will be an exciting action movie". - Adam Newton (A Level Student)

I thought the reviews were clear and concise and their was some clear concerns throughout about the film, mainly the tagline 'Live Die Repeat' which some labelled as cheesy or too much that it confuses viewers. I will remember the techniques used and these reviews when making our posters as it is an important stage of marketing when selling a film. 

Primary Task - The Groups Findings

I have created in-depth analysis presentations on film trailers for action films in previous posts. As well as this, my team (Vince and Max) also independently created some presentations as well. By doing a few each independently, we can then view each others and learn new techniques that we may not have considered for our own analysis but also suggest methods to the team. By working independently but sharing our work, the team is pulled closer in co-operation which is a great start of the project as we will be working together very much in future stages of this task. Vince's and Max's presentations are attached below:

Primary Task - Research Analysis - Part 2

Similarly to the previous post, I decided to select another film trailer for analysis to further my skills in spotting techniques used in film trailers and their effectiveness. As before I will remember details such as micro elements (mise-en-scene, editing, sound etc) as well as the macro elements (narrative, genre, star power, etc). I decided to again use Google Slides for this presentation as it is a great tool for incorporating YouTube videos and is very user friendly which is important to me.



As with my first study into the 'Edge of Tomorrow' trailer, this trailer showed media techniques in order to create tension and engagement with viewers. In many cases both trailers used the same techniques although there was some differences. As before I decided to send the trailer to two friends that have not seen the film to write a review for the trailer. The two friends do not take media studies A level and have wrote a short review below, I thought it was important that they didn't take the subject as I feel other class members may over think and over analyse the trailer.

"The trailer was enticing in the sense that it was short, snappy and effectively portrayed the key elements of the '007' franchise such as: action, erotica and luxury. The downside of the trailer was, in my opinion, that it lacked a display of the actual 'James Bond' character and I feel it could have better achieved this in an extended trailer. Overall the trailer is attractive enough to make me like to see Casino Royale" - Seb Gappa (A Level Student).

"It looked like a classic James Bond film with beautiful women and a lot of action. You can tell there's going to be comedy elements between Bond and 'M'. It looks like something I would enjoy going and seeing. Not much to fault other than most of the stunts seem fairly unbelievable, for example, when Bond is seen to jump on to a crane and just hang on, I don't think he could've held on and not have been hurt." - Ben Glanville (Platform One Music College Student).

I thought the comments about the fact it felt like a Bond film were interesting as it proves there has been so many films that people can identify a Bond film by its unique array of cars, women and action and shows how powerful and engaging the franchise has been.

Primary Task - Research Analysis - Part 1

For the next part of the research task, I went onto YouTube and found film trailers I enjoy and analysed them remembering details such as the micro elements (mise-en-scene, editing, sound etc) as well as the macro elements (narrative, genre, star power, etc). By doing this task, I will be able to understand techniques used in real trailers for big films and think about whether there is similarities between them as well as my personal and groups favourite techniques which we will be able to consider using when making our own film trailer. I have embedded the full trailer below within Google Slides and then picked out individual scenes for analysis.



By looking at the 'Edge of Tomorrow' trailer I could pick out some key media techniques and analyse them and it has given me thoughts and ideas about what I would like to see in a trailer. Especially one of this sort with complexity and action. Although film reviews are very common on the internet, it is harder to find trailer reviews and so I could see if others shared the views of myself, I decided to ask my parents to watch the trailer and give it a short review.

"The trailer was quite long and clearly was trying to make clear how the story was going to work in terms of elements of it being repeated plus showing plenty of action so that you can understand the nature of the movie. The trailer has made me want to watch the film but made me wonder why they chose such a lengthy full name (Life Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow) and why they considered that the audience wouldn't be able to quickly grasp the concept because the trailer was some-what repetitive in terms of telling you the nature of the story" - My Dad (Paul Barfoot).

"A very exciting thrilling adventure that wasn't obviously predictable. Mixed with humour and a love story. Excellent graphics but I worried I was seeing the best parts of the film in the trailer. The scenery was nice. It looked action packed and it made me want to see the film despite the long trailer!" - My Mum (Julie Barfoot)

I thought the comments about the length of the trailer was interesting considering my research into trailer norms suggesting that over two minutes is too long and this trailer does indeed go over two minutes, however I believe this is because they needed to include enough content to make the story clear to viewers.

Regulation

For this task, I will be looking into the rules and regulations that are enforced onto films by the BBFC. Last school year, we had a BBFC employee talk us media students about the ratings and they issues they face. This speech was very interesting and can help me with this task and my knowledge about the BBFC. I decided to make this presentation on 'PowToon' as it is a programme I enjoyed experimenting with in the AS tasks and would like to continue to learn features it includes, I will then upload it to YouTube and post below.

Target Audience - Part 3

For the final post in this task about target audiences I will be looking at how audiences are measured for the film industry. For the film industry, figures and statistics are found from multiple different places.

FAME
FAME (Film Audience Measurement and Evaluation) by Pearl and Dean is the cinema industry's key tool for analysing film viewing and viewing habits/behaviours. The FAME survey was launched in 2007 and replaced CAVIAR which had a similar purpose but used face-to-face interviews unlike FAME which uses full online surveys. FAME aims to cover all aspects of film consumption and find according statistics. It looks at the experience of cinema, DVD, on-demand viewing, trailers, advertising, reviews, 3D viewing, digital, information sourcing, social media, piracy, etc. The FAME survey only asks questions to those who have been to the cinema within the last 6 months to ensure they have valid experience. The sample size is around 3,300 all aged 7+. The look into both behaviour of gender, race and age. The FAME 2015 research was conduced independently by CrowdDNA. The Film Monitor survey is another survey conducted by FAME and finds out information on individual films. The Film Monitor Survey by TNS is carried out every two week and askes over 1,000 people ages 7+. They also monitor films to see the demographics including sex, age, social class and race, etc. Pearl and Dean and the FAME survey helps to find audience and industry statistics including this fact about advertising...

MINTEL
Mintel International Group Ltd are a marketing intelligence company. They produce an annual report on the UK cinema market and is aimed at the commercial sector. It covers the market factors, size and trends and discusses segmentation, the supply structure, advertising, promotion and consumers.

ONS
ONS (Office for National Statistics) produced figures on cinema admissions based on estimates for the film exhibition in 2009. The ONS still produces reports on household spending, including these cinema tickets.

DODONA/CINEMAGOING UK
DODONA and CINEMAGOING UK produce annual reports covering the UK, Europe and wider markets. They provide information on films released, distributed and look the finance such as revenues and forecasts.

There are other ways in which audience viewing is measured in the film industry. This included exit polls after the cinema etc, or simply looking into box office returns and profit on films aswell as the UK Cinema Association. These firms are essential to the industry to allow for audiences to be understood by the firms to allow for films to be made that are demanded and to be tailored for the correct audience. The table below shows the UK cinema goers in 2016 and are for me, very surprising. For every month this year there has been more than 11,000,000 cinema goers which is more than one sixth of the population. I found this very surprising but would be interested to find out how many of these are the same people that go multiple times per month.

Target Audience - Part 2

For my second part in research into target audiences I decided to create a survey to find out viewing habits of audiences with films and their trailers. I decided to create a survey on Google Forms as I am familiar with it and feel that a printed out survey may mean that more people take time to fill it out and think more about their answers. It also makes it easier for me to give it to a good sample of ages and gender and other factors. Below is a screenshot of the survey as well as it being filled out by a participant.

 

By the end, I had given out 40 surveys, I tried to give them out to a fair amount of ages. This proved difficult as the age range at school is very small but I managed to get some older people to fill out the survey as I have multiple copies to my grandparents who gave them to neighbours and friends as well as my parents and their friends. The charts below show the results of the questionnaires.

Target Audience - Part 1

For the first part of this task I decided to look at the techniques used to find a specific target audience and how information is found and gathered to allow for an ideal audience to be established. Once this is found the production and advertising can be tailored in a certain way for this audience. For example, if the audience is young they may focus their marketing on social media instead of newspaper adverts.




The audio clip below is a little over 8 minutes long and discusses my watching habits and how they have changed over the last few years. I then asked my mum and dad to answer some questions about the topic as heard below.

After having heard about the viewing habits of my parents I tried to create links between them and myself. I had suspected that there may be a difference because of gender and more specifically age. From the questions asked I found that there were not many differences when talking about viewing devices because as we live in the same house, the technology is the same for all. To conclude, asking my parents about their viewing habits was not particularly successful as it is too small a sample to get good ideas about audiences in general. From here, I will create a survey... (see next post!).

The Ownership of Film Trailers

Attached below is a Google Slides presentation about the ownership of film trailers. It shows the big firms and the small independent ones and the differences this causes when creating a film trailer.



Where will the main and ancillary tasks fit into the industry?
From the research I have undertaken into the ownership of film and their trailers I now understand that much of the media world is owned by very few powerful firms. Some people believe this to be a good thing as the quality can be high and the companies can benefit from economies of scale meaning they are likely to expand, causing an increase in consumer films and jobs, however, others believe this to be a bad thing as it makes it harder for new companies to enter the industry and the few small firms may have a political or personal agenda meaning the media may be tainted for audiences rather than at its best for consumer enjoyment. Many small firms can be successful as we have seen with the likes of Warp Films and the success of 'This is England'. One issue for small firms can be the start up costs and also costs for things like the BBFC certification. When making our trailer for the main task and posters for the ancillary we will be acting as if we were a small independent maker because like them, we have a small budget (by only using available equipment) and will not have the time and the capital for 'Star Power'. However, although not yet confirmed, we are planning on making a trailer for a fast paced action film. This is an unlikely genre for small independent firms as it tends to be a genre that requires a big budget due to the high cost action scenes and CGI, however it is a challenge me and the team are wanting to take on, and should be great fun to attempt.

The History of Film Trailers

Attached below is a Prezi presentation about the history of film trailers and how they have developed into the trailers we see today. As this is the task chosen by our team it is important to research the history of trailers to gain a greater understanding of their uses and purposes. I'm sure we can all agree that film trailers are very important and is something I personally always look forward to seeing before the feature film when going to the cinema.

 

Gantt Chart

We decided to create Gantt Charts as we felt it important to keep track of time and not to rush the tasks. I will try to stick to the chart to ensure the project is completed on time and has good time spent on each task. The Gantt Chart is attached below.

UPDATE (11/09/16):

Since creating a Gantt chart for the task we have found out that we will be having timetable changes and so the time in which tasks can be completed will be changed and so in order to utilise the benefits of Gantt charts I have remade it below so that it will fit the new time period for the A2 coursework.



First Thoughts On The Task

A2 Media Studies sounds very intriguing and exciting from what has been said so far. The freedom to choose from 14 options is great and we have all been thinking about what we could do for the task. In terms of experience I have very little although I did always enjoy making mini films when I was younger and is a skill I have always wanted to develop and so A2 media studies sounds like a brilliant opportunity. One of my cousins has set up a media production company where he is a camera man filming music videos and trailers so he should be able to give me and the team tips which should be helpful throughout the task. At the moment, it is likely i'll be working with Max and Vince. Vince was a member of the group last year and we worked well together and both agree that creating a film trailer is what we want to do. Max did not work with us last year, but we are friends outside of the classroom and he put in great work last year and so we feel we can work well together, as it is a group activity we feel it is important to all be able to work together efficiently but also to be able to enjoy producing the task. I believe that A2 media studies will develop on the skills taught in AS but pushes them far forward. I suspect that when filming there is far more to consider and remember than there is recording audio for our AS broadcasting task. However the TV drama exam for the AS taught us about suitable camera, sound, editing and mise-en-scene techniques which can be relevant in this years task. To conclude, I am excited to begin the course and am sure it will be hard work for us all but also enjoyable at the same time.