Assignment 2
The Poster
This is the main poster for
Maleficent, a film about an unforgiving fairy, who curses an infant princess, only
to discover that the child is the only person who can restore peace to their
magical land. The film is loosely related and inspired by Walt Disney’s 1959
animated film, sleeping beauty. Maleficent is an American adventure fantasy
film directed by Robert Stromberg, produced by Joe Roth and distributed by Walt
Disney Studios and Motion Pictures. The film Maleficent uses digital imaging
and SFX to create its magical/mystical scenes.
Maleficent’s age rating is PG
meaning the primary target audience would be around 8 years old and above. The British
board of film classification (BBFC) has said that this film shows mild violence,
threat and scary scenes.
Maleficent used synergy to
promote their film by making a teaser poster and trailer, featuring Angelina
Jolie in costume and makeup. This would promote the film because she is a
well-known celebrity so if you like her films you would look into the film and
want to go and watch it just because she is in it. Disney also has a huge
reputation so the target audience will soon find out that there is a new Disney
film coming out and will go and see it just because it is Disney.
The poster is very plain
however it shows just enough to tell that the main character (Angelina Jolie)
is evil, but on the inside could be nice. This is because her horns stand out
on the top of her head because they are black with a blue highlight in front of
a white background. The horns are covered in leather, this connotes that they
are strong and therefore suggests that she is powerful figure. However it also
suggests that she is hiding them for some reason because they are wrapped in
leather. The horns are large and take up about a third of the poster.
The model has been photo
shopped to look pale and furthermore evil. Her fingers appear long and thin and
she has long nails as if they are portraying claws. Under her hand there is a
small green glow representing the magic and fantasy theme. Her eyes are a
bright green that have dark eye shadow around them. This makes them look
mystical and capturing also because she is making eye contact with the camera. The
type of shot used is a medium close up, meaning that the actress isn’t too far
away so the viewer can still feel intimidated by her glare. Her lips are a
bright dark red colour; red connotes love, but also blood and danger. She has
extremely chiselled cheekbones that look scary and dangerous. She is wearing a
big black/ blue cape with a large collar that looks a bit like a modern day
Dracula collar, suggesting that the clothes are supposed to look scary and
evil.
The actresses name is written
at the top of the poster in an elegant sans font, Disney have done this because
her name will attract more attention than the title of the film. The title of
the film is just below the actress’s hand and is written in a mystical spindly
serif font. The colour is a shiny grey/blue, which sits well the genre of the film
and the colour pallet of the poster. The sharp ends of the letters match her
sharp nails and the pointiness of her horns. Just above the title, the name of
the distributer is shown (Disney). The poster informs the audience the
different ways they can view the film if they watch it in the cinema e.g. ‘in
digital 3D’ The date that it will be shown is in the billing block. It is small
compared to the title, which means that it isn’t as important as the title and
actresses name however it is important enough to be on the poster.
Due to the bright lighting
the clothes have a blue highlight which makes the black look more intense.
The Trailer
The key difference between
the trailer and the poster is that the trailer has sound and moving image. This
will give the viewer a better insight of what the genre of the film is and what
characters are in the film. The trailer will have better mise-en-scene than the
poster because it is little bits of footage from the actual film. However the
trailer and poster are similar because they both show certain aspects of the
film, for example Maleficent’s magic, in the poster it has a little green cloud
under her hand and in the film it shows her using this magic on a vast scale,
also the main character (Angelina Jolie) wears the same costume and make up
from the poster throughout the film.
The first scene of the
trailer is a pan over a large medieval castle; the image gives the impression
that the castle is set in a different world or time period, which fits with the
genre of the film. The slow music is non-diegetic and sounds like the classic tune
from the original sleeping beauty film.
The the non diegetic music
continues through 3 short scenes showing candles getting blown out and medieval
chandeliers getting thrown around in wind, this could be seen as something
sinister evil or dark is coming. The slow music stops abruptly on the scene of
Maleficent; she soon after says “well, well”. This scene implies that she is
the sinister or evil thing that has blown out the candles and the one who was
rocking the chandeliers. The words ‘well, well’ indicate that she has come
across something that has surprised her or something that she doesn’t like. She
looks smug which suggests that she is confident in herself and her abilities to
cause mayhem.
In the climax of the trailer it shows a battle
commencing, once again maleficent uses her green powers to her advantage by
keeping the kings soldiers away. It shows the magical creatures marching to
battle and the kings men and horses marching to war.
The second to final shot of the trailer shows
Maleficent turn into a vast mythical dragon breathing fire over soldiers
connoting that she is very powerful, also that she wants to protect something
by turning into such a big dangerous creature. The camera pans alongside the
fire giving the viewer the effect that they are moving with the fire. The fire
that she breathed out over the soldier’s covers the screen, in a swift movement
the fire turns into the next shot. It shows the title of the film on fire and
hot with a red glow while the fire dies down around the title and has little
sparks flying around it. Fire connotes power and determination.
Maleficent herself is an enigma because the trailer
shows her cursing a child, being friendly to a girl, and also going into battle
and killing a load of soldiers with fire. This could entice the target audience
to watch the film to see if she is actually a hero or villain.
In conclusion the poster and the trailer
work together successfully because both the trailer and poster show the main character
with her magic, which tells the viewer straight away that it is a fantasy film.
The poster and trailer were both released in November
2013. Lana del ray covered the song ‘once upon a dream’ for the film; the song
was released in January 2014 and was free for a limited amount of time. The
song was also featured in the final trailer.
The production company used synergy by distributing
DVDs and Blu-ray by ‘Walt Disney studios home entertainment’. Soon after the
DVDs came out the film started showing on Sky movies. An official twitter page
was set up in January 2011 called @maleficent. The account asked the audience
to participate in activities such as ♯MalefiSELFIE where
followers would tweet selfies of themselves using the hash tag. This ran from
May-July 2014. A Facebook page was also created for the film. The twitter page
has over 66,000 followers and the Facebook page has over 7 million likes.
Assignment 2
The Poster
This is the main poster for
Maleficent, a film about an unforgiving fairy, who curses an infant princess, only
to discover that the child is the only person who can restore peace to their
magical land. The film is loosely related and inspired by Walt Disney’s 1959
animated film, sleeping beauty. Maleficent is an American adventure fantasy
film directed by Robert Stromberg, produced by Joe Roth and distributed by Walt
Disney Studios and Motion Pictures.
Maleficent’s age rating is PG
meaning the primary target audience would be around 8 years old and above. The British
board of film classification (BBFC) has said that this film shows mild
violence, threat and scary scenes.
Maleficent used synergy to
promote their film by making a teaser poster, featuring Angelina Jolie in
costume and makeup. This would promote the film because she well known celebrity
so if you liked her you would look into the film and want to go and watch it
just because she is in it. Disney has a huge reputation so the target audience will
soon find out that there is a new Disney film coming out and will want to go
and see it just because it is Disney.
The poster is very plain
however it shows just enough to tell that the main character (Angelina Jolie)
is evil, but on the inside could be nice. This is because her horns stand out
on the top of her head because they are black/blue in front of a white
background. The horns are covered in leather, this connotes that they are
strong and therefore suggests that she is powerful. However it also suggests
that she is hiding them for some reason because they are wrapped in leather. The
horns are large and take up about a third of the poster.
The model has been photo
shopped to look pale and furthermore evil. Her fingers appear long and thin and
she has long nails as if they are portraying claws. Under her hand there is a
small green glow representing the magic and fantasy theme. Her eyes are a
bright green that have dark eye shadow around them. This makes them look
mystical and capturing also because she is making eye contact with the camera. The
type of shot used is a medium close up, meaning that the actress isn’t too far
away so the viewer can still feel intimidated by her glare. Her lips are a
bright dark red colour; red connotes love, but also blood and danger. She has
extremely chiselled cheekbones that look scary and dangerous. She is wearing a
big black/ blue cape with a large collar that looks a bit like a modern day
Dracula collar, suggesting that the clothes are supposed to look scary and
evil.
The actresses name is written
at the top of the poster in an elegant sans font, Disney have done this because
her name will attract more attention than the title of the film. The title of
the film is just below the actress’s hand and is written in a mystical spindly
serif font. The colour is a shiny grey/blue, which sits well the genre of the
film and the colour pallet of the poster. The sharp ends of the letters match
her sharp nails and the pointiness of her horns. Just above the title, the name
of the distributer is shown (Disney). The poster informs the audience the
different ways they can view the film if they watch it in the cinema e.g. ‘in
digital 3D’ The date that it will be shown is in the billing block. It is small
compared to the title, which means that it isn’t as important as the title and
actresses name however it is important enough to be on the poster.
Due to the bright lighting
the clothes have a blue highlight which makes the black look more intense.
The Trailer
The key difference between
the trailer and the poster is that the trailer has sound and moving image. This
will give the viewer a better insight of what the genre of the film is and what
characters are in the film. The trailer will have better mise-en-scene than the
poster because it is little bits of footage from the actual film. However the
trailer and poster are similar because they both show certain aspects of the
film, for example Maleficent’s magic, in the poster it has a little green cloud
under her hand and in the film it shows her using this magic on a vast scale,
also the main character (Angelina Jolie) wears the same costume and make up
from the poster throughout the film.
The first scene of the
trailer is a pan over a large medieval castle, the image gives the impression
that the castle is set in a different world or time period, which fits with the
genre of the film. The slow music is non diegetic and sounds like the tune from
the original sleeping beauty film.
The the non diegetic music
continues through 3 short scenes showing candles getting blown out and medieval
chandeliers getting thrown around in wind, this could be seen as something
sinister evil or dark is coming. The slow music stops abruptly on the scene of
Maleficent; she soon after says “well, well”. This scene implies that she is
the sinister or evil thing that has blown out the candles and the one who was
rocking the chandeliers. The words ‘well, well’ indicate that she has come
across something that has surprised her or something that she doesn’t like. She
looks smug which suggests that she is confident in herself and her abilities to
cause mayhem.
The middle
sequence of the trailer shows Maleficent casting the spell on the child and
when the child is growing up. Also it shows the child befriending Maleficent
even though she was hiding from her. The scene shows the girl pricking her
finger on a needle (presumably her curse coming true). It shows Maleficent
using her green powers a lot connoting that she is powerful.
In the
climax of the trailer it shows a battle commencing, once again maleficent uses
her green powers to her advantage by keeping the kings soldiers away. It shows
the magical creatures marching to battle and the kings men and horses marching
to war. The very end scene shows maleficent turn into a vast mythical dragon
breathing fire over soldiers, the fire covers the screen and when it goes it
shows the title of the film on fire and hot.
Analysing Film Promotion: Film Essay
Jasmine Basford
WHY DOES HOLLYWOOD
DOMINATE THE FILM INDUSTRY?
Hollywood dominates
the film industry because it has the most money. They spend hundreds of
millions of dollars creating the movie to make the film really good so more
people want to go and see them. Most Hollywood companies release a new film
every few months and about three block buster films a year which means they can
spend all of this money but they also get loads of money. They can afford to
fail, for example John Carter, Tomorrow Land and The Lone Ranger lost a lot of
money. They have also got huge successes such as Avatar, Frozen and Titanic.
Which made millions upon millions of dollars.
“WORD OF MOUTH”
The most powerful
promotion technique is friends and family talking about a film to another
friend or family member. This is called word of mouth. If they give a really
good review of the film, you are going to want to see it and the Movie
companies are going to get more money because more people are going to see it.
However, if they say it was really a bad film you’re not going to want to see
it, resulting in the movie getting less money.
“INTERNATIONAL
RELEASE”
one of the reasons movies are making more
money is because of they are being released around the world. Another reason is
that films make more money is because of the Chinese market. The Chinese market
wasn’t around 10 years ago because of laws but now that it does exist the
market has increased by another 2 million dollars.
THE PROSESS OF PROMOTING
AND RELEASING A FILM
The first stage of releasing a film is Pre –Production this
is where you make a press release on the film being made, announced,
cast, internet and print media. The second thing is Production this could be rumours
and interviews about the making of the film, teaser trailers and poster are
made. You may also make a website where you may have a count down to when your
film is released. This is trying to create word of mouth. The third stage is
Post Production. This is the Official Trailer, TV advertising, posters,
billboards and interviews. Then you have a big premiere event.
The film I am looking at is Jaws. It is an American
blockbuster about a a giant man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a
fictional New England summer resort
town,
prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine
biologist and a professional shark hunter.The genre of jaws is
drama/thriller. I think the target audience is for teens and above. The film
cost $9 million to make and made $470.7
million. It was shot
mostly on location on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, the film had a troubled production, going over
budget and past schedule. The film starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and
Richard Dreyfuss. The film has a world wide known music tune which is played thought
the film made by John William. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and produced
by Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown. The film was distributed by Universal
Pictures and was released on june 20, 1975.
THE POSTER
The image in this photo is of
a giant Great white sharks head meters away from a female swimmer. This links
to the film because the first person the shark kills in the film is a young woman who left an evening beach party on
Amity Island to go skinny-dipping. The shark looks scary due to its mouth being
slightly open, also because of its teeth. It is also scary because of the size
of the shark’s head dominating most of the water saying that the shark is a
monster and is not a stereotypical shark that you would normally see in the
ocean. The image is a painting, which was interpreted as being rude when the
film first come out. The biggest thing
on the poster is of the sharks head but it is blue, and so is the sea. This
makes the title ‘JAWS’ stand out. This is because the lady is nude and shark
was seen as something else. The image on the poster is not in the film so this
is what people saw before the film come out. This film is not is not a star vehicle.
The most famous part of my film is the shark. You can tell that the shark is
the main part because he is the biggest thing on the poster. In the poster we
can clearly see Propps stock characters theory. The villain (shark) is the
protagonist and he dominates the film by his giant size.
In this poster I don’t think any props or costumes have been used. You can
tell that this isn’t a child’s film because it doesn’t have bright colours
everywhere. It uses duller colours, meaning it could be a horror/thriller. I
don’t think it completely reveals the genre of the film. The audience expects a
film about a monstrous man eating shark that includes blood and gore. They also
expect an adventure of the local police chief a marine
biologist and a professional shark hunter to go out and kill the shark.
The setting of the poster is at sea, if it was a real photo the camera
would be half in the sea and half out. The poster is not dark and gloomy, it is
day time and is brightly light. You cannot see any facial expressions because
the ripple of the sea hides the lady.
Todorov’s theory
The normal would be a town that enjoys summer and has no deaths. It is then
not normal because a monstrous shark torments the towns people by eating people
who go into the sea. This leads the police to go out to sea and try and kill
the shark. They fail the first time. On the second time the shark attacks the
boat and kills 2 people leaving the chief of police to kill the shark by
himself.
The colour that stands out the most is the red title. Red stereotypically
means blood This could mean ‘shark+woman=blood’. Red stereotypically means
blood
The title is at the top in the middle. The title ‘Jaws’ is red. The main
character is at the bottom of the poster(Shark). I think there is a z-path,
going from the title through the shark then across the peoples names at the
bottom. The viewing order is Shark, title, naked lady. The font of the title is
not crazy, if you look closely the W looks like a sharks mouth.(the white
triangles are teeth)
There is no slogan. The billing block is not easy to read, and it is quite
small because it is not as important as the shark. At the very bottom of the
billing block there is a PG block with extremely small typing next to it. Next
to this it also says ‘may be to intense for younger children’. In todays
generation, Jaws is not considered scary, this is because there are other films
such as Saw/unfriended/the exorcist/paranormal activity. However when this film
first came out it scared a lot of people.
THE TRAILER
A trailer provides different information by having a moving image. This
means it has more in it because it has lots of different clips from the film in
it whereas the poster has one picture that may not even be from the film. In a
poster there isn’t sound, or dialogue. A similarity about the trailer and the
poster is you don’t see the whole shark. In the poster you see its head, in the
trailer you only see the fin and its jaw. The first 15 seconds of the trailer
is of the naked lady you see swimming on the poster, however in the trailer you
can see and hear her swimming, and the famous music starts to play, indicating
that the shark is there. It is important to keep the poster and the trailer
relevant to each other because if you see the poster but the trailer doesn’t
follow the same story then it wouldn’t be recognizable as the same film.
The trailer starts by a lady swimming across the screen, that has been shot
to look like a sharks view of the lady it then goes on to the lady’s head
seconds before she gets attacked by the shark. There was a jump cut on to a pan
left of a car driving past the Amity Island welcomes you sign. It then goes
onto a clip of the mayor, chef of police and marine biologist talking about how
a great white shark is claiming the water of Amity Island. Then it goes onto a
fast clip of a lady drowning followed by a type righter typing shark attack.
Then it goes onto the policeman flipping through a book about sharks, Followed
by what looks like a shark night watch with a big light moving side to side. It
then goes on to the polices helper looking into binoculars with other people
behind him, next there is a man swimming for help with the shark behind him,
then the man screaming. Next there is a clip of the police man sat on a beach
chair which leads onto a clip of children’s legs underwater, which would be the
sharks view again. Then it goes to the police man and the mayor talking about
if they shout shark they have a problem on the 4th of july. Then it
goes back to the police man sat on the char but its zooming in on him, it then
jump cuts to people screaming and running out of the sea. There is a meeting
about the shark ‘this shark will swallow you whole’ there is then it’s a clip
of a boat, the police man looking scared and a whole (made by the shark) pop
open letting water in. you then have two men saying ‘you ever have one do this
before’ and the other one replying ‘no’. this is followed by all 3 men
struggling to hold onto a rope attached to the shark, which is pulling the boat
through the water. After this it is all 1 second clips of all the shark attacks
that has happened through the film.
Screenshot 1
The first few seconds of the film is of the shark’s view of the naked lady.
Meaning the lighting is dark and the lady is a silhouette but you can clearly
see that it is a person. The location of the shot is in the sea. There are no
props or expressions used in this shot. I used this shot because it links to
the poster. The shot is edited by fading in and out. There is a voice over
saying ‘what we are dealing with here…. We’ve got a panic on our hands on the 4th
July’ the dialogue is diegetic.
The trailer starts with a shark attack so you know it’s about sharks.
screenshot 2
33 seconds into the trailer the fast beat of the jaws music follows the screaming of beach goers running out of the sea. The costumes are swimming costumes/suits. The expressions are scared, worried, terrified. There is no camera movement and the set is brightly light. I chose this shot because it shows how scared people are when the shark attacks and how much destruction happens.
Screenshot 3
 |
One of the trailers last clips is one of the
protagonists gigantic sharks jaw. Jumping out of the water. This clip is
followed by one man saying to the other ‘were going to need a bigger boat’ I
think his is a good clip because you see how big the shark actually is,
before this clip it shows the shark hunter yelling, presumably because he is
about to be eaten by the shark.
|
Conclusion
Jaws was an extremely successful film. When jaws first come
out everyone was talking about it and telling everyone to watch it, so because
the word of mouth was good and the film was having good reviews more and more
people went to watch it. Also everyone wanted a Jaws poster in their room. The
film made $470.7 million and cost $9
million to make so it made a lot more money than it cost. There are 4 films but
they are not as good as the first one.
