Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing’s key approach is to promote awareness of a product such as a new movie which would be released; this completely relies on how consumers instantly spread information through various techniques such as technical convergence EG: Media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. These viral processes give the audience the ability to promote as users across the globe would be able to see and spread this information to others as this just instantly continues to multiply and spread. There are many noticeable examples of viral marketing which are being used in movies such as Tron Legacy and Dark Knight which I would deeply focusing on and researching on how these viral campaigns are devised and used to attract their targeted audience.

As we live in a modern society it has become very prevalent for everybody we know to have some sort of access into social media such as Facebook, Twitter or even instant messaging services such as BlackBerry Messenger. Film makers consider using viral marketing as it is a cost efficient system which instantly targets audiences through these platforms and gives them the opportunity to give their feedback as this spreads around the world which makes the product recognisable around the whole world

Here is one image which I found on the internet based on viral marketing, this image clearly shows its relation to the audience and how they receive any viral information. The ‘start’ would be linked to the viral information which would then be sent to a set  audience who would then spread this information instantly as this cycle would continue multiply as the information is directly to social media users across the globe. Initially this becomes a never ending cycle as every targeted group around the world would become aware of the product.

This image which was downloaded from the internet is closely related to Web 2.0 as these are all the user generated platforms in which viral marketing is published and spread across the world. These platforms are well known by many users and are vastly used when spreading the viral information as websites such as Facebook and Twitter can be seen which are used by many millions across the world to socially communicate, this gives users the ability to comment and feedback on the material which is shown to them which becomes beneficial for film makers and also exciting for  users as they would want to research more on the recent event.

Viral Casestudy: 'The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight is a film which is based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film was released in 2008 and in my opinion was one of the most influential viral marketing campaigns for a movie. Synergy which is a media term used for promotion of a product in many different media an institution which often maximizes products audience consumption as they become more aware of these different products. Batman is originated from a comic book then slowly to expand into different media platforms such as cartoons, video games and also movies which has made it one of the most recognisable movies across the world.

The Dark Knight movie released a viral marketing campaign based on the movie called ‘Why So Serious’, a website was released which highlighted a fictional political campaign of a character ‘Harvey Dent’, the website helped to aspire fans of carrying on certain tasks which was related with the storyline of the film. 42 Entertainment is an institution which produces immerse entertainment for distributers; the company had recognised a damaged adaption to of ‘I Believe in Harvey Dent’ and decided to name this ‘I believe in Harvey Dent too’, this then encouraged the fans to send emails as pixels of the images were removed which revealed the first official image of the joker and a obscured message ‘See you in December. There were many other events of this act which occurred such as in 2007 at the San Diego Comic-Con International Festival the company 42 Entertainment had released a new website in which fans were sent on to research for clues in order to unlock a teaser trailer for the movie. Again on the 31^st October 2007 the main Dark Knight website had reconstructed into a clue hidden website as messages were hidden in different pages as these instructed the fans uncover certain clues at different areas of major towns and to also take images of their discoveries, eventually the images of their discoveries revealed a new photograph of the joker. On the 15^th May 2008 two theme parks in the US revealed a new ‘Dark Knight Roller Coaster’ as this simulated being ‘stalked by the joker’

On 15^th May, 2008, two major theme parks in the US unveiled ‘The Dark Knight roller coaster’ which set back costs of  $7.5 million to develop and which simulated being ‘stalked by the Joker’. At this point the viral campaign for this movie had developed so much that fan’s had become completely insane for the release of the movie as it had attracted most popular age groups within the US, the viral campaign still carried on attracted its audiences as the institute ‘Mattel’ designed and created toys and games for the film’s release as these included board games, puzzles and action figures. The World’s largest toy company, Mattel, created toys and games for The Dark Knight, these included action figures, role play costumes, board games, puzzles, and a special-edition UNO card game.






In conclusion The Dark Knight viral campaign was a huge success due to how synergy and technology were cooperated in this, the movie earned more than $500 million dollars at the box office which made it one of the most grossing revenue films of all times. 



This is a Youtube Video Clip of how the Viral Campaign of The Dark Knight was used to attract the audience in America, the clip also explores the series of activities which were carried out as part of revealing clues about the film.

Viral Casestudy: Tron Legacy

Tron: Legacy was an American film of science fiction genre. The film was released in the year 2010 around December. It was directed by Joseph Kosinski, produced by Steven Lisberger and it was the sequel to 1982’s film TRON with Actor Jeff Bridges returning to his roles as Kevin Flynn and CLU, whilst Actor Bruce Boxleitner is again Alan Bradley and Tron.
Tron: Legacy was already a highly anticipated release as it was the sequel of a successful film (1982’s TRON) therefore people already knew it was arriving, and they wanted to see it. However, to maximise anticipation and excitement for the film, a viral campaign began one year and six months before its official release date. On 21^st July 2009, a range of websites (related to films) updated that they had received via mail, "Flynn's Arcade" vouchers and also a flash drive. The content was an animated GIF and it proudly displayed its CSS code lines. However, audiences noticed that a few of them were put together but just a part of the code was cracked and it cleverly revealed the URL link to www.flynnlives.com. This was a invented site sustained by activists who believed Kevin Flynn was still living. However, he has been reported as ‘missing’ since 1989... This led to a sense of enigma forming around the film and it attracted more audiences as people told each other about what was going on, on these TRON sites.
Later on, audiences discovered that by clicking on a tiny spider in the lower section of the main page, they found themselves at a countdown clock. This clock would hit zero on 23^rd July, 2009. Fans analysed the pages to find an address in the ‘Terms Of Use’. The address was for San Diego, California. This was near the Comic-Con 2009 and audiences began putting the pieces together, soon after that, footage and data on the films sequel was released. Flynn's Arcade was opened once again at that location, with a variety of ‘Space Paranoids’ arcade machines and an array of '80s video games- as people growing up in the 70s and 80s were this films focal target audience because they would have seen the first film therefore would appreciate the sequel.
A ninth viral web portal, www.homeoftron.com, was discovered. In it, there was some of Flynn's Arcade history and even a fan memoir section. It was 19^th December 2009 when a new poster surfaced. Banners that promoted the film proudly paved the way to the 2010 Comic-Con. This made a record third appearance for the film at Comic-Cons annual event.

Character Analysis

Below is a PowerPoint presentation based on informations on the characters which would be seen in our film trailer. A character analysis would set a guideline on how our group would present our characters through certain mis-en-scene to establish personable characteristics.

View more presentations from iFaheem.

Narrative Structure

The PowerPoint contains the basic narrative structure which our group would be taking into account when producing the final trailer as we would be following theories as a guide line of producing a mainstream trailer. 

'Apollo 18' Trailer Analysis

Copy of Trailer Analysis- 'Apollo 18' on Prezi

Hide and Seek Film Trailer

Trailer Analysis- 'Hide and Seek' on Prezi

'Scream 4' Trailer Analysis

Trailer Analysis- 'Scream 4' on Prezi

Voiceover

A voiceover is fairly similar to a narrator, in which they explain aspects of the story such as setting the scene, introducing the characters, explaining the plot of the movie.  This is necessary so that the trailer is easily understandable and doesn’t make the audience get side tracked. Voiceover’s are now becoming a main convention within trailers due to how each film maker decides to include this, this is because it builds up sense of anticipation about the film’s release making the audience want to go watch the film. Voiceovers also tend reinforce the title of the film and set a tone, this is so every time a trailer to a film is viewed the audience would be constantly reminded about the film which would then settle into their minds as they would remember when the movie would be released.

Here is one good example of a voiceover constantly being used within a horror film trailer as it instantly makes it more clearer for an audience to understand the storyline and also the voiceover acts as a narrator throughout the whole clip telling the audience what’s happening.

Sound

In reality sound plays a vital role in everybody’s life just as it considers importance in film trailers as its main role within film making is transforming any visual aspects or emphasis on them. Sound is used in trailers as it creates great emphasis on the storyline which is shown to the audience, this is mostly done by music as music is used to emphasis and change the mood created within a scene and builds the tension slowly. Feelings can also be expressed through music as the different levels of rhythm and pace can be used to represent a variety of feelings such as a Fast beat would connotate a fast heart beat and also of character within a film running as this creates anticipation and creates tension within the audience. Background music would aid the audience and help them to understand the linking from one scene to another as music could help show how a situation could be repeated within various points in a film which then reminds the audience of noticeable themes.

Synchronous sounds are those which are synchornised or matched to what is being shown to the audience, an example of this if a character would portray themselves to shooting a gun, the sound of the gun fire would be projected which emphasis the realism within the scene when really the gun hasn’t been fired. 

Asynchronous sound effect isn’t matched within a visible source within a scene, these types of sounds are included as they provide an emotional nuance and the realism within a scene. An example of this is two characters could be having a conversation between each other but the foreground sound is of an aeroplane jet as this emphasis the realism of the characters surroundings and the setting. 

The source of Diegetic sounds can also be found within trailers, as diegetic sound is the sound within a scene in which a character can only hear, an example of this is a character could be listening to the radio whilst they are driving. Diegetic sound is good for portraying the surroundings of a character as this makes the audience feel more alert on what’s around the character. 

Non Diegetic sound can only be heard by the audience as the sound isn’t included within a scene and is edited in the scene to emphasis on the scene further. An example of this is two couples could be holding hands whilst a romantic rhythm on a piano could be playing as this emphasis the mood which is being created by the characters and would emotionally affect the audience.

Genres

Genre is the term used for any category or sort within a form culture; in this scenario I would be relating the use of genre within films as many films consist of many different genres. As mentioned before I would be focusing on the horror genre for my trailer, other trailers such as comedy, action and romance are widely seen within movies.

My trailer would be based on a horror genre as this class of genre has the capability to encourage feelings of fear and terror within an audience. Film makers show this by provoking a response which emotionally or psychologically by showing scenes in which would cause revulsion, shock, excitement and thrill. Characters shown within these films often represent death, afterlife and supernatural elements such as demons, ghosts and haunting creatures. Over many years the conventions which make genre have changed as some still exist, in the past black and white had a strong impact on horror movies as these colours connotes shock and fear as today these two colours are known to conventional within horror films as now colours such as red have a deep impact on horror as many horror aspects are connotated by this such as blood.

A sub-genre is a sub category within a set genre which targets a larger audience as a large genre such as horror could have many forms within this such as ‘Slasher’ as the audience would expect what they would see which makes it more intriguing for an audience to watch. There are many other sub genres being generated such as extra-terrestrial which consist of a science fictional background; also supernatural and comedy fall into the sub-genre category. New horror movies which are released often include sub-genres as the popularity is increasing as the audience tend to see more of this 

A hybrid genre is a category when two film genres blend together and merge and become one whole new genre as film makers started to adapt this idea as this manages to keep the audience engrossed. In recent years film makers are now starting to use this idea more frequently as by using the same genre, films tend to become more repetitive and similar to others which divert the audience from watching a film. Some main examples of horror being used as a hybrid genre are horror war movies such as Planet Terror and horror romance movies such as the award winning film Twilight. As these films all have a set targeted audience and aren’t appealed to a wide scale audience due to what the audience like and dislike.

This is a collage of words put together which are all associated with the phrase ‘genre’ as they are all genres and sub genres which are used in films.

Purpose of a Film Trailer

When creating films, producers would find that the large investment could set them back many millions and in order to ensure a safe return on their large investment producers would often release a trailer which is designed to attract and encourage a wide audience to come watch the film when released. A trailer is specifically designed to advertise a film which would be released within a month or so after the trailers have been released, this is done so the audience could develop a sense of impatience and excitement to go watch the film and the more they would see the trailer the more they would be intrigued. Film trailers are mostly set to be around 1 to 3 minutes long as producers would have to condense the films story line to make it fascinating for an audience to watch and also understanding as a variety of editing tools would be used which would create and show the stages of equilibrium within the movie and create a decent climax.

A film trailers main purpose is to drag its targeted audience to come watch the film as this is obtained by following a three-act structure in which the first scenes would introduce the main characters, a scene in which the climax tends to build and the suspense starts to be created and then lastly the trailer would then be left at a cliff hanger which makes many questions arise in the audiences thoughts which would pull them to watch the film as film directors would structure the trailer till this stage and then editors would make it more appealing… The way in which trailers become appealing is through the various editing techniques which are used, there are many conventions which support this as mostly all film trailers would contain sound which is generally built up from start till the ending of the trailer; intertitles are widely used in film trailers as this gives information based on the films background such as ‘Based on a true story’, intertitles could also be used which instantly hauls the audience into watching the film, ‘From the directors of’, from this the audiences could relate to any previous movies from the makers of a film and instantly judge how well the film would be in the box office.

The whole purpose to release a film trailer is so that films could be recognised by an audience and instantly become a box office hit which would benefit the film on investment returns and also create a huge audience to come watch the film when released as this is mainly why film makers spend hundreds of thousand pounds on producing and editing a trailer which would set a high standard within audiences and institutions for the film’s release.

Introduction To A2 Media

Last year after producing a professional magazine publication which was successfully achieved, I gained lots of knowledge about Media Studies  which would help  me for this year’s A2 coursework. The coursework is split into three segments, a ‘magazine cover’, ‘poster’ and also a ‘teaser trailer’ which would all be established on the genre of horror and the sub genres within this. Me and my group of three would produce the trailer as group but would individually work on the other media publications, as our group would be producing a professional horror trailer we would have to challenge many key conventions as this would make the trailer appeal towards its target audience. The magazine cover and poster would be based towards our horror movie which would establish a mind set to make the audience come to watch the movie when it is released.Firstly our group of me, Cassum, Eric and Sameer decided on producing our teaser trailer, for this our group and also we as individuals conducted research which would help us produce a professional trailer and would help us to include basic conventions which audiences would expect from a horror trailer as we would beyond this and challenge conventions which would create a twist in the storyline which eventually would pull our audiences to come watch the film. Our research did include studying horror trailers, investigating aspects within trailers such as sound and voiceovers and also pre-production roles which would help us bring the whole trailer together.