Internet Page Advertising

Since I finished my research on Viral advertising, I have seen that a lot of big companies use various internet sites to advertise their films. Popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter are at the front of popular websites to advertise on. This involves both advertising from their OWN actual Twitter or Facebook page, or paying the social networkingsite money to advertise on the side of the internet page. Inthe modern day, Millions of people use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and therefore this is a massive base for people and a brilliant place for companies to advertise if it is done effectively.

To the right is a screenshot of Universal Pictures official twitter account writing a tweet in Early October about trailers for films which are upcoming from their company.

This tweet is intended for people who are following them to look at and gain information about the trailers and release date of the upcoming films. This can also act like a small version of a viral ad because people who followed 'UniversalPics' on twitter can 'ReTweet' this particular tweet so people who are following themcan also see it. They may alsotweet this tweet and so on. As well as having an official account on twitter, you can have promoted tweets and trends which will make the companies tweet appear to a wider audience. A 'Trend' is what people in certain areas are talking about in their tweets, the most popular trends will appear on the Twitter homepage so everyone can see it. A 'promoted Trend' will mean that the trend which the company, charity or person has started will mean the trend will be at the top of the trend list so everyone can see it. Twitter also gives you the option to change your location so you can see the 'trends' in different locations, if a trend is promoted, it will appear as the top and most popular trend in every location in the United Kingdom.

Below are the screenshots for Twitter page where you can make an apply for an advertised tweet, trend or even account. They all have the aim of broadening their audience and generally their fan base. If this promoted service was done effectively and successfully, it is a very clever way of finding new fans for the films as the first part of anyone buying tickets to see a film is informing them that the film is being released soon. The Screenshot on the right is the Trends section on the Twitter homepage for United Kingdom. There is no promoted or advertised trends at the moment, as they are signified and showed to be promoted ones. This has a bigger effect with bigger companies who have a wider catchment area and more followers. As I have previously touched on, bigger companies do have twitter to advertise their films and give information out on twitter, and it is quite effective to urge people to go and see the film aswell as giving information out about the film itself, the company and films it may also release in the future.

There is also the same type of sponsored links on Facebook and they work the same way to Twitter but in just they are advertisement space on the side which companies buy and give money to Facebook to advertise there and gives a link to the proper companies website where you can purchase their product, this also makes the brand a more popular and well-known name which in return makes their money they paid to advertise their product or company worth-while. Below is a screenshot of how the advertisements work on Facebook. The amount of people who like these pages can be in the hundreds of thousands and even millions which proves that Social networking sites have a massive catchment area, especially for younger people and the student population.

Music Copyright research

'I looked into this issue re. audio on my teaching website a couple of years ago. I was awaiting the publication of a collection of violin/piano arrangements and wanted to use my recordings of the pieces on my site to promote the books. I read up on the subject on the ASCAP website, and from what I can gather, if you are using an audio of an arrangement or cover, not the original track, you don't need permission. Circulating sheet music of your arrangement without copyright permission, however, is illegal.'

This is a quote from a woman in the UK who has contacted harryfox.com which handle copyrighted music and went onto the ASCAP website which is all about the laws of copyright in everything from music to film. The law of copyrighted music states that as long as you are not using the music as a profitable use of media and are crediting the original artist or are making a cover of the music, you are not breaking any copyright laws.

Ending Music Research

We have decided that the ending of our movie is going to be very emotional so the song we have chosen is not suitable for the end scene but is for the movie. At the end of the movie we are going to use a powerful piano piece that will give a better sense of emotion and pain.



This is a piano cover of Linkin Park's In The End. the pace and key of this piano piece is very effective and would work well within our ending scene of our movie.


This is a cover of Lisa Miskovsky's Still Alive. This is also a very good song possibility because of the pace and effectivenes of the piano piece.

Script Screen Shots

Viral Advert research for films

iral advertising is a massive part in modern day advertising for films. If done well, it can create a massive domino-like advertisingthat is passed on by many people and creates a wave of hype and excitement for the film. It also has very little cost unlike advertising on the television or radio. A popular form as viral advertising is creating a picture or video which the public can change to put their face or a friends face on, they then send this on to a friend and the film gets advertised further. The friend then sends the same video on, or puts another friends face on the video or picture and so on.

The picture on the right is a basic outline on how a viral marketing E-mail

aims to work and how it can spread about from just one E-mail from one person to another.

A notable film which tries to get successful advertisement from using viral advertising is 2008 British Film 'Shifty' which was directed by Eran Creevy. The Viral advertising that it used was an E-mail which allowed someone to put a picture of a friend on a picture that is staged to look like it's from the police and has caught the person doing a drug deal. It is supposed to trick the reader into thinking it is from the police and they have been caught. 'Shifty' is about a drug deal so it is related to the film and advertises it well. Although, this viral advertisement later got banned, this gave the film more publicity, although primarily it was bad publicity, it advertised and made the film more well known to the public so in many ways it was good. Also, any publicity is good publicity is good a lot of the time for films.

Full feature Hollywood films don't just use advertisement on TVs and radios either. A lot of advertisement is now on the internet, mostly on the film's own website or YouTube. A good example of how big companies use this is 2008 film The Dark Knight directed by Christopher Nolan. On the Dark Knight's website, it uses space to advertise the blu-ray dvd and gives a link to a online shop where the public can buy the DVD. This is not an advertisement which we go from person to person in a domino effect like the 'Shifty' one will although it is a very simple way of giving an easy option to the public so they can purchase the film with little effort or stress. It also gives an option at the bottom of the screen saying 'Answer the Bat Signal'

This is the particular prank which Shifty used in an E-mail to the left which allowed users to put a picture of a friend on it. This created a wave of publicity through the internet from the public passing this on.

which is getting people to sign up for updates on the film so the producers and companies send E-mails to the public who signed up giving updates and information about the film and perhaps some offers for future films which the company produces. This may not be a massive thing or take a massive amount of effort, but the first part to getting fans and the public to see your music is to remind them about when the film is being released will get people interested and keep them interested until the release

date.

A large part of Viral ads is also videos which can be shared from one person to another. The most popular and well-known viral ad video is by 'Blend-tec'. This basically

features a man putting something, possibly a product new on the market or something expensive into a blender to 'see if it blends'. The screenshot on the right shows Blend-tec putting an Apple iPad in a blender. This is an effective viral ad campaign as the Apple iPad was released not far before this video was posted. Many people find these videos funny and share them to other people. People also post them to their social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The Blend-tec campaign is a perfect example of how viral ads are designed to work as many people talk about the adverts and share them to their friends. It also has a clear target audience in each one of their videos, and as they have done hundreds of videos featuring different things and they all have different target audiences. The way it is campaigned is also a major reason why it makes it successful as a lot of the new products which come on the market, particularly electronic products, blend-tec do a new version of 'Will it Blend?' and post it on YouTube. This is the link to the iPad version of 'Will it Blend?': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

Title sequence research

To gain further knowledge on title sequences to make one of greater quality for our short film, we have been looking and researching title sequences from short and full feature films to see what film makers go for and what they do to make them successful. We also looked at title sequences from films which are similar to our short films and ones which aren't really similar in terms of genre or length.

The first one we looked at is 'Batman' which was produced in 1989. Although this is a very simple opening title sequence, it is really effective and goes hand-in-hand with the type of film which is dramatic and full of excitement. This title sequence is also brilliant as it is tense and adds excitement to the audience as they wait for the film to start. We want to take this into our opening title sequence and add tension to ours as the audience wait for the film to start. It also doesn't give anything away in the opening title sequence which we want in ours. In addition, the Batman video features the perfect music for this particular title sequence and we need to find the perfect music which will suit our title sequence if we are to do one similar to this. Another point is that this title sequence is very dark and you can't see what is happening and where the camera is which makes the audience more eager and excited for the film to start. The link to this video on youtube is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l11BPzYehUE

The Next film opening sequence we looked at was 'Terminator Salvation' which was produced in 2009 by Warner Brothers. This film is more of an action film although the opening title sequence fits the aims of our title sequence and what we want it to be like. It is really dark at the opening scene and the music is slow and is used to build up to the film and gives out a sort of anticipation to the audience without giving too much away. This is a key point we want to take into our opening scene in our film. Although it must be remembered that this Terminator film is the 4th in the series, so a lot of the audience will have seen the previous films and will know a lot about the films and what they involved, so the directors don't need to give much away in the opening scene. The writing is also suitable for the opening scene as it is slow-running and is it time with the music and the overall scene, which is dark and looks to be moving across various places associated with the film.

Character Costumes - Nick Cooper (Liam Fountain)

Nick will wear the same clothes all the time throughout his appearances in the film. This is because he is only in for a short amount of time. He is a very fashionable kid and takes pride in his appearance. He is judged as mainstream by the choice of clothes he wears but he likes to think he's the trend-setter. We feel the clothes chosen for Nick reflect him as a person.

Indigo hoodie (Topman) - As Nick is a bit of a plain lad we felt that a plain hoodie would fit his character well. The colour contrasts well with the rest of the clothes he wears.



Black skinny jeans (Topman) - As well as being a bit plain he likes to think he's a bit of an indie kid so we felt that skinny jeans would be the perfect trouser wear for him. The colour black also fits in brilliantly with the rest of his costume and suits him down to the ground.



Blue fairisle jumper (Topman) - We felt this jumper is the best one for Nick as these kind of jumpers are thought to be mainstream. The different shades of blue match the hoodie well and really make Nick look the part.



Hi-top Converse (Schuh) - The chosen footwear for Nick are also considered very 'mainstream' so these are a great choice for him. The colour of white with black jeans makes them stand out a lot.

Character Costumes - Tom Johnson (Nathan Denman)

Walking over to Claire - Same as before

Same costume throughout the rest of his appearance in the movie

Character Costumes - Claire Johnson (Bethany Vaines)

Character Costumes - Ciaran Farley (Kieran Lawless)

Ciaran is a lad who likes his designer clothes and always has to be seen with the latest brand names. He'll pay eccentric amounts of money just to have a 'name'. The clothes we picked for Ciaran reflect how much he loves designer clothes.

In bedroom - Voi Jeans (black) - We picked these as they are a popular brand and they also cost a lot, therefore reflecting the kind of clothes the character likes to wear.

Then enters bathroom to get changed - Voi jeans (black), Black checkered shirt (Topman)

Just before leaving house adds - Nike Hi Tops and Body warmer

Same costume throughout the rest of his appearance in the movie

Shooting Script

Shot 1: A split screen of Ciaran and Claire talking on the phone.

Shot 2: The split screen continues onto here and shows them finishing the conversation.

Shot 3: Close up of both characters pressing the 'end phonecall' button on their phones.

Shot 4: Both characters begin to get ready and turn the radio on. The music is diegetic so both the audience and characters can hear it.

Shot 5: They both turn off the radio and leave their bedrooms.

Shot 6: Leave the house at the same times.

Shot 7: Camera follows both characters on their journeys. First shot of journeys is walking down to the end of their respective streets.

Shot 8: The second shot of them on the journey shows how similar they are to each other. E.g. Holding onto railings as they go past, etc.

Shot 9: The camera flicks from split screen to full screen and just a mid-shot of Ciaran having a conversation with Nick.

Shot 10: This is a shot of Claire walking into the flower shop to purchase flowers

Shot 11:

Questionnaire

How old are you?

What is your occupation?

Where you from?

Gender?

Do you watch short films?

If so where and what?

What type of movies do you like to watch?

Do you like romantic drama's?

What do you think to our story?

What type of music do you think will be on short films?

What type of titles will be on this short film?

Where do you think our film will be shown?

Would you personally watch our film?

If so would you recommend it to friends?

What type of audience would our film be aimed at?