PR6: The Hollywood Blockbuster

PR6: The Hollywood Blockbuster

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  PR6: The HollywoodBlockbuster Different audiences are targeted by film producers about one film, which can have several reasons. Depending on the theme of the film, if it is a Disney film, such as the Frozen franchise, the producers will target the children, as well as the older generation such as their parents, this is due to if their child wants to go see the film, the parents will accompany them along, and then the producers will aim certain aspects of the film, usually the comedy side, towards the parents to ensure they enjoy the film and would praise it. Audience profiling helps the producers reach their ideal audience by creating their product so that the audience can connect to the product, which ends up with the producers benefiting off the profit. When debating an ideal target audience, the producers will take into consideration factors such as age, gender, religion, education, media interest etc.. to reach their audience. They will also take into consideration, geographical location, such as releasing a filmin a certain area first, to benefit more off the profit, this would usually be where the target audience is more populated that other areas. Cinderella is a new British/American romantic fantasy film directed by Kenneth Branagh. It is set for release in the UK, March 27th 2015. The film Is set to be distributed by Walt Disney Studio’s Motion Pictures and was produced in 2014 by Walt Disney Pictures. The filmwas produced by Simon Kinberg, David Barron and Allison Shearmur. The budget of Cinderella is $95 million. The plot of the filmis very similar to every version of Cinderella, it starts with the girl, Ella (Cinderella) who’s mother died early in her life, leaving her and her father alone together. Ella’s father then falls in love and remarries later on in Ella’s life to a Lady Tremaine, who becomes her step-mother. Her wicked stepmother also has two daughters, Drizella and Anastasia who are evil towards Ella. Ella’s father goes away on business for a while, leaving his wicked wife in charge, who then takes it upon herself to make Ella one of the house staff by doing house chores, which then leads to her two step-sisters nicknaming her, Cinderella. Ella then runs out the castle for a while due to needing space from her step- family on a horse, and runs into a prince, to whom he tells Ella that he one of the Castle’s staff to appear normal to Ella. Ella’s stepmother and sisters, then receive invitations to visit a ball, to which they do not let Cinderella attend at the last minute because they fear out of jealousy what would happen. While everyone is away at the ball, Ella receives a visit from an old beggar woman, who then reveals herself to be Ella’s fairy-godmother and uses magic to transform herself into a white vision. The fairy god-mother then uses her magic on Ella to transform her into a beautiful blue gown and turn a pumpkin into a golden carriage and the mice into horses, to which Ella then does attend the ball. While at the ball, she runs back into the prince, to whom they recognise each other and dance the night away. Just as the clock is about to strike midnight, Ella runs away from the prince before all the magic runs out and she returns back to the way she has become with a scruffy rag dress and messy hairy. As Ella is running away, one of her glass slipper (shoe) falls off and without time to stop, Ella runs off without it. During this, the prince is running after Ella and stops to pick up
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  her shoe anduses this to go searching for her. The prince visits each house with a girl in, and the step-mother gets wind of this and locks Cinderella in a room, knowing the slipper belongs to her. As the prince visits Cinderella’s house, the two step-sisters try and squeeze into the slipper, but the prince notices that it is way too small. During this time, one of the mice that is locked in the room with Cinderella, grabs the key to the room and sneakily gives it to Cinderella, to which she manages to break out just in time to try the slipper on, to which the prince’s surprise it does. The prince and Cinderella then live happily ever after. When films are due for release, the team behind a film start to market it, so advertising the film is crucial as it build up an audience and allows people to talk about the film, therefore creating profit. Cinderella has been marketed by a vary of media industry’s such as TV adverts on channels such as Disney, trailers available online such as Youtube, magazine advert, word of mouth, the internet such as social media sites, cinema advertising such as the trailer before another film, posters and a special screening of the trailer on American morning TV. The more advertising a film gets, the more attention it can gain and this can boost the films popularity and profits. The audience for Cinderella has been targeted for all ages, I think. Obviously the children want to see a Disney film, as its stereotypical princess and they automatically know that certain factors will be included such as some comedic parts, some action and romance. All these factors impress the children and therefore will include the adults/parents to go see
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  the film. Thetarget audience may also include adults separately from children as growing up, the adults would of have defiantly heard of Cinderella and the many versions that are already out there, therefore seeing a new technology version of the filmwould intrigue them to go see it, therefore the filmis collecting profits. The overall theme of princess’ and fairy tales has been targeted for the children, The film has also been targeted for children as before the film is viewed in the cinema, a trailer for ‘Frozen Fever’ is played. This has been released especially by Walt Disney Animation Studios, and is only available before the showing of Cinderella. Due to this factor, children will want to see it. The Cinderella poster also features a blue dress with Cinderella having blonde hair, similar to Queen Elsa in frozen, therefore children will think its related and want to see it, whereas star theory has been targeted for the adults, such as the lead role of Cinderella being portrayed by Lily James, who has previously been known for roles such as the ITV hit, Downton Abbey as well as the role of Prince Kit being portrayed by actor Richard Madden from Game of Thrones, Helena Bonham Carter as the fairy god-mother from famous roles in Tim Burton films, Cate Blanchett as Lady Tremaine who is known famously in Hollywood, Stellan Skarsgard as the grand duke who has been in romance films such as the musical Mamma Mia!. With this star theory, the adults may enjoy their acting in one film/tv show and therefore would be encouraged to see this film. The anchorage of this movie poster has many factors as there have been a few posters released, each featuring different characters of the film. The main poster, features only Cinderella looking back down on her dress, showing off the glass slipper in the bottom right corner near the title. She is wearing the iconic blue dress with the blue hair with a stormy dramatic sky in the background, making her stand out because her dress is brighter despite being the same colours. The title is featured at the bottom of the poster, it is in gold writing which stands out against Cinderella’s blue dress, with the writing overlapping the dress, they are the two iconic colours of this fairy-tale. The second poster is of Cinderella and her
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  Prince. The twoare looking lovingly into each other eyes, again she is wearing the iconic blue dress and the prince is dressed like a typical prince with a sword by his waist. The third is of Helena Bonham Carter (the fairy god-mother). In this role she is recognisable which makes her fans want to see her in her new role. She is dressed in a pure white sparkly big dress waving a magical wand around. The background is the night’s sky which makes her stand out against the blue/blacky tones. The title is featured at the bottom in gold writing which stands out against the white. The fourth poster is of the wicked step-mother, she is standing in the middle in what looks to be a couture expensive gown, she has a firm look on her face of power with, what we can guess, is her two daughters at either side of her. The two daughters (Cinderella’s step-sisters) are mirroring each other with how they are stood and what they are wearing. Cinderella is the most famous story to have a step mother and step sisters therefore we can guess what story line it features. The title is at the bottom of the poster, it doesn’t realty stand out against the step-mothers dress as her dress has slight pattern. The fifth and final poster is simply a blue background, the similar colour blue to Cinderella’s dress. On the right hand side it features the title of the film in gold, which stands out against the background. On the left hand side, it features the iconic glass slipper of Cinderella, the one she accidently leaves at the ball. This is iconic and recognisable as it is the only fairy tale to feature a glass slipper. By all these factors of different characters on different posters, it makes the audience want to know if there’s other posters, to which they will research and find out more about the film, which would make them want to see it. The anchorage on the posters can include the audience recognising the actors in the posters, being pulled in by the colours or the dramatic effect of the poster. Anchorage is the print advertisement of a media product to attract attention. The anchorage is very iconic, as well as the shoe. From the actress’ pose, it looks like she is running away, which can intrigue the audience as well to as what she is running away from, even though the story is well known, it is a remake so the audience is intrigued to see if there is anything different. For a producer, the ways to research your audience can include simple tasks such as exit polls of an unfinished and unpublished film, and off the audience’s opinions and reactions, maybe adjust the filmto their standards so it would be more appreciated and talked about. The producers marketing techniques can involve a number of ways of finding out what the audience think of a franchise or a specific film. This is referred to as primary research, which can conducted through simple tasks such as surveys of a specific audience which can be made up of a variety style of members of the audience to gather a wide variety of feedback of the film. Another way is exit polls, which is where a few questions are gathered together and handed out to a selection of people after their viewing of a filmto gather their information and view on the filmfranchise. These two styles of techniques can gather information and be used to a producer’s advantage by the producers then changing his ways and views to suit more of an audience to gain a bigger fan base and a larger profit.
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  Star Wars: theForce Awakens also known as episode seven (episode VII) is the new American epic space opera edition to the already existing double trilogy of Star Wars. The synopsis of the film has yet to be confirmed but episode VII is set approximately 30 years after the destruction of the Death Star and The Jedi Returns which was the 3rd instalment of the franchise. It has also been confirmed that episode VII will not feature storylines from the expanded universe, which is the official fictional material from the Star Wars saga. Star Wars' target audience can range from the younger generation to the older generation as the older generation grew up watching Star Wars and being surrounded by it as it was unlike anything before. The younger generation also grew up with parts of Star Wars as there are many themed games such as Lego Star Wars and Star Wars Angry birds. Every generation has heard of and have involvement with Star Wars as it features all kinds of genres to attract all audiences such as action, romance, thriller etc. Every generation has heard of Star Wars as it's never goes out of date, it's timeless.
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  Star Wars isof the American epic space opera genre and is set for release in December 2015. The production of this filmhas taken a few years as in May 2013, the locations of the film was confirmed, casting began in late 2013, in 2014, the final script was confirmed and in February the same year, it was announced that filming would begin that may and last around 3 months. Directing episode VII will be JJ Abrams and produced by Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy and Bryan Burk. Episode VII will be distributed by Walt Disney studio motion pictures, who bought LucasFilms in 2012, which was founded by George Lucas who created Star Wars. The budget is around 200 million dollars. Cinematographer for the film, Daniel Mindel stated that episode VII will use more real locations and scale models and less use of computer generate imagery (CGI). Episode VII has been marketed in many ways. On November 28th 2014, a teaser trailer was released and screened across 30 cinemas in America before every film shown, until November 30th 2014. The same day as its cinematic release, the trailer was uploaded to YouTube, generating a total of 58.2 millions views within its first week. December 11th 2014, Star Wars trading cards were released, revealing the name of 8 characters set to be in the up and coming film. There have also been movie posters, interviews as well as 'Star Wars Celebration' taking place in Anaheim, California. It is a fan convention that displays past memorabilia and props that relate to the franchise. There have been around 5 movie posters released advertising episode VII. All of these include iconic features such as the characters, some of them include Darth Vader's helmet, light Sabres and spaceships. Any of these posters are mainly dark scale colours which creates a dramatic effect, which can anchor the audience in. On the posters either at the bottom or the top, they feature writing in a silvery-White colour saying 'Episode VII' which is instantly recognisable as Star Wars is the only franchise to use this type of reference to its sequels. The research methods that the producers used to target their audience would of been the feedback from the previous six films. For episode VII, the well known actors from the early franchise will return such as Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) have returned to reprise their roles. This filmis also using star
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  theory to attractmore of an audience as if the audience know that the original character are back, they would want to see them in action again, therefore they would go and see the film and therefore the film would collect profits. The merchandise for Star Wars will continue with new added extras for the release of the new film. The film will be accompanied by several books and around 20 titles in book and e- book format entitled 'Journey to Star Wars:The Force Awakens' will be released in autumn 2015, prior to the film being released. The books will include Disney-LucasFilms publishers and comic books from Marvel Comics, all to be under the name of Star Wars Universe.