EVALUATION Q: SOCIAL GROUPS

Check that you have addressed the issue of how your audience engages with the characters that you create. Look below at my wording as an example. I refer to stereotypes and link my film to others that my target audience will be familiar with. Use expressions like 'my audience will be familiar with...', 'my audience will recognise...' 'I use the genre stereotype of...'
ADD IN STILL PHOTOS OF YOUR OWN CHARACTERS IN COSTUME and caption them.

TECHNICAL ISSUES: CANON 600D

Before you start filming, take the time to CHECK the recording size. You don't want fuzz and black bars down the sides!
Open the PDF for the Canon 600D here. 
If you find black bars down each side of the frame, adjust size to 1920 x 1080.

SOCIAL NETWORKING STATISTICS

THE FILMMAKER'S GUIDE TO USING THE TOP SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

The Filmmaker’s Guide to Using the Top Social Media Sites

November 14, 2013

posted by sheric

My latest post for MovieMaker Magazine covers social media basics for the top 5 social channels. I have written posts regarding social media basics before, but this piece will include Pinterest and Instagram which I did not cover last time. As you may know, I do not view social media as a campaign oriented endeavor. Campaigns are only conducted for a set amount of time (usually for a sales promotion), but I think it is important to understand that social channels are an every day effort; they should be integrated into your creative life indefinitely. The sooner you start using them professionally, the easier it will be to gain benefit from them, especially if you are thinking of self distributing or crowdfunding.
I am not going to republish my article here in its entirety and only the first installment has been published on the MovieMaker site, but here are some highlights:

#1 Facebook 900,000,000 unique visits per month (figures correct at 25.1.2015)

What do you do with it? Use it to start and maintain an ongoing relationship with your audience. Ask for feedback, start a discussion, or post your views on a current event.  Try to remember, if you only talk about yourself and your work, it’s a boring conversation for everyone else unless you are a celebrity that they are truly interested in. Champion your followers and other artists.  As opposed to the fleeting nature of Twitter, Facebook pages are meant for deeper discussions and closer relationships with your supporters.

The indie documentary DMT: The Spirit Molecule is a good Facebook example to follow

#2 Youtube 1 billion unique visits per month (figures correct at 25.01.15)

What do you do with it? Build a video subscriber base.  View counts on videos are great and definitely have a use in securing optimal placement in Youtube search and publicity attention (though it will take many millions of views for it to have an impact on press coverage), but your subscribers are the ones who will see your new videos in their homepage newsfeed and receive an email when you post something new.  Also, encourage Likes, comments and shares of your videos as that impacts how Youtube ranks your channel in its search results. If you aren’t prepared to fill this channel with regular content that is HIGHLY compelling, don’t use this social tool.

FreddieW’s Youtube Channel has over 6.5 million subscribers.

#3 Twitter 310,000,000 unique visits per month

What do you do with it? Use it to post short (less than 140 character) messages that are funny, informative, or reflect your outlook on life.  Not only will you be connecting with the audience of your work, you will also find Twitter a great industry networking tool (for jobs!) and a place to connect with journalists (for media coverage). Make sure that your Twitter handle is posted on all of your communication including email signature and newsletters, website, other social channels, business cards and any About You section where your name is included.

#4 Pinterest 250,000,000 unique visits per month

What do you do with it? Use it to post photos and videos found or created online. Pinterest runs on  well made and captivating images. People who use this social channel are looking for visual masterpieces or images that speak to their lives and emotions. Filmmakers may use Pinterest to tell a visual story about how they became the artists they are; influences, professional tools, and the tastes, style and personality behind the work. For individual projects, Pinterest can be used to tell a backstory on characters (individual boards set up to further explain a character), information on the setting of the story, and mood boards that give the audience a sense of what the film is, apart from just a trailer or poster.

Indie film producer Ted Hope uses Pinterest to show the world who he is and what he cares about professionally.

#5 Instagram 100,000,000 unique visits per month

What do you do with it? Use it to post photos and videos taken with a mobile device as your visual representation of every day life rather than a place to post high quality images. Instagram is being used to post on-the-fly photos and short videos taken on the set and making 15 second short trailers and character teaser clips specifically for mobile viewing. Feedback is instantaneous so you will know very quickly if your project is capturing attention and gaining followers.
The full article details how to set up accounts on each social channel and some examples of independent filmmakers to emulate because they excel at building an audience on these channels. The first part (covering Facebook and Youtube) is now live. The second part will be live on November 25.

SCOOPIT!

Use SCOOPIT! to collect together all online materials for your film opening.

1. Create a SccopIt! account

2. Collect websites: thriller codes and conventions, info on genre, costume ideas...anything useful. So, for example, films similar to the one that has inspired you, info on Porton Down, news reports of kidnappings, psychologist's profile of kidnapper....ScoopIt! will suggest ideas to you once you start scooping.

3. Write a blogpost about what you have done (as below).

(Use this as a model for your post)

Here is my ScoopIt! where I am collecting the crime drama that I plan to investigate. ScoopIt! is an online curating tool that collates my research (like a magazine) as well as offering useful interactive features (offering suggestions that I might like to 'scoop'.) Sign up HERE. 

An example of a ScoopIt! on TV crime drama HERE

Class: My example is thriller codes and conventions: yours be film & TV crime

SNAPCHAT STORIES

You will use Snapchat to make a 'story' (give an account) of one of your Construction or Planning processes.

Beginner's Guide to Snapchat

Snapchat Tips and Tricks from Mashable

OPEN TIPS HERE!

We look at the work of Casey Neistat, a film maker who has more than 480,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. In particular, we look at his use of Snapchat Stories.

You plan to create a Snapchat Story as an account of some of your creative work.

TUESDAY COVER WORK

Year 12: period 1 and 2 Media Studio

You will not have a cover teacher as you can be relied on to work hard on your film openings on your own.

Please continue working in your groups as you did last lesson. 

1.Tammy, Harvey Eliza, and Ellen  will be editing. Your blue memory card is on the teacher's desk. Please return it to the same place to keep it safe!

2.Other groups will be planning, updating storyboards, posting. Get on productively!

HOW DISNEY MARKETED FROZEN

Official Trailer 

Disney Music Group VP of Marketing Rob Souriall on the ‘Frozen’ Soundtrack’s Success

Disney Music Group predicts that the Frozen soundtrack will sell another 1.2 million units in the U.S. between now and September.
In order to create buzz for the soundtrack’s first single, “Let It Go,” which was originally performed by Broadway star Idina Menzel, Rob’s team had singer Demi Lovato record a different version of the song that was released as a single before the soundtrack came out. “Musically, Demi’s song was done a little more mainstream,” said Rob. “It was something pop radio might be a little more open to, and with her built in fan base, we knew we’d have a big publicity and social play. It helped us roll out an asset before the film opened.”There are currently 60,000 user-generated-content videos related to “Let It Go” on YouTube, which has accounted for more than 600 million streams. Since Disney is now claiming their compositions and master recordings on YouTube ­ “that means that any time somebody decides to sing a cover version of our song, or they shoot a video and use our track or master recording, it goes into a massive database, gets flagged on the back end of YouTube, and if that user sells advertising around the video at all, we now get a larger share of that revenue,” said Rob. 

How Disney Turned ‘Frozen’ Into a Cash Cow

Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times, 18.11.14

The Patriot Center at George Mason University, half an hour west of Washington, is a popular place to watch concerts, college athletics, professional wrestling and other events that command the attention of the adult world. But no event in the 29-year history of the arena has attracted as many people or earned as much money as last month’s performances of “Disney on Ice Presents ‘Frozen.’ ” For six days, waves of little blue-and-white Princess Elsas — and quite a few costumed parents — sang the movie’s hit song, “Let It Go,” at the top of their lungs, enjoyed $15 snow cones, posed for $25 pictures with cardboard cutouts and waved plastic sticks, which had miraculously become $28 magic wands.

Behold the bewitching power of branding. In the year since Disney’s latest princess movie, “Frozen,” opened last November, Elsa and her sister, Anna, have rapidly become two of the world’s most successful product endorsers. Disney said earlier this month that it had already sold three million “Frozen” dresses in North America, which, as it happens, is roughly the number of 4-year-old girls in North America. In January, “Frozen” wedding dresses go on sale for $1,200. Next summer, “Adventures by Disney” is offering tours of Norwegian sites that inspired the film’s animators at prices starting north of $5,000. The company is also rolling out “Frozen"-branded “apples and grapes, juice, yogurt, bandages and a complete oral-care line.” Disney estimates that “Frozen” brought in more than $1 billion in retail revenue over the last year. The chief executive, Robert A. Iger, told CNBC that he expected holiday sales to be “very, very hot.”

The creators of “Frozen,” Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, told me that they set out to create characters young girls would recognize. “I love Cinderella,” Lee says. “Am I anything like her? No. I grew up and became someone more independent.” Elsa and Anna, she says, “are princesses because they’ve got the weight of a kingdom on their shoulders, not as the solution to a happy ending.”

They realized they had succeeded, and then some, soon after the movie was released, when they went to see it like ordinary people. Lee found herself in a New York theater, where many audience members already knew the words. Then she started to hear people singing on the street. A year later, they haven’t stopped. Does she ever get tired of hearing “Let It Go”? No. Not really. Not yet. “When I’m old, it will be the only thing left in my brain,” she says.

Brands are said to be in decline. Studies show that customers are less loyal to companies, quicker to try something new. Products increasingly rise and fall on their own merits. “Brand names have become less important as proxies for quality,” says Itamar Simonson, a professor at Stanford University. He argues that consumers now get better information about products from the Internet. But Disney, perhaps more than any other large company, appears to be impervious to the trend. It helps that the company is not selling products based on the quality of craftsmanship, but based on the quality of its stories. Disney also specializes in selling affordable luxuries. An Elsa dress is considerably more expensive than an ordinary dress, like a cup of Starbucks coffee costs more than an ordinary cup of coffee. But it is not that expensive. Every item of the dozens of “Frozen” products at the Disney store cost less than $100. More important, though, to Disney’s success is that many of its best customers are still learning how to read and don’t care what things cost. It’s not as if toddlers check out Amazon reviews.

As a result, Disney is in the midst of a golden age of profitability. Disney characters have been endorsing products since 1929, when Walt Disney put Mickey Mouse on a writing tablet. But licensing, which began as a sideline, has become the main event. In most years, Disney makes more money from selling branded movie merchandise than from the actual movies. “We create products that extend the storytelling — the emotional connection that the consumer has when they’re seeing the film carries on in the three-dimensional world,” says Josh Silverman, the executive vice president for global licensing. A recent favorite, he says, is the Olaf snow-cone maker. Modeled after the slapstick snowman who provides the comic relief in “Frozen,” it emits frosty treats from a somewhat disturbing hole in Olaf’s belly.

24 November 2014

"After all, who wants to say no to their princess?"Good parents. That's who.

The popularity of “Frozen” is also buoyed by the expanding toy market for girls. Princesses may seem like a permanent feature of the toyscape, but they were less common before the 1990s. “The idea that pink princess fantasy dream dolls have always been a part of girlhood is false,” says Elizabeth Sweet, a lecturer at the University of California, Davis, who studies the cultural history of toys. Sweet has found that the popularity of gender-neutral toys reached a peak in the mid-1970s. Since then, toy makers have embraced the market-doubling effect of pushing certain toys to boys and other toys to girls. Sweet says the level of gender segregation has never been higher. A typical big-box store might have four aisles of blue toys and four aisles of pink toys with an aisle of yellow toys in between. “Separate but equal,” she says. Legos, for example, evolved from simple packs of building blocks into play sets mostly sold to boys, often with brand tie-ins. In 2012, the company introduced Lego Friends, which are basically Legos for girls.

Disney really began to focus on princesses in 2000, after a new executive went to see a “Disney on Ice” show and was struck by how many of the girls in the audience were wearing homemade princess costumes. “They weren’t even Disney products,” the executive, Andy Mooney, told the writer Peggy Orenstein for her book about the rise of princesses, “Cinderella Ate My Daughter.” The Disney Princess line now makes about $4 billion a year, on par with the earning power of Mickey Mouse himself. (The “Frozen” girls are not, as yet, official members of the Princess ensemble.)

This market has similarities with, of all things, the pharmaceutical industry. Drugs are marketed to patients, who tend to trust brand names over generics, and are paid for by insurance companies, under their contractual obligations. This has an inflationary effect on drug prices, leading to those eye-popping numbers that send the uninsured fleeing U.S. drugstores to try their luck in Tijuana. Similarly, toys and the like are marketed to children and purchased by parents. People who would never buy a $15 snow cone for themselves will buy one, gladly or grudgingly, for each of their children.

After all, who wants to say no to their princess?

Disney’s ‘Frozen’ is sending tourists packing for Norway

Travel Weekly Michelle Baran 06.07.14

VisitNorway partnered with Disney in October, in advance of the film’s November release, to introduce a global marketing campaign to raise awareness about the destination, on which the fictional kingdom of Arendelle featured in the film was based. 

How Disney Will Make 'Frozen' a Billion-Dollar Franchise 

Daniel Kline The Motley Fool 14.05.14

 

 

Every Time You Sang Along To 'Frozen,' You Capitulated To Disney’s Carefully Orchestrated Marketing Plans 

Laura O'Reilly, Business Insider Oct. 16, 2014

Read More

Even if you’ve not actually seen Disney’s Frozen at the cinema, you’ve no doubt heard about it somewhere online.
Between the official Disney promos, the YouTube video of a dad and daughter singing along in the car to "Let it Go" (13 million views), or the outrageously cute nurse and teeny girl hospital patient belting out “Love Is An Open Door” — it’s inescapable.
And that was exactly Disney’s plan.
Of all the official online movie ads uploaded by the six big studios this year, almost half (44.2%) of the views went Disney’s way, according to a new report from Unruly. All of Disney’s 10 most-viewed videos (including videos that were paid for and those that weren’t) were related to Frozen.
Disney/"Frozen"They won't be sending any cease-and-desist letters.
And unlike most of the other big movie promos between September 2013 and September 2014, Disney's online content push actually peaked after the film’s premiere. People weren’t just searching for the trailer, they were looking for clips of the movie — which Disney duly served — generating millions of organic views and spawning off thousands of related user-generated videos. Notably, those user videos have not been taken off YouTube at Disney's request, even though YouTube has a robust system for spiking copyright infringing content. We don't know whether Disney deliberately turned a blind eye to other people publishing Frozen song videos, but we can say those videos actually helped Disney's marketing of the movie — free advertising, in other words.
The top-shared Frozen videos were clips of the film launched on YouTube after the movie opened. In fact, the official trailer did not even rank in the top 10 shared videos of the 12 month period studied.
Why is this important?
Unruly says that almost a third (31%) of moviegoers who watch a movie promo (presumably whether that’s paid-for, organic, or a fan version not even made by the studio itself) would purchase a ticket to watch the film, and 28% they’d rent it.
The movie, which had a $150 million production budget, has grossed $1.2 billion at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo. The Unruly study doesn’t provide the exact link between those who saw Frozen videos and those who then went on to see the movie at the cinema, but it’s clear that the huge buzz Frozen has amassed online has built enough intrigue for people to dig into their pockets and watch the real thing for themselves.
What the study also demonstrates to film studios is that their strongest “trailers” probably aren’t their trailers, which goes against most of the received wisdom from decades of marketing their biggest hits. And they can also learn from this study that if a movie has the equivalent of a music video in it — Ed Sheeran’s “I See Fire” video for the new Hobbit movie has more than 34 million YouTube views — all the better.
The two main reasons why people share a video is the strength of the emotional response it elicits and social motivations like shared passions, being part of the zeitgeist and opinion seeking. Expect more studios to get a lot smarter — and a lot more incessant — about the way they advertise their movies online going forward.

Here’s the most watched official Disney Frozen video on YouTube:

Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/disneys-frozen-marketing-and-online-singalongs-2014-10#ixzz3ORr70rtU

What Marketers Should Learn From Disney's 'Frozen'

Scott Davis Forbes  15.1.2014

As I watched Frozen’s success continue to snowball over the past six weeks – winning a Golden Globe on Sunday, landing a rare A+ rating from CinemaScore and surpassing The Lion King to become the highest grossing Disney-produced animated film of all time – I couldn’t help but think about the lessons marketers should be learning from the film’s unbelievable success.
Sure, it’s a great story, and Disney has once again found a way to surpass expectations by creating enduring characters and songs that rule the box office and album charts, as well as merchandising and promotional charts.  But masterful marketing is playing a huge role in this impressive feat: What can marketers learn from Frozen’s success?
Focus on winning disproportionate share with your core target segment.
As great brands know, if you really nail it with the segments you are trying to win with, there is a decent chance you will get a halo effect with adjacent segments. Disney has stuck with female protagonists accompanied by great storytelling and songs that belong on Broadway and, in turn, continue to capture young girls’ and their parents’ hearts and money, time and time again.
Mine customer insights to inform where marketing risks make sense.
Disney learned in a good way from Tangled and Brave, which by all accounts were huge smashes at over $200 million U.S. each, that if you totally leave out boys, you will cut your audience potential, fracture families and potentially miss out on a much bigger piece of the pie. The initial marketing for Frozen showed Snow Man Olaf-focused trailers with humorous dialog and no songs, emphasizing its appeal as an animated comedy with “boy humor.” These trailers were followed by previews that included action and adventure. In October, we saw the full plot line, multiple male and female characters, action, song and humor.  It wasn’t until the film was released to such widespread love and overwhelming word-of-mouth promotion that audiences learned it was a story dominated by the relationship of two sisters.  The slow reveal plan worked; stats show that 43% of audience members are male.
When possible, seek opportunities to expand your category frame of reference to bolster the brand and get to adjacent segments of the market.
Last week, Frozen knocked Beyoncé out of the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 album-sales chart, only the fourth animated film soundtrack in the chart’s 58-year history to do so. The movie is helping to bolster the soundtrack and vice-versa. Add in Demi Lovato’s version of the big number “Let It Go” and Idina Menzel’s Wicked credentials and you are going to drive album sales, iTunes views and moviegoers. Get an A+ on CinemaScore, 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and throw in Josh Gad from Book Of Mormon as Olaf, and you have a recipe for appealing beyond young girls to other demographics and usage occasions.
Don’t rest on your brand laurels.
Extend your product’s life-cycle to drive new awareness and create additional buying/revenue opportunities. Disney’s Bob Iger has already announced plans to create a Broadway play based on Frozen similar to The Lion King. Frozen on Ice is not far behind, and Frozen’s DVD launch in March will most likely set all sorts of records. When your brand has the equity and staying power of a brand like Frozen, you should ride it out as long as you can. 

The Advertising Outlet

Katie Brockman

After the movie was released Disney continued to make smart marketing decisions by seizing every opportunity. I’m sure it’s easy to bask in the success of a blockbuster film and sit back to enjoy the accolades and broken records. But instead, Disney created a sing-along version to extend theater life, announced an upcoming Broadway musical based on the film, and pounced on the opportunity for Idina Menzel to sing at the Oscars (of course we all have to give John Travolta credit for even more publicity). Sometimes such an aggressive marketing campaign can backfire (like when you see the same commercial three thousand times a day and start to despise it), but when a company knows their audience and realizes that Frozen fans will never get sick of it, it’s a smart move.
Another aspect of this movie that I’ve never seen with any other film is that it’s still in theaters (in my town, anyway) despite also being available on DVD/Blu-ray/iTunes. This seems completely counterintuitive, because all logic says that people won’t pay to see it in the theater when they can download it from home. Again, though, this is a case of Disney knowing its audience. I know people who have seen it over ten times in the theater, not thinking twice about the cost. And Disney knows there are these types of fans who will keep buying tickets, so why stop showing it?

 

 

 

Disney's Frozen "Let It Go" Sequence Performed by Idina Menzel

G322 TV DRAMA

Under 'pages' create a page with feedback / advice for yourself about how to succeed in your TV drama analysis.
Write down the key points of guidance from my recent marking on the disability exam extract.

G322 ISTITUTIONS AND AUDIENCES

UK film has had remarkable critical and commercial success in recent years with films as diverse as 12 Years a Slave and Skyfall. Our great directors are frequently courted by Hollywood, and Hollywood regularly visits these shores to make films like Gravity and the new Star Wars films. Why do audiences, both at home and abroad, enjoy British films? How do UK filmmakers appeal to these audiences?
This Study Day will examine these issues and relate it to case studies of two independent film companies – Vertigo and Warp Films. These two companies are producing and distributing films that are commercially successful but which also retain a uniquely British flavour - and a willingness to tackle themes and content that Hollywood usually avoids. In the afternoon there will be a film screening and a Q&A with the film-makers giving students and teachers a chance to ask questions about the state of UK cinema and how it will develop in the future. This event is particularly useful for OCR AS Media students for the ‘Audiences and Institutions’ exam unit.


Led by Matthew Hall, Head of Film and Media Studies, Seven Kings High School; author of the BFI’s Teaching Men and Film