In Class Activity - Art of the Title

In class, we did an exercise where we reviewed Art of the Title website to get ideas from famous movies. One movie that I did genre research on was "Split" so I enjoyed seeing how they made their movie introduction. The genre of this film is similar to ours in the mystery category it gave me some ideas. The introduction started with incidental music and created the eerie tone of the film. During the start of the film when the different phases and shots go in and out, the split personality is hinted to the viewer. With this idea in mind we wanted to create a foreshadowing scene at the beginning where the stalker is present, so the audience gets an idea of what might happening. Art of the Title states, "the sequence builds upon a rich title design tradition. It’s driven by three simple ingredients: a black screen, white typography, and the typeface Helvetica". The use of simple, dark, and bold titles helps create a sense of mystery and indicates the overall mood.

Audience Engagement Research - Kidnap

Our film and "Kidnap" are both similar because they both have a genre of mystery, thriller, and drama. Our target audience aims towards teenagers and young adults. In our film, the main character gets kidnapped at the end so both films have a lot in common. Also, both films have girls as the main actors.

The movie "kidnap used many marketing strategies to engage its audience. For starters, there was a lot of hype for Oscar-winning Halle Berry as the star in it. Lots of social media pages were created for the fans, which also targeted the younger audience. This lets fans share and tweet the movie to others. Halle and the cast also had many interviews and trailers as they showed a sneak peek of the preview. Besides the use of trailers and commercials billboards were also displayed to get the word out. By the use of billboards on major roads let drivers view it quickly and maybe search more about it at a later time.

With many similarities between this and our film, I enjoyed doing research on it. I think the use of social media to help advertise will also be beneficial in our movie as well.  We could use various social media outlets such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram to promote my film with the use of hashtags and fan pages. This will also help target the younger audience. I think the use of a billboard and an intriguing image will make the driver want to know more about it when they pass it.  Lastly, I liked how they conducted interviews with the casts and directors. By doing this we could answer the audience questions about the movie to make them excited to go watch it when it premieres

Audience Engagement Research - Bird Box

The next film I was interested in researching was "Bird Box". This film is classified as a mystery film jut like ours. Many of the target audiences are similar because this was popular among teens and young adults

"Bird Box" was first revealed on Netflix and created lots of talk among people. This was due to all the memes being made about it; which appeared all over different social media platforms. There were many different feelings and reviews both good and bad. This is what prompted many people to want to watch it for themselves. In just the first week on Netflix, there were over 45 million streams. Memes are defiantly a new marketing strategy transforming how their brand is released to the public. In this movie and others, memes have helped it increase brand recognition and audience engagement. This movie also used basic marketing strategies including billboards and commercials. Also to create buzz many celebrities like Kim Kardashian tweeted about watching this movie. Besides the use of Twitter and memes, "The Bird Box Challenge was formed". Fans began blindfolding themselves just like the main characters in the movie. Then they would record themselves doing various tasks and share them on social media. Bird Box was created with less than 20 million and considered a modest budget for a great outcome.

With great success on Netflix, I think making our film be available on an online streaming device would increase the rating. Also using different advertising techniques like billboards and commercials would be a good idea. Also to market my film, I would put a movie trailer in movies with the same genre and target audience to capture the attention of the viewers to make them more inclined to go see the movie.

Audience Engagement Research - Bridesmaids

"Bridesmaid" and our film "Girls Night" both include a female group as their main characters. This is especially due to the comedy and dialogue between characters. Just like this and our movie, it can be related to girls' real-life issues. "Bridesmaids" used comedy, different scenes, and props to engage the audience.

Social media played a big role in marketing this movie. This lets a wide range of people reach different social media platforms at once; in some cases even by accident. Through this social media success, many fans created different character accounts. To create more ticket sales Universal created a buzz before the movie was even out. A week before the release they created 'an opening weekend launch package', this gave the target audience hype before it even came out. This was created through the use of Twitter, online articles, Tumblr, videos and text. Facebook also came out with a contest for participants to preview the movie before it came out. The Facebook competitors had to send pictures of themselves in their worst bridesmaid dresses. Universal Pictures International campaign for "Bridesmaids" led them to win the inaugural Movie Marketer of the Year award at the Australian International Movie Convention. This accounted for ad space in both print and digital publications worth up to $250,000. Overall many ranked "bridesmaids" to be the best movie campaign of 2011.

After seeing how "bridesmaids" marketed their film I saw many marketing techniques that could be useful. I feel with lots of teenagers involved in social media now this would be a good way to market our film. I also liked how they released information about the movie a week before to get the hype going. Lastly, by having the trailer appear on similar genre platforms at the movies or on YouTube would make the audience have an interest in seeing it.

My Target Audience

Our film's target audience is teenage girls in high school. The film is videoed in a high-end mall with many upper-class stores. We plan to have this movie available throughout the United States and English speaking countries. Teenage girls love shopping and having sleepovers so with having a fun girls night they would have an interest in watching this. I think the various activities we do would be appealing to younger viewers. This includes watching scary movies and hanging out together for a fun night. Additionally,  having the various scenes of the stalker and background music also keeps the viewer's attention.

Feedback and Revisions

Before we finish our final submission we found a few things to reconsider and change in our film. First, we want to edit some beginning scenes. We feel if we make our takes longer it will be easier to follow; currently, they are a little short and choppy. I also figured we should change the sizing of fonts to make it fit better in the new edits. During our first shooting, the stalker that follows the girls only appears once for a short take. If we add more scenes of the hooded stalker at the beginning the audience will get a better sense of foreshadowing and mystery mood. I came up with the idea of using different angles when filming the stalker behind the girls. This creates more of a realistic feel and shows how the stalker will move and follow them. Also to increase the horror theme we will add various sound effects and incidental music. When the character is walking to her car, in the end, using fast pace music will increase the anticipation and suspense.

These changes will better overall portray the genre of horror and mystery in a more sophisticated way. By having the stalker appear more makes the audience know something is about to happen. Additionally, many horror films use incidental music to create a more eerie mood. By adding these changes the audience will be on the edge of their seat and nervous about what will come next.

To carry out these changes our group will need to re-shoot parts of the mall scene. We will need to match the clothes we used in the first take to match the later scenes. We also will have the stalker and clothes to mimic the hooded figure again. Lastly, we will become more familiar with using Adobe Premiere Pro to add incidental music and good transitions.

Use of Conventions

With our film being classified as a horror/mystery and drama film, many conventions were used to showcase it. Throughout the film, we used many over the shoulder shots to create suspense. This lets the viewer be able to know what is happening and not the actor. When researching horror genres this was used a lot to portray the bad guy. To represent are antagonist we used a black hooded figure. This lets us hid their face and make the scene more suspenseful. To create a gloomy mood we used incidental music to create a sense of the unknown for the audience. Lastly, short takes were used to intensify the feeling of both the characters and viewers.

Our social groups consist of teenage girls. The main characters are having a fun day at the mall and unaware of their surroundings. Throughout the film, the girls are clueless about what is going on around them. When out at night girls should always stick together in a group and never walk alone. When one character went outside alone the stalker appeared and attacked. By staying together they have a chance of fighting off the bad guy. Teenage girls are presented throughout the movie, so I would consider teenagers our target audience.