A film screening is the showing of the film or motion picture. It can be part of the release cycle, but may also be used as an open event for the public. There are different types of screening within a films life cycle and they are presented in the order from the films development.
The first screening is a test screening which is usually shown to a small segment of the target market. This is done to see if they believe there are any parts of the film that need to be changed, for example reshooting the scene.
The second screening is a focus group screening which is usually the completed form of the film and is shown to audience members. There are then questionnaires handed out which will have questions about the film. These will then be analysed and suitable action could be taken to change something if it is not deemed to be good by the audience.
The third screening is the critic screenings which are held for both local and national critics. However they may not go ahead if the filmmaker anticipates bad reviews to arise from the screening.
The fourth type of screening is a private screening which is held for investors, distribution personnel and some media VIP’s.
The fifth type of screening is a preview screening which is for the public and is the last chance for the filmmaker to adjust the film or the marketing strategy.
The penultimate screening is the sneak preview which is used to gain additional publicity and word of mouth for the movie.
The final screening is the general screening which will make the revenue for the filmmaker and distributor.
Resources-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_screening
Introduction to film festivals-
There are a vast amount of short film festivals in the UK and all over the world. There are a lot of specific ones that only relate to a certain type of short film, or the producers behind them. Examples include: student film festivals, Christian film festivals like CCTM Christian film festival, and horror film festivals like the Abattoir Horror Festival.
Festivals such as the Sundance film festival are where independent producers seek distribution and sales deals, or distributors and sales agents seek to sell in unsold territories. Therefore these festivals can be very valuable to every person involved with each part of the film process. Sales agents are also very important at these festivals as they can
have a vast amount of knowledge into the media industry, and know how to get as big an audience as possible. But, in this modern day and because of technology advancements, festivals are competing with DVD and online viewing.
The films that are entered into festivals are entered to either be recognised by people in the film industry, to showcase their talent, or to win prize money. For students, the most likely cause of entering their film into film festivals is to showcase their talent and try to start a career in the film industry. There are special types of festivals for students and ones that would be relevant for us if we were to enter our film after this coursework has been completed.
Best type's of festival for my film-
The best type of festival for our film would be one that is specialised for students. This would enable us to compete with other people who are our age and have the same skills and levels of knowledge.
One festival which we could use is Encounters short film festival for students, called fresh flix and is held in Bristol in November. This is especially for students and young people aged under 19. The main point of this festival is to get the directors and the people involved in the film noticed and to receive good publicity. The festival itself celebrates the filmmaking achievements and enthusiasm of the filmmakers. There are also some industry judges who rate the films, some who are from the BFI. This could be an option for us if we wanted to show our creative and technical skills to people who are in the industry, which may help us to have a chance of having a career in film.
Another film festival is Exposures film festival which is the UK’ largest film festival of student moving image work, and gives students from across the UK a chance to show their work to a cinema audience. This could be a major way to create a hype or buzz for the film, as people may express their enjoyment of the film on media such as social networking sites which is free publicity, however if the film was not enjoyed then this could cause problems our success. This festival is also in November and so we would be elligable to enter our film as a contestant. This could again be useful for us if we wanted to showcase our talent or to try to create a buzz for the film after we have finished this project.
Summary-
Putting a film into a festival is a very good way to promote the film or to showcase talent. As seen, although there is a very small segment of the market for this, there are still festivals in which students can enter films in search of success on different scales. This could give a lot of incentive for some people and really help them to pursue their passion in this line of work. For us, both of these festivals would be eligible in terms of film festivals, as they are late in the year and after all of this coursework and other work is
completed. Therefore this marketing strategy in order to promote and create a buzz for the film would be achievable and could be the way in which good publicity would occur.
Resources-
http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/1st-young-peoples-film-festival1.html
http://www.exposuresfilmfestival.co.uk/
Certificates for the film-
Short films have many different certificate ratings and it all relies on the content of the film and what is in it to provoke these different certificates. The bbfc regulate and control the certificates for all films in the UK and they have many guidelines on what things will effect each certificate. For My Brother Leon, the certificate would either be a 12 or a 15. This is because it does not contain any violence or disturbing material, but does have fairly frequent use of terms such as 'fuck'. Therefore I would make a judgement and put it as a 15 as this would be a safer option and as instructed on their guideline, the bbfc says that for a 12 certificate, 'the use of strong language (for example, fuck) must be infrequent'. A 15 certificate does not have this barrier, as it says that language like this can be used frequently. Therefore the film should be classed as 15 because of the language used and the more mature themes that it is portraying.
Resources-
How to create a buzz around a film-
There are many forms of media that could be used to try to create a buzz around a film, because it is this that short films rely on to get the film known and reachable to audiences. As technology is getting newer everyday, filmmakers do not have to rely on things like posters and trailers to get a buzz for a film. The internet is an obvious route as there are many places which are easily accessible for publicity to take place.
Social networking sites have become a very easy and cheap way to create a buzz around a film. For example a group or page can be set up to publicise the film and people can invite friends to join. From there on friends that join can invite other friends and there is no ending to the way in which people can see and investigate the film.
Websites are also another route to take as they are also cheap and can be used to create a huge buzz for the film. This is done by many films now, however The Blair Witch Project was one of the first to do this and they enjoyed a huge success whereby many people were enticed by what they saw and talked to their friends about it, which increased their publicity, and so they achieved a high rate of viewers at the cinema.
Summary-
These ways of using computers and the internet to create a buzz about a film would be capable for our short film. This would mean that we would have to spend the time in making a website and pages on a social networking site. However from this, we could achieve big interest from people if it spread around quickly, like a viral marketing strategy, which could lead to some recognition and maybe the chance to put it into a cinema. Conseqently, doing this as a marketing strategy would seem to be a logical idea as it is cheap and easy, which is always good for students, and there is a chance on it becoming successful.
Promotion/ distribution of a successful British film-
This information is a study into the techniques the film East is East used in order to become successful and focuses on the strategies it used.
What was the promotion/distribution strategy in East is East?
Promotion is both aspects of advertising and publicity. The differences are that advertising is paid for and is done to try to get as many audiences into the cinemas as possible. This can be done by advertising in magazines or in the newer more technological world making a website or advertising on commonly used websites for maximum coverage. However there can be risks with using advertising in magazines as in a magazine like Time, there may be bad reviews of the film which will obviously have an effect on the amount of people who seek out to go and see the film.
Publicity on the other hand is not paid for promotion and is created by aspects like word of mouth, and director interviews. These can be said to create a buzz about the film and can be a very good source of promoting a film. However, if one person sees the film to be very bad then this can be spread around very quickly by the internet and aspects inside that like social networking sites. This could destroy the hype that was meant to be built up and can cause a lot of problems in the amount of viewers that go and see the film. Therefore promotion must both give the right impression about the film, and to the appropriate audience.
They also created a website which was used to advertise their film to people who wanted to find out about it. There were two objectives which they aimed to achieve with the website. They were: for it to be exciting, original and informative and to mainly get people to the site and cross pollinate. Television was also important to create mass appeal because, the film was advertised both nationally on channels such as channel 4 and key regions where they would aim to get most of their viewers. This helped to create a big, varied audience which would reach many people and therefore hopefully create interest among TV watchers.
Another way they promoted the film was to be different in the way that as some venues they had a mobile fish and chip van where gave away free chips and curry sauce which was wrapped in East is East paper and had branded chip forks. They also had many leaflets which they handed out at venues. The idea of giving out free chips is a very original and creative idea which would have created a lot of interest as anything being given away for free will attract many people to come and see what is going on. The effectiveness of this would have been seen at the local cinemas where they performed this stunt, but by the overall success of the film would have probably meant that doing that tour would have brought many viewers buying tickets to go and see the films.
East is East is a very well thought out film that although may not have been seen at first had the potential to do very well and fulfilled this potential. Its distribution and promoting techniques captured many audiences and were used to cover all different people with different tastes in films. The coverage from the newspapers and the magazines would have been extremely influential in the performance of the film at cinemas. However I think the main way that East is East did so well was because the directors took the film to Cannes film festival which created a huge buzz and a word of mouth which was very positive. Also the buying of rights to distribute the film in North America by Miramax was also very important as this opened up the film to new audiences and ones that can be very interested in English culture as seen by the success of The Queen. Therefore the contribution of the distributional and promotional techniques they used, created a huge buzz and a very successful film.
Resources-
Revision express book, Media Studies AS and A2
http://www.watershed.co.uk/east/interface/promo_frame.html
Short film distribution research and information-
Sales agent information-
A sales agent is a company or person, that you, as the holder of the necessary rights to your film enter into a time limited legally binding agreement with, to allow them to try to sell your film as widely as possible to their network of contacts across the globe. They go to film festivals to try to spot films which they think they will be a success and then eventually make themselves some money. Sales agents will want to be the only people accessible to the film and will want the control over where they can sell the film and for how long. The sales agents don’t work for free and they will take a commission from each sale.
They will typically demand exclusivity. This means they will be the only company through which the film can be seen. This can be a problem for some people, however for short film producers it is not likely to be one of the main problems they will face. The main advantage of a sales agent is that they are great for the film to have, in terms of reaching audiences worldwide which can create a huge return for the filmmaker. Therefore, entering a film into a festival can be done in order to try to acquire a sales agent as they can be a huge benefit and can bring a lot of success, as seen with the film East is East.
Broadcasting short films on the television research-
Broadcasting short films on the UK television is a very small business and it is limited to channels, such as Channel 4’s 3 minute wonder slot and occasionally late night slots on channels like BBC2, BBC3 and Channel 4. This is because of the availability and accessibility of viewing short films freely on the internet and therefore the potential for making revenue from the showing of shorts on TV is very limited and so this is why it is not very common. Therefore this may not be a very
Short film DVD sales research-
Selling short films on DVD’s can be done in two ways. One of these ways is by compilations which contain a variety of work from many different filmmakers. The second is single DVD’s which contain one or more works by a single filmmaker or production company. Distributing the films by compilations has become increasingly popular because of the easiness of DVD and therefore has been seen as a way of making a profit. However the only way a persons film makes it way onto the DVD is by invitation from firms like film festivals or a public body like the UK Film Council.
Selling the DVD’s independently is more risky as the filmmaker is the person who takes all the financial risk and responsibility with no guarantee of a return. It can be done in many ways, but for most filmmakers costs will want to be kept low and so using economies of scale seems like an obvious choice as they can benefit from bulk buying. Making sure people will buy the DVD will be a very tricky task and this means advertising and marketing and maybe a USP which would give it an edge over competitors. EBAY is another method to sell DVD’s as this is a very cheap and can be a reliable source of income. The DVD’s can be made and sent on demand which will keep costs down and will have an effect on the workload of the filmmaker.
Digital distribution- online downloads and streaming-
Downloading and streaming from the internet has become more popular as it is cheap and quick to do. This means there is a huge yield of people that may pay for short films. However, the main objective of putting the film for downloading may be to get the recognition and may not be for the financial benefit.
These are some ways in which a short filmmaker can receive revenue from putting film online-
1. Advertising income- based royalty: This is where a website licenses your film and puts adverts before and after it, then puts it on their website for downloading and streaming. The site will then give the filmmaker a percentage of the advertising revenue income for each view or download.
2. Percentage of download fee- a website charges a fee for the streaming or downloading of your short film and returns a portion of this revenue for you. Examples of websites: iTunes, youtube, amazon.
However, there are problems with internet downloading. One of these is that as soon as it is on the internet, film festivals are much less interested in it. This is because it can be viewed by the public and so there would not be a very likely chance of being able to create a buzz about the film. Also, putting the film on your own website will not likely bring in an income. The main reason behind this is that people are not likely to pay for something on a website which is unrecognised, for security reasons.
If the filmmaker is going to put the film onto the internet for online viewing or download, viral marketing could be used to achieve maximum potential. This could be done by clickable links to your website or something on youtube. Also social networking sites, chatrooms and newsgroups could be used. To increase the chance of making a revenue for the film, items could be put onto the website which can be bought. This could be another way for the filmmaker to create a revenue.
Film magazines-
Film magazines for short films are another way in which marketing a short can take place. The main magazine that could be used is showreel magazine, that is a quarterly short film review magazine. However this could be dangerous as the magazine may give the film a bad review and so this would not do any good for the marketing of the magazine.
Summary-
All of these ways to distribute and market a short film would be very useful when deciding what to use for My Brother Leon, and they have given me an insight, not just into what each strategy does, but what the dangers are as well.
Resources-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/distribution/press-and-publicity-materials
The Marketing strategy-
Using YouTube to get the film to audiences-
Because our film has a small audience and it would be unlikely to become well established in any festivals, the last step after everything else that could be tested, would be to put it onto YouTube. This would enable us to have access to a lot more viewers and therefore this could create more interest behind the film if it was to seen by many viewers. The problems with doing this though is that the people who view the film and leave comments may class it not be good and there will be many people who are unaware of the concept of a short film, and as it is not funny or showing violence, people may just say that its bad and what is the point. This would not be good for the film and us as the whole point of putting it on there would be to create some interest and make get people to recognise it.
.jpg)
Also, another problem with putting it onto YouTube is that after this is done it is very unlikely that companies and agents at film festivals would be interested with it, as now it is free for everyone to see. Therefore it would be classed to be useless as people would not pay to see it where it is already somewhere and is able to be viewed freely. Consequently it could be said that it would be a waste of time putting it into a festival if we were going to do this. But, we would only do this if we had not had any interest from people at the festivals and so this would be our only other option in order to try to become a success.
Therefore, for our marketing strategy, the film may be put onto YouTube after every other effort in order to become a success and reach audiences has been tried as otherwise we could be wasting opportunities. As seen there are problems with YouTube and so it would need to discussed a lot with the group into whether we would put it onto that website or not, because it could be a success or a bad failure.
Ways in which technology has influenced the variety and amount of audiences for short films-
As time progresses, technology is becoming more advanced and the way in which films and other media are seen by audiences is rapidly changing and becoming a lot easier. The audiences for short films in the past used to be mainly people who had a deep interest in film and people who attended film festivals. This accumulated to be a small amount of the population, but technology has changed this and has brought around many more opportunities for short film producers to widen their audience and eventually the appeal for their film.
Because of this improved technology, people are becoming more aware of what short films are and what their purpose is. This has created an interest with many people and especially as the phenomenon of YouTube has brought many productions by various people available to us by a click of a button. This has brought about a whole new audience of people who seem to be interested in short films and productions that are more substantial than many of the videos that are on YouTube. This has inspired many people to become more confident and start making their own short films. Consequently there has been an increase in short films and an increase in the amount that are entered into festivals. Because of this interest and want by people to see a good short film, there have been increased ways of seeing short films through new technology. One of the main ways this has happened is through iTunes, as Sundance film festival has come to an agreement that sells a package of short films. This will have an effect on the amount of people that are aware of short films and the collective excitement and want for these is likely to increase. It has been seen, that especially in America short films can be seen to be more ‘refreshing and satisfying’ than many of the feature films because of their quick, excitement filled nature. Consequently the audience for these films has developed and many people are becoming fascinated with the concept of short films.
This for producers like us will have an effect on the amount of people that could be interested in our production. Because of the new found interest and the developing technology, we may be able to market our film to a larger segment of the market which could create a bigger buzz. However with this increased interest there is going to be more competition in the market and therefore it may be harder to get into film festivals or to make our film stand out from many others.
What we would do after production if we were going to actually market the film-
Marketing a short film is not an easy task and the marketing strategies used must be precise and concise in order for it to be worthwhile and a success. If we were to really go ahead and market the film after all the coursework was done, we would use some strategies that would be low cost and easy to use. One of these things would be to put the film into a film festival as this could help us to create a buzz around the film and to showcase our talent. This could make the film become a success and if we entered the film into a festival that was specifically for students, such as Encounters film festival, then we would have more chance of having success because we would be facing other students who have the same abilities and constraints like money. Therefore this is one strategy that we would use if we were to market the film.
Another strategy we would use would be the postcards that were produced, because these are a similar concept to a film poster and they would catch people's eyes. They are small and compact and contain all of the information needed about the film and distributing these to audiences in which we think would be suitable, could create some interest as this way there is a visual way of presenting the film along with other, more written methods. Therefore postcards would be used in order to create an interest behind a film and they could be used to promote the film in many places in which we think would be useful, such as at film screenings and small independent cinemas.
Setting up a website is something else which we would use as a marketing strategy, as it would be cheap and easy to do, and also spreading the word of the website would be fairly easy as well. Using social networking sites would be used to spread this word around, which could be a never ending spiral of people seeing what it is about. This therefore could be a very effective way in which people can see and recognise what the website contains, and this could create a very big buzz around the film. From here, we could release the film and charge for viewing, if there was a big enough audience which would fulfill the task that we had set out to do.
Finally, if none of these strategies had any success, then we would put the film onto YouTube so that although we would not make any money, we may receive some good publicity and praise. This would be useful in the future if we were to produce other films, as people may recognise names and link them to My Brother Leon, which could cause a talk of discussion between people. This, in the short term, could make the next film more popular which may be easier to market in order to become a success.
Summary-
Creating a marketing strategy so the film is a success would be a challenge for students such as us, as there is no guarantee that the film would have any success, which is a big risk. Also, there is a big constraint for us, in that we do not have a big budget in order to market a film to many festivals or to be able to use many creative, expensive strategies. Therefore we could only enter our film into cheaper smaller festivals, and use techniques that do not require a big capital injection. However, with the right approach, marketing My Brother Leon could make it a success and show our talent to people in the industry. Consequently, this would make the whole project and concept a success and we would achieve what we had set out to do.
Resources-
http://jeremysarber.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/itunes-logo.png
http://www.lukekatt.co.uk/youtube_logo.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/22/DD5KST9SF.DT
1
No comments:
Post a Comment