When we see a movie trailer we can usually pretty much tell whether the film being represented is independent or major. Major films will more likely than not have at least a few familiar Hollywood faces which always helps to boost sales. Cinematography, Mise en Scene and Editing features always seem to be a lot better quality - this is due to the large budget available for the production of major films. Also, the soundtrack is likely to be made up of a lot of recognisable songs and bands as, once again, the budget allows for this. Independent films tend to have less well-known actors which immediately makes promotion harder - there is no celebrity face to use to sell the movie. Furthermore, the soundtrack of independent films is usually made up of songs by unknown bands - bands who would not charge so much for the rights to use their songs or even bands that would allow they're tracks to be used for free just for the advertising opportunity. Major films' large budgets also allows for much wider advertising opportunities on a range of different media platforms. Independent films do not have this luxury.
Case Studies
Major film: American Hustle
Distributed by Columbia Pictures (major film distributor). Release Date Wednesday 1st January 2014.Budget $40 million.
Independant Film: Blue is the Warmest Color
Distributed by Artificial Eye (minor film distributor). Release Date Friday 22 November 2013. Budget €4 million.
I looked at two Case Studiesto compare marketing methods of both major and minor film distributors.
In my opinion posters and trailers are the most effective methods of distribution. Both techniques enable the distributors to get the word out about their movies to a wide range of people. Trailers allow for word to spread about the movies whilst also enabling potential audience members the first look at what to expect from the film. However, not only does it cost to make the trailers, it also costs to have them advertised on television. Posters are a lot cheaper to produce and to distribute.
I think the distributors definitely used the right techniques to target their audience. The minor distributor particularly did well using social networking sites to promote 'Blue is the Warmest Color' as their target audience are amongst those who use social networking sites the most.
Top 15 grossing films at the UK Box Office for the previous year
UK Admissions in the past 12 years (including 2012)
I found that there was a trend between the audience figures and the country in which the film was made - those films created in the USA by American companies generally had a much higher grossing profit than those made by companies in other countries such as the UK and India. Film Industry workers find it beneficial to collect and collate quantitative data on audience trends as they have solid figures to base their own movie ventures on. Because of the huge costs of creating movies, industries cannot afford to bank on hypothetical concepts of the film viewer - they need a guarantee that their financial investments will pay off! Therefore, they rely on the cold, hard facts. For example, if the trends saw that Qualitative Research Qualitative methods of Audience Research are beneficial to film distributors as they allow them to go further than simply gathering numerical data about their audience, as is the case with quantitative research. It is a way for researchers to gather an in-depth understanding of human ideas and behaviour. In film it can be used by both researcher and distributor to monitor the reaction of the audience in response to a particular idea or medium.
Focus Groups/Pre-Screening Pre-screenings are special previews of movies, often used as part of a film's production and release cycle. A focus group of a carefully selected group of people, representing all demographics, sit in on an early screening of a film and their responses are carefully documented in high detail. Usually members of the focus group will fill out detailed response surveys and some may even have interviews. Sometimes the focus audiences are instructed not to discuss their thoughts on the movie amongst each other so as to guarantee wholly unbiased responses from each member. Viewers' responses can sometimes be videotaped.
Pre-screenings are usually held before the marketing campaign for the film begins so as to give the film distributors an idea of who their target audience should be. The response of a focus group can also be used by the film distributors to ensure that the movie evokes the desired response. For example, a film company could use the pre-screening of their horror movie to ensure that the audience reaction is one of fear. Or they could use the screening to see which members of the audience did have the desired response and from which demographic these members belonged to.
The surveys taken by the focus group could also be used after the release of the movie as a way to evaluate the success of the film and to see whether the response of the focus group was similar to the overall response by the general public. If in the focus group it was mainly the women who said they enjoyed the film, was this also the case when the film was released to the wider audience? The distributors could use this information to measure the success of the findings from their focus group. Focus group screenings are very expensive to run because of all of the equipment used for each screening. In addition, the costs to record the audience responses are surprisingly high also (sometimes expensive methods such as galvanic skin responses are used). For this reason, focus screenings are used less frequently than informal test screenings.
Interviews
Face to face interviews are a lot cheaper than focus group screenings, although they are a lot more time-consuming. However, despite being very time-consuming, interviews can be better than focus group discussions for getting useful information because you are likely to get a more honest, unbiased response. Following the viewing of a film, a group discussion of about 25-30 of the viewers is one way to gather feedback on the movie. However, it is a natural human response to adapt personal thoughts to fit in with the majority idea, even without realising it. So to avoid getting subconsciously biased responses from their focus group members, distributors may decide to hold individual interviews as opposed to recording or sitting in on group discussions.
Reviews and Debates
Movie reviews can come in a number of different varieties and through a wide selection of media types. Newspapers often have a movie reviews section and although less common radio reviews are not unheard of. As online blogging becomes more popular, it seems that online amateur movie reviews are becoming more popular.
Some popular british film critics:
Mark Kemode: Horror film buff, writes for The Observer
Phillip French: Former radio producer, film critic for The Observer for 50 years
Claudia Winkleman: First female presenter of BBC1's 'Film'
Movie reviews are hugely sought after during the release of a film by the audience. In recent times, during the economic crisis we've been facing in the UK, people have become a lot more careful with their money. Nobody wants to waste hard-earned cash on a rubbish movie - that's where film reviews come in. Rather than paying to see a film and then regretting it after, now more than ever people turn to movie reviews to decide whether or not a film is worth going to see. A bad film review, particularly by a well-known critic, can really damage the reputation of a film and the number of people that go to see it. Alternatively, a good film review can really be the making of a movie. With the right people saying the right things about a movie, profits made can be an impressive amount larger than initially predicted.
Online debates are everywhere! People always want to share their views and opinions on movies and particular characters/storylines. It's a satisfying experience to find that someone else agrees with you and sometimes it can be even more satisfying to find somebody who disagrees so that you are able to fight your case. Debates can be used by the audience as a means of social interaction under the Uses and Gratifications theory by Katz and Blumer. Audience members who have seen a particular film could gain pleasure from the social interaction that comes with the online discussions and debates on it.
Film distribution is the act of promoting and sustaining movies in the market place. In order for a movie to be distributed successfully, it is important for various bits of audience research to be undergone. Audience Profiling is the method in which researchers find out the characteristics , attitudes and social habits of a particular audience. This enables film distributors to make better, more consistent decisions as to how to best sell and market a particular film or movie franchise. Audience Profiles can drastically reduce marketing costs and ensures that advertisements and knowledge of the film is communicated to the targeted audience in the best and most efficient way possible. Demographics Demographics are the measurable characteristics/aspects of society which can be used to categorise all members of the public. Typically examined demographics are age, gender, class, race, job, sexual orientation, religion, generation and disability. Once the demographics of their targeted audience have been identified, researchers can then work on shaping their marketing campaign in a way which will appeal to the specified audience. Demographics are useful as they are a way to group the population using hard facts and statistics. It is a lot simpler to classify people based on factual information such as age or gender than it is using personal information such as favourite movie. One large drawback to basing marketing strategies on demographics is the fact that demographic information is not predictive it is only suggestive. For example, a researcher could notice that Prada shoes sold well in the sales last season and a lot of the buyers were women aged 35-45, then they could put 100 more Prada shoes out for sale in an area where you know that this demographic are sure to be passing - but that does not mean that they are guaranteed to sell all of the shoes. Demographics only suggest possible behaviour, they don't guarantee it. One very common method market researchers use to divide the population is through the comparison of socio-economic status. The entire population can be sorted into six different groups depending on their occupation and income bracket. National Readership Survey (NRS) demographic categories
Social Grade
Social Status
Occupation
A
upper middle class
higher managerial, administrative or professional
B
middle class
intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1
lower middle class
supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2
skilled working class
skilled manual workers
D
working class
semi and unskilled manual workers
E
those at lowest level of subsistence
state pensioners or widows (no other earner), casual or lowest grade workers
These social grade definitions are used as a generic reference series for describing and identifying social classes, especially by consumer marketing researchers. A problem that could arise when trying to base marketing strategies on this type of audience segmentation is the constant change between jobs and the income being received. The increase in income of many of the categories has blurred the boundaries between classes. Demographics describe who people are using quantifiable methods whilst Psychographics focus more on the attitudes, beliefs, aspirations, values and needs of an individual, categorizing people on these bases. Whilst demographics could look at an individual's annual income, psychographics would focus more on identifying the individuals spending habits - how much they spent per month, for example. Psychographics allow researchers to understand why certain types of people are attracted to particular things. They put the audience into groups with labels which suggest their position in society. Film Distributors are able to understand the subconscious and motivational drives of an audience and therefore aim to portray their movies in as desirable a way to their target market as possible. Demographic analysis is a useful method to gain quantifiable information from an audience but psychographics is essential to understand the consumer in depth. There are many measurements of psychographics; Crowd DNA's UK Tribes, Maslow's Hierachy, Young and Rubicam's 4 C's and ACORN, being just a few. The Youth Market can be segmented into 'tribes'. There are five main group types and then several further branches coming from each of these in which today's youth could be classified into:
Mainstream - chavs, fan girls, boy racers, etc
Leading Edges - TUMBLR kids, DIYers, indie scenesters, etc
Alternative - emo, nerds, hardcore, scene kids, etc
Aspirant - new casuals, rah, etc
Urban - get paid crew, stylers, etc
The idea was to establish terms that would make sense to both the youths being classified and the media and marketing industries.
Maslow's Hierachy of Needs (1969) argues that if an individual does not have their basic needs then there is no chance of them moving up on the scale. That means that without the basic physiological needs of a human, such as food, water, breathing, etc, an individual cannot experience safety and security. Without security, the individual cannot experience love and have a sense of belonging. In short, for a person to achieve self-actualization, supposedly the main goal for all humans, they must first gain the other four needs first.
Young and Rubicam's Four Consumers Young and Rubicam's Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation is a consumer segmentation which characterises people into a set of recognisable stereotypes. The stereotypes reflect a set of human motivations: Security, Control, Status, Individuality, Freedom, Survival and Escape. From this theory, the idea is that the seven kinds of people in this world consist of mainstreamers, aspirers, succeeders, explorers, strugglers, reformers and the resigned. Mainstreamersmake up 40% of the world's population. These people are quite domestic and seek security. They enjoy being a part of a group. The aspirers seek statusand admire those in a position of high status, also appreciating status symbols such as designer clothes and labels. The succeedersare the group of people who already have status. They seek control. The reformersdefine themselves by self-esteem and self-fulfilment. They seek enlightenment. Explorers seek discoveryand crave new experiences. They are usually made up of the younger demographic. The strugglers are those who tend to feel alienated and disorganised. They seek escapefrom their normal lives and are typically from the D and E demographic. The resigned are usually those of an older generation. They are interested in past tradition and they simply seek survival. All seven groups are explained in more detail in the image below.
The results of my 4C's questionnaire:
As my main value isEnlightenment this suggests that my characteristics are most like those held by the Reformer - independence is important to me.
