How Research has Impacted our Ideas

Film Distribution and Marketing

1. What is meant by the term film distribution?

The term film distribution means how many people know about an up and coming film, what it is and when it is realised.

2. What does a film distributor do?

A film distributor advertises the film and makes sure people know about it and when it’s realised. Film disturbers do this in a number of different ways like trailers, film posters and advertisement on social media sites.

3. How does reach relate to film distribution?

Reach relates to film distribution because it is the amount of people that the advertising has reached, the more people to go and see a film the more profit the movie will make. A good example of a film with a huge reach was the women in black, this was because there was so much advertisement for it. There was posters on the side of buildings, the trailer was played on television and at the cinema and the main star did as many interviews about it as possible. People are bound to stumble across one of these things.

4. What is meant by the distribution plan?

The distribution plan is the plan that is made up so that the film has as much success as possible. This plan is either made it right at the end of making a film or before anything has even started. This plan is where the film is going to be released and when, also it is where the film will be advertised.

5. What is meant by the marketing plan?

The marketing plan is a big reason for a film’s success as it is the advertising and marketing of a film and without that the film won’t attract any attention and will make no money. The way people start to acknowledge the film is thought the posters and trailers. These are good ways for advertising as the poster will show the main starts of a film attracting fans of these actors to the film. The trailer of a film gives the audience a taste of what the film will be like without giving anything away, this then will creates a buzz and make the audience want to see the film in full. Reviews are also very helpful when trying to get people to go and see a film as the more positive reviews a film gets the more people will want to see it as they know it won’t be a bad film.

6. What is the difference between advertising, publicity and promotion?

Although all are very similar they are slightly different and can also link together. Advertising is when a distributor will invest in different types of advertising to get people to know about the upcoming product or film in this case. There are many ways to advertise a film posters, trailers and even getting the stars to do interviews on various talk shows, this then gets the public talking about the film and how good or bad the film looks, this leads to publicity. Publicity is basically how many people are talking about the film, the more publicity the film has the more people are talking about it and the more the press want to know about the film, this can then lead to even more advertising like the film being shown in the newspaper and competitions being held to win a book version of the film or normally the films exclusive merchandise.

Advertising is showing the product to an audience in different ways to get their attention and want to go and see a film, this can be done through trailers, interviews with the cast and posters. Publicity is the amount of people talking about the film, this gets the film attention because if people want to know about it the press will provide the information this giving the film more advertisement. Promotions is where there could be things such as competitions relating to the film getting people involved this also makes them interested in the film again making them maybe want to see it. All these three things are similar and link together yet are slightly different.

7. Find a teaser poster, teaser trailer, main poster and main trailer for a horror film and put them on your Blog – who was the distributor and in how many countries was it released? Can you find how many screens it was shown in on the opening weekend?

This is the teaser poster for The Woman In Black, it shows who the main star is and it also shows that the movie will have something to do with ghosts as you can see a scary faded picture of a person over the main starts shoulder. this poster doesn't give anything else about the film away.

This is the main poster for The Woman In Black, again it shows the main star, this is the main focus of the poster. however in the background there is a shadowed figure, a gravestone and a house. this could give the audience hints as to what may be in the film, but the audience are still left in the dark about what the film will actually be about.

This is the taster trailer for The Woman, this shows the audience clips from the film but it has a young child's voice talking over it, the audience will have no idea if its child is involved in the film or not, this creates a mystery for the audience again making them want to go and see it.



The official trailer shows more in depth scenes from the film,giving a little more away however still leaving the audience wondering and in the dark about the film. there is dialogue from the actually movie showing more of what the film is about.

The Woman In Black was distributed by CBS films and Alliance films and was realised in 39 different country's. The release date is between the 3rd of February 2012 and the 1st of December 2012.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

There was a wide variety of different software’s and equipment that I used to make my magazine cover, poster and horror trailer. Here are some of the equipment and software I had used: 

I had to use blogger to post all the things that have gone towards research, planning and the creating of my trailer, poster and magazine cover. I found it fairly easy to use however I did encounter some problems such as not knowing how to change the look of my blog also sometimes the program wouldn't let me post my posts.

I used Photoshop to create my magazine cover and also my poster. To begin with I wasn't keen on using Photoshop because I had very little knowledge on how to use it but with help and the more I used it the better I got at it, therefore making it easier to use.

Premier pro was used to put my horror trailer together. As I had to split using this software between the others in my group I didn’t get as much time using it as I would have liked to but after a few attempts of trying to figure out how to use it I felt it was an easy software to use.

I had to use a video camera to film my horror trailer and also take the pictures for my magazine cover and poster. I found it very easy to work a camera as I have used them numerous times before.

I had to use word to write up most of the posts on my blog, this all went towards the creation of my horror trailer, poster and magazine cover. I have been using word for most of my education so I found it very easy to use as I have already used it for so many years.

As well as using word to make my posts on my blog, I also had to use PowerPoint to create so of my blog posts. Again as well as word I have been using PowerPoint most of my education so I found it very easy to use.

I had to use Prezi as an alternative way to present my work on my blog. After getting used to it I found it to be a very simple and easy program.

I used a tripod so that when filming the camera wasn't all shaky, this made it look more professional. I hadn't really used a tripod before so I was unsure of how to make it stand up evenly or how to make the camera straight, however after a few attempts it was a simple piece of equipment to use.

I used YouTube to research horror trailers, I watched trailers so I was able to know what types of clips when into horror trailers and also the music and camera angles used. I have been using YouTube for years and have spent many hours on it, I know how to use it pretty well.

Web 2.0 technologies is basically a term given to describe a second generation of World Wide Web, this gives people to ability to collaborate and share things online. Web 2.0 gives low/no budget film makers a huge advantage to start making films as there are so many free places to share their creations such as YouTube and Facebook, this also is a way to promote the produced as it can be advertised or shared onto these websites. Also there are free software’s to put their footage together on such as YouTube or windows live movie maker. There are alternative software’s such as premier pro but this costs money but is a good software. Camera and tripods can be picked up for cheap also, making a low budge/ no budgets film makers’ life so much easier. I have become a 2.0 creator because I have used most of these software’s to create my horror film while having next to no budged to actually create the footage of my horror trailer.

These web 2.0 technologies have made it easier to create something that is very close to what I had imaged my horror trailer to be. They have made it easier to be creative and have helped me gain knowledge of how the software’s work for later life. Also by using software’s such as Photoshop last year it was easier to re learn how to use it and contributed in me being able to pick up how to use premier pro fairly easily and fast.

Representation: The Cabin in the Woods (Goddard, 2012)

1.       What were Jeremy Tunstall's 4 character roles for women and do they apply to The Cabin in the Woods?

The 4 character roles for women that Jeremy Tunstall came up with were:
- sexual
- marital
- domestic
- consumer
Not all of these are used for the female characters in ‘the cabin in the woods’. The main roles that was used in this film was “sexual”, as the character Jules was seen as a “sex object” through the film. She was the one with a boyfriend, wore reviling clothes and was flirty. She also has the stereotypical dumb girl personality and the blond hair to match.

2.       How is Dana typical of Clover's 'Final Girl' theory? Please mention: the ending; Dana's appearance and her actions during the film.

Dana’s the most intelligent female in the film, she study’s rather than go out drinking and having sex, this alone makes her more alert. This contributes to Dana being the typical final girl. Also she wasn’t frighten to fight back which gave her more of a chance for survival. Dana’s appearance was the most ‘manly’ out of the female characters as she wore conservative clothing. Also her hair colour stops her from being the dumb blond girl. She survived through the film making her the final girl.

3.       Jules undergoes mental and physical transformations during the film, what are they and how do they cause her to become a horror archetype?

Through the film the character Jules goes through mental and physical transformations. At the beginning of the film Jules mentions that she had recently died her hair to blond, the straight away makes her the “sexualized” character simply because of her hair colour, and she is most likely going to get killed. Mental transformations that Jules goes through is when the games makers realised a hormone in her that makes her more aroused. This will make her guard go down as she will be wanting sex more instead of being aware of what’s happening. This is the cause of her death as she gets killed while having sex with her boyfriend in the forest.

4.       Is Mulvey's Male Gaze theory exemplified in the film and if so, how? Think about framing, camera angles and POV shots.

The males gaze theory is the way the camera angles and techniques are used to show the female as an ‘object’ to look at while making the males a ‘subject’ who would be looking. This is shown through the film, as in one scene while Jules is dancing the camera is facing up to her, so it is if the audience is watching her from the sofa like the characters in the film. Also the camera is very low and is showing the audience a close up of her butt, legs and hips.

5.       In the film we, as an audience, are made to be voyeurs; when does this happen and why is it important in regards to representation of character?

The audience is made to be voyeurs when Holden removes the picture from the wall and sees that he can see into Dana’s room. However Dana has no idea that he can see into her room and starts to get undresses. The audience becomes voyeurs as they are put into Holden’s shoes and feel the same sort of sexual tension as he does. However Holden turns away and tells Dana that he can see into her room and then offers to swap rooms with her, this showing him to be a nice guy as the normal males would have just watched the girl get undress. Also when Dana is told about him being able to see her she quickly covers herself and is embarrassed, this shows that she is an innocent character as other female character might have not cared and just carried on.

6.       (Briefly) summarise the way women are represented in The Cabin in the Woods. Are they objectified and there to provide satisfaction for heterosexual males and/or do they fulfil another role/purpose?

In the cabin in the woods there was two different representations of women, there is the stereotypical dumb blond female who is more focus on sex then what’s happening and the danger around them, then these is the male-like female character who survives and fights back so they are able to survive. Jules was the ‘girly-girl’ character who was more interested in sex and dressed in reviling clothes. She was provided the satisfaction for the heterosexual male characters whereas Dana was the tom-boy female who was intelligent and survived.

Representation of Women in Horror Quiz

1.       Who wrote about the “final girl” in 1992?

Carol Clover

2.       In what book did they write about the “final girl”?

Men, women and chainsaws

3.       List three traits of the “final girl”/three ‘conventions’.

-          Androgynous

-          Virgin

-          intelligence

4.       Who wrote about existing research on women’s roles in media texts in 1983?

Jeremy Tunstall

5.       What were the 4 roles mentioned?

-          Consumer

-          Sexual

-          Domestic

-          marital

6.       In 1992 research showed that men dominated women on-screen, but by what ratio?

2:1 (twice the amount of men)

7.       What was the only genre in which the ratio of males to females was more equal?

Adverts (advertising)

8.       Name one of the three problems with the findings?

Men were at work

9.       Why does the reading suggest that Ripley (Alien) is ‘more progressive’ than Lara Croft (TR)?

She is still sexualised for the way she is dressed whereas Lara was objectified and sexualised

10.   What are the 3 ‘C’s when discussing the portrayal of women in some lifestyle magazines?

Cooking, cleaning and caring

11.   Who wrote Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema?

Laura Mulvey

12.   (Briefly) describe what is meant by the ‘male gaze’

Objectify females by the way of framing them (for example the camera angles)

13.   Give an example

Point of view shots and close ups

14.   Which magazine removed the male centrefold in the 1980s and why?

cosmopolitan

Storyboards

Finished Trailer