Film Advertising Essay

Expectations of films are everything in the film world, but sometimes our expectations let us down and sometimes make a good film feel bad to the viewer due to their expectations. Different genres of film come with different expectations, for example if you're going to see a action film, you will expect to see fast chase scenes, shoot outs and explosions. Where as if you were going to see a horror film you would expect jump scares and a creepy atmosphere. Sometimes the way a film is market can lead our expectations to judge the film for us. For example the marketing of the film I have chosen which is Catfish led many people to dislike the film without taking into consideration if the film is good or not. When the trailer was relsead for Catfish, a lot of people were expecting to see a horror film when it came to viewing the whole film.
The final part for the trailer is all at night with the cast saying "This place gives me the creeps" because of this quote, it is a convention that many horror trailers use. When the writing comes up saying you wont be able to shake the ending for days, this made some people to expect a very scary ending which they wont be able to forget easily.
This is very misleading at the film is not a horror and more a mystery story, this turned a lot of people off that were expecting to see a horror leading to people not liking the film due to their expectations.

Catfish the movie is represented as a documentary love story at first but as the film progresses it shows that in fact it is much darker than it seems and as the movie goes on it is represented as a film with a dark twist, but something that could happen to anyone, making the audience feel vulnerable.  When it was released the way people interrupted the film caused controversy in the film work. Many people starting saying the film was faked and all acted a comment which is still denied by the film makers to this day. This led to the film to begin to have a negative reputation.

The marketing of the movie Catfish was to aim at lots of different audiences so they get attention of lots of different groups of people. First of all the release of the trailer just to aim at teenagers, as the movie is about social networking, and as the world of the intent is all teenachers see to do all day it makes sense to aim it at them. When text comes up in the trailer it has the sound effect of someone clicking a computer mouse and the text popping like when you click something on a social networking site. This draws in the attention of the younger generation as they are properly watching the trailer on a social networking websites. The film was also marketed towards horror fans, as i have mentiond before the trailer was wrongly advertise as a horror. Due to the dark nature of the ending of the trailer and the creepy music and atmosphere it led a lot of horror fans to be drawn to the movie and get interested in it, especially as the movie was marketed as being all true. This drew in another group of people, Documentary fans. The film is shown in the trailer as to be 'All True'. This will get the attention of documentary fans as the trailer shows a new type of documentary that hasn't been seen before. Also the trailer markets a romance film drawing in romantic fans as well. This is done due to the love story shown at the beginning of the trailer, although the end of the trailer may turn this group off. 

Film producers have to get feedback from audiences before a film is released so they and the film company know if the film is going to be successful at the box office and if not then maybe looking down the route of straight to DVD release. They do this through test screenings, they get a group of around 200 people to view the film way before its release, at the end of the film they ask just one question 'would you recommend the film to a friend', They have to get at least 60% to say yes to get a cinema release, If its a no the company know they wont make there money back if it is released to cinema. If a test screening goes horrible wrong and the company drops the film altogether this can be the end of the directors career, so they have to make sure it is at its best before the test screening. Some movies that get a bad reception at test screenings sometimes go on and get a cult following.  For example the film Blade Runner done very poorly at the box office just about getting the companies money back but since then the film has gone on to get a cult following with fans all around the world. 

Fan culture has become a massive thing over the past 10 years. With conventions for nearly every type of genre of film. Fan basses for certain things are ever-growing. The reasons there was a TV version of Catfish made was because of the fans of the show were spreading the word around about the film making people interested in the idea. Also because of fan culture and the popularity of the show, the word Catfish actually got put into the dictionary as a official word. Comic Con is one of the world most famous convention around the world. What started out as a comic book convention but quickly grew into games film and nearly every type of media that involved superheros. Its a place where people from all around the world come together and express their passion, weather is through dressing up or simply walking around comic con. Its a place where superhero fans can feel expected and part of a massive on going fandom. 

Film reviews are everything especially to big film critics who's reviews are going to be read by a lot of people. Get a good review and could mean getting more money at the box office, get a bad review and it could turn people off immediately. Films that are released first in America will get reviews before it is even released the UK. This mean people from the UK could read these reviews and not go and see it when it is out. On the other hand they could see a film that gets a good review in America and want to go and see it when it is released. Word of mouth also plays a role in how well a film does.   In the age of the internet and social media people will write stuff on web sties like twitter saying they have just watched a film they think is great. People may be interested when they see this and look the film up. They may then talk about it with there friends and a whole band wagon effect begins to start just by word of mouth on a certain film. 

Merchandise is a great way for film companies to make more money on top of the profit of the film. The first merchandise to be made was in the 1970s after the success of the movie short steamboat willie, disney was offered by a tablet making company $300 dollars to featuring Mickey mouse on their tablets. The Company thought this was a great way to advertise their product as the movie short became extremely popular upon its release. Its not just movies that can make a great deal of profit from merchandise, Tv shows such as Doctor Who can make a massive profit for the BBC. They do this by selling their shows on box set for general release. They also make a lot of profit by selling their shows abroad. Doctor who has been sold to 94 different countries across the world making the BBC a lot of money. For some films merchandise starts before the film is even released as away of promoting the films. Fast food chains such as McDonalds do deals with film companies to advertise there toys in happy meals. This makes great profit for both sides of the deal as they are advertise each other product. 

Viral Campaigns can also get you movie noticed. The viral campaign for the movie clover field is a very interesting one. At first all that was released was a very short teaser trailer at the start of the film transformers. This got people extremely interested in the film and before long everyone was talking about it, even the news. But still nobody knew the name of the film or what it was about. This was a great move by the film company because i think without the title being released people really want to know what it is / about and suddenly everyone is talking about it. The film company also made 3 websites related to the film. The first website made was about deep sea drilling. This of of course at first looks like it has nothing to do with the film. But it is referenced in the film. The 2nd one was a milkshake web site where you could create your own milkshake and the 3rd was a website which had different videos about a girl talking about her relationship. All these web sites linked in to one other and the film. The innstresting thing is people that knew about the films viral campaign general did not like the film and the people did not know about the campaign did like the film. This is because the girl in the videos only appeared in one shot of the film and wasn't a main character at all. This links back to people expectations and how it can ruin the films viewing. 

The film i am looking at, at first had a small distribution. It was shown at Sundance film festival on January 2010. It get a positive reaction from critics there, promoting a cinema release. The film was released to a selected few cinemas in the US but was not release in the UK. The Film company feared that people in the UK would not of heard of it in time meaning they would not get a profit from releasing it in the UK. It grossed $3 million at the us box office. For a indie film that no one had really heard of before it release it done relatively well. It was released to dvd on January 2011. By this time film fans in the UK had started taking a interest in the film due to the talk on the internet about it so it was released both to the UK and US on the same date. Due to the popularity of the film after the DVD release and all the talk on the internet about it MTV decided to produce a Tv show version of the movie with the help of the films creator Nev Schulman. The TV show has gone on to be one of the most popular MTV programs pulling in approximately 3 million viewers per episode. The show is currently in the production of the 4th season. There are also talks of a UK version being made. The films has also gone on to be sold to the very poplar streaming service Netflix, both to the UK and US version of the streaming service.