Perry Mccarthy Ident

Ident Evaluation

I was given the task to create a 5 second Ident for Perry Mccarthy the original Stig on Adobe After Effects I had mixed feelings about this task as this is my first time using After Effects for a project after I started getting my ideas out I got more confident with the creating of this Ident I think my Ident was rather good for a first attempt I’m happy with its content as I thought I wouldn’t of been able to make something like that with only little knowledge of After Effects I think if I were to do it again I would take longer with using Photoshop to edit the Psd files before putting them in the Ident but overall I’m happy with this Ident and didn’t find it that hard to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TdnJ6QZ6es&feature=youtu.be

Essay: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Expectation

Expectation is what the audience expects to see in the following film or piece of media The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey had such high expectation from the audience because  it had to follow on from the legendary film trilogy The Lord of The Rings this expectation could bring in a massive audience but due to high expectation it could create tons of pressure to make sure that the film is as good as its predecessors people might go in the cinema with high expectations and have them fall short which may make you really dislike the film even though it was actually rather good. but after researching it i found a review about peoples expectations.

http://twitchfilm.com/2012/12/review-the-hobbit---an-unexpected-journey-exceeds-expectations.html

Representation

Representation is how a film is shown and represented Sadly i think that The Hobbit was misrepresented after i watched the trailer i assumed the Hobbit to be a dark fantasy film just like Lord of The Rings but i found that once watching it in the cinema it was more of a comedic family style film i wasn't to botherd but some people really thought the film was a massive misrepresentation of what The Hobbit was according to the books. i found quite a few sites that list differences between the book and the film but one i didn't know about was the scene at the start of the hobbit in which Frodo appears in a cameo roll and that whole scene shouldn't of been there which annoyed the fans and mis represented the books.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/14/the-hobbit-19-changes-from-j-r-r-tolkien-s-novel-to-peter-jackson-s-movie.html

Audience Marketing

How you market a film is key and most people market there films to there ideal Audience The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was marketed cleverly to separate audiences because of the diverse fan base for example these two posters are from the film and are clearly meant for two separate audiences.

 The poster on the left would clearly be for people that love action and that are already fans of Tolkien's work along with a generally older audience whereas the poster released on the right would be meant for younger audiences people who would look at the hobbits and think oh this looks funny ill go watch this which was a massive mistake marketing two separate audiences because it made some audiences so confused as to what type of film this would be. They also release some other posters for people who didn't know that the hobbit is actually a Prequel to the Lord of The Rings Trilogy they did this cleverly through the following posters.

As you can see the poster for the hobbit copied the Lord of the rings famous silhouette shot making it more identifiable.

Fan Culture

Fan culture can play a massive part in films especially ones based on books because there is already a fan base and therefore a massive audience before any kind of marketing The Hobbit has a massive fan base which consists of both children, adults and indeed fans. these fans may or may not enjoy getting together and dressing up which forms the base for a massive Fan based event. I'm talking of course about Hobbitcon/RingCon in which a massive group of fans get together at the Maritim Hotel in Bon, Germany once there they talk about the films, books, characters, anything and everything they also have a bunch of guests this year they had Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Dean O'Gorman, John Callen and Mark Hadlow which are actors from the film. Most conventions can be used as a mass marketing technique to bring fans together and build hype for upcoming films or they could show off new merchandise to the fans.
http://www.hobbitcon.de/en/

How producer's get feedback

There are many ways for producers to get feedback including surveys and teaser trailer's one of the best ways is test Screenings which are used by producers to see what there audience thinks about there film and if anything needs changing for the release of The Hobbit Peter Jackson had one of these test screenings and Jim Vejvoda from IGN said "It looks like live television or hi-def video. And it didn't look particularly good" If there were an outstanding amount of people who didn't like the test screening then Peter Jackson may of considered making changes.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/04/24/the-hobbit-didnt-look-so-good

Interactive Marketing

Interactive Marketing is a form of marketing that gets you involved in the form of games or even scavenger hunts that is intended to bring in the audience and interest more people in the upcoming or just release film for example The Hobbit Launched a massive Advertising campaign which included a fully worlds first interactive Trailer using your hands this was launched through Xbox Kinect which allowed the viewer to zoom-in/out or wave to interact with the video.
http://www.videoadnews.com/2012/09/25/advertising-meets-minority-report-brainient-launch-hand-gestured-ads/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W4WnrbBPgwo
After the release of The Hobbit another Interactive campaign was released which allows the Facebook users to log on as "Dwarf's" and begin your quest and accompany the hobbit to "Erebor"you have to travel 1200 miles in game Via a number of challenges both online and off line these include creating your own images for a character/Avatar.
http://nicolasborreil.fr/warner-the-hobbit/#

Merchandising

Merchandising usually comes after a films release and like selling your film to the people through other items it could also be used as a way of marketing or as a money making technique for example there are hundreds of different pieces of merchandise for The Hobbit Including Toys, Games, Mugs, Clothes and film memorabilia these were created for the fans to spread the word about the Hobbit if people want to buy a shirt and then show it off spreading the word about the film then why not let them. But Merchandising can sometimes get crazy in the form of bootlegs, bootless are basically knock off pieces of merchandising fakes/copies of the originals i couldn't find any The Hobbit bootlegs but i managed to find some Lord of The Rings examples.

 http://bootlegactionfigures.com/blog/?p=2245

Film Reviews 

Before the internet became the phenomenon it is today most film makers depended on Word and Mouth the idea that one person could talk to another then talk to someone else and so on which would publicise your film but due to how long this would take it wasn't ideal which is why if a film was quite terrible it would take to long to get the word around and people would still go and see it but with the internet came massive sites that allowed people to review and rate films which you could check what other people and film critics think about the film your going to see. One of the most well known sites is Rotton Tomatoes which allows people to vote if they want to see the film or not and based on those satistics will rate the film.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hobbit_an_unexpected_journey/

As you can see above 82% of people enjoyed this film where as 65% didn't after you have cast your vote you may write a review of the film which people can read. This is a much faster way of spreading a review then Word and Mouth.

Distribution

Distribution is how and where a film is sold for example the Hobbit was distributed to Around 100 countries worldwide once distributed in some cases the name is also changed the main reasons for this could be to bring in different audiences for example they might change the name to something crazy which may actually apply to a foreign audience. For example when The Hobbit was released to Poland they actually changed the name i translated it and came up with The Hobbit: There and back again Which is really confusing because thats the name of the second film so I'm not sure what they will call the next one.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/releaseinfo

Assimilation to Culture

Assimilation to culture is how something fits in to culture how other programs show and welcome it and pay Homage to it one example is in the opening to the VGA's during this opening sequence a South Park clip was used which featured the Shire and the main character from the Hobbit but since it never mentioned a name or anything it wouldn't of needed permission 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxlY27d0v4g

Test Screenings and Interactive Marketing

Test Screenings and Interactive Marketing

Test Screenings are events where people producing films will ask members of the public who apply to there target audience to sit in for free and watch the film almost like a premier but the point of these Test Screenings is to see the public feedback and depending on what people say will determine if they should change the production in anyway usually the most important question they ask is "would you refer this film to a friend" if they find out that more then 30% wouldn't then they would consider making changes to the film. 

An example of a film that used a Test Screening is Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story the original ending for this film is White (played by Ben Stiller) wins the match witch shocked and annoyed the audience as White is the antagonist so after the audiences outrage the producer changed the ending to the film despite the Director Rawson Marshall Thurber saying he would keep the ending the same he was overruled and in the new ending Peter (Vince Vaughn) wins the match.

I remember doing something similar to this back in 2004 where i was asked of the streets to watch a trailer of the film Robots i was then asked questions about the film and what i thought of it including "would you show this film to a friend."

Interactive Marketing is a form of marketing that gets you involved for example the Batman Dark Knight film had massive hype build up as to what actor would be playing the Joker through Interactive Marketing they put up a pixilated image of the actor as the Joker then they told people to email through and for every person who emailed they would remove 1 pixel this was a genius idea as they had thousands of people emailing in creating awareness an people then got there friends involved aswell because they wanted to see this one picture of the Joker Warner Bros. also launched a mass scale scavanger hunt in which you had to go to diffrent locations and take pictures and things gettin people really involved once you completed the hunt you unlocked a few more pictures of the Joker this was practicly free marketing for Warner Bros.