Production Vlog

Here is the Vlog for our single camera production https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKX__KPeOYA

Script.

Here are a few exerts from my script that I wrote the original draft for. It took me a few days to write it and I found it fairly challenging due to it being a story that I haven't really written before. Once I had a first draft myself and Alex sat down and went through it together.

Video Podcast

Here is my finished podcast of The superman franchise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PVtSheuZ_Y&feature=youtu.be

Target Audiences

A target audience is the a select group of people that you are trying to market your product, service etc. Whether this be age, sex, lifestyle choices when making or selling your product this is going to be one of the first things to consider. For this term we had to create an ident for our own production company which will be important that you have a clear target audience in mind as the way you make your ident and the design of it should make it clear on who your target audience is. For my ident I've always have had a clear idea on what I wanted my ident to look like and my target audience. my target audience has always been an older audience if you wanted an age range I would say from 17-30 years of age. A lot of my work is focused on mature themes involving crime and this shows in my ident. My ident is depicting an alleyway as a camera slowly pans as my production gets written onto the wall as blood splatters begin to appear on the wall before fading it out. The use of the alleyway and blood combined tells the audience what they are to expect. I understand the problem in the fact that my target audience isn't very broad almost niche however this is my style and the stories like to tell.

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Travel Channel ident

For this lesson we were given the task of making a small ident for a travel show, the main focus of this lesson was to get to grips with the many different animation pre sets and other tools of After Effects.

After Effects lesson 5

For this lesson we were introduced to a number of different effects. we had a composition of a dj with a number of different shapes spinning around in the background. This is our first lesson where we learnt to use a gradient.

Animation- Puppet pin tool

In this lesson we were given the task of animating a scene where a man walks across the screen before slipping on a banana peel using a Jpeg of the man. This animation was entirely possible through the main tool of this lesson the puppet pin tool. The puppet pin tool essentially lets you pick different parts of the body on the Jpeg so you can manipulate them. You also use the puppet starch tool to represent what should be in the foreground and background so you don't want the guys arm disappearing behind his torso so you would use it on the torso. The next thing to do was to create a walk cycle using our puppet pin tool we were then going to key frame animate the mans body to walk in place. Once that was done going into the transform options and key frame his position to move along the image before finally getting to the banana and slipping on it. The puppet pin tool is a handy animation tool that could be very useful in idents because of what you could do with it.

Lesson 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDvufxqo8bk

For this lesson we had to make an introduction for an opening for a documentary which has quite a lot going on albeit quite simple. The main part of the animation of the opening is this car car driving along a path while words follow behind it. This was the first time parent and child layers were used so instead of making two layers and manually adjusting them you can automatically have them share properties with the click of a button. To animate the car we used the pipes pre set for the car which then we were able to manipulate the path of the car to go around the text.

Motion Tracking

This lesson motion tracking was the main task which was a lot different to what we had done in previous lessons. This was a little less in depth because we were doing it automatically. We had a piece of footage from the opening of the T.V show The Walking Dead and we were to add in text that went with the footage. The first thing to be done was to change the workspace from standard to motion tracking for obvious reasons. Then on the right hand side there was a track camera button to press which then After Effects would analyse all the available points which would then be marked by multi colored x's. This will create a 3d tracked camera in the comp then the text layer can become 3d by ticking the 3d button and will disappear because it is 3d. Finally when you ram preview it you will see the 3d text comes in with the footage in a similar way to that of the show.

Rotoscoping

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj8BrkFZjVY

For this lesson we were given the task of creating a fairly complex composition which involved many different elements of previous lessons. The piece involved a piece of video footage moving along a background which involved the use of key frames to animate the car and other background objects. But mainly we learnt about the use of rotoscoping which was used by making a mask of the illustrators head which would be used for the animation.

Ident/Evaluation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WqBhT8tWGM&feature=youtu.be

This is my ident for my own production company and I thought I would just go over a few things as this was one of my first big projects when using after effects. To start off lets talk about design I wanted to make something dark in tone as crime/dark comedy's are some of my favourite genres. I am pleased with how the Ident turned out, I went for the "dark alley where several crimes have been committed" look which really worked out well with the use of 3D Space, camera and lighting tools. I included blood splats to follow the end of each word to further put across the fact that what I aim to make is going to be for more mature audiences.

Making of the Ident
The first thing I did was open after effects and create a new composition. I then wanted to focus on the text first so I chose the font I found most suitable (segoe script) and used the word "DT Productions" I then used the pen tool to mask the writing. The writing was then key framed to make it appear that it was written on.

Next was making the alleyway I got two textures one of a wall and the other of a floor,
once I had  the textures it was time to make them three dimensional simply by using the 3D Layer button to change the properties in 3 dimensions to make the wall and floor text to make my life easier for when it came to the camera move I made the wall and floor textures appear to go on for an infinite length I achieved this by using the motion tile effect in After Effects once the motion tiles is applied I adjust the output width and hight I then finish it by adding the mirror edges

Once I had made the alleyway it was time to set the mood. I used the camera tool to position the camera at an angle to give the feel of 3d. Next was the lighting which I used to spotlight one area the area being the masked text on the wall. I then key framed the camera move before adding in blood splatters to finalise the ident.

I really liked the use of 3d for my ident I feel that it is going to be different to many of the others and I feel that it has a clear target audience. However there are some things that could be improved including the textures.

After Effects Lesson, 1 2 and 4PT tracking

In this lesson we were taught on how to motion track for many different situations. This was similar to last weeks lesson however instead of last lesson the tracking was done by hand. The first tracking task that we had to perform was a 1 point track where we taught the basic functions in motion tacking and the end result made a humming bird flu across the screen.

The second part of the lesson was a 2 point track which involved a woman tilting her head, we were given the task to track black bars over the womans face to obscure her identity. This part has shown us why 2 point tracking is very useful as it covers the position as well as the rotation of the track. This was particularly difficult because of the way her head tilted back and it took a lot of by hand tracking to correctly track her eyes.

The next part of the lesson was a 4 point track which has been different from the last two portions of the lesson. We had to track an image onto a television where the camera was very shaky. This part of the lesson involved use of the perspective corner pin which gave us 4 cross hairs this time. The tricky part of this lesson was the placement of the crosshairs  as it needed to be placed in a very specific spot otherwise After Effects wouldn't be able to track the screen correctly. We were then given a short task to track a composition of our own to show our knowledge of the lesson. This is a useful tool that can be incorporated into our own indents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52xkSC-z9Mw&feature=youtu.be

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Sound Production

Audio Techniques To Be Used
For our production audio and it's techniques are going to be vital in pulling off the intended look of the movie. Our movie being realistic and having a gritty tone.  Ambient noise was a great way of building tension we wanted a raw sound sixth the cuts and there are a few moments during the movie in which dialogue would be cut mid sentence and this makes a very realistic feel.

One of our inspirations for the sound and overall feel of the movie was a film called Right at your door. The film consisted of gritty dark recorded sound mixed in with radio and news broadcasts which we wanted to use to give the audience the feel of Isolation. Inspiration has also been drawn from many different found footage movies for example chronicle or the Blair Witch project where the audio is hard and cuts off. We used elements of found footage in some of scenes in the sense that we would cut mid sentence to make it feel like the audience is there.

The final scene was shot entirely in slow motion so naturally it was shot in slow motion. For the scenes we would be adding a lot of opt echo and distortion, these sounds mixed in with the ambience will be really key in making it abstract.



List of Sound effects/music
The Warning tone- This is one of the sounds you'll be hearing most throughout the movie, it'll be on in the background it'll be a prominent sound effect throughout. We make raise the audio when the characters are close to the T.V and lower it as they move away from it to give the feeling of the sound actually coming from the television.

Tension Building Ambience- This is very prominent in the opening scene with the shots of the park, you'll hear noises of the swings and a very low bass which adds to the tension. This track will be layered throughout the movie.

T.V Voice over- Throughout the movie there will be a voice over coming from the television. Myself and Alex will be doing the voice overs. The sound was recorded through Matt's T.V after the recording to give the audio a more realistic feel .


Foley
During one of our more tense scenes, our main character approaches a sliding glass door which is covered by blinds after hearing a noise. She gets to the door and as she pulls the blinds a shoots out and bangs on the window. This sound will of course made with the use of foley. One of the reasons to this choice was because we were shooting late at night in someone else's house which meant we had shoot a lot of our noisier scenes earlier. Another note about this scene the man has dialogue however this is going to be added in after the fact due to the aforementioned problem.


Equipment
Music recorder is Zoom H1 and live audio captured on set. The zoom is a good sound recorder which records clear sound, however one of the problems of the zoom is that it records in all directions and this proved a problem when filming particularly as most of our movie is set in a kitchen there was a sound of the fridge humming in the background which would stop periodically this was an issue that could be resolved in post production.

Logic is the program we chose for when it came to sound mixing and editing which will then be exported in to premier pro. We chose to use Wave for our sound file as it is very high quality format. We do not need to use an AIFF because this gives use 6 tracks designed for 5.1 surround sound which will not be a factor in mixing. MP3 is far too compressed and not of a high quality so we will be avoiding them.

Existing Idents

This is the Ident for the Channel E4's breakfast programme. The design of the ident is clever in the fact that it uses the shows logo as cereal going into the bow relates it to the theme of the show. The purpose of it is to create a brand recognition for the show by making the ident memorable.

This is the ident for the music channel Kerrang. The ident is designed in a way to be similar to the popular children's programme Power Rangers. This has been used as the target audience for Kerrang will more than likely remember the T.V show and make the connection.

This is the ident for Channel 5. This ident is slightly different as it is all live action footage, the ident focuses on a car chase with a police car and it involves crashes and many other conventions of an action movie. The purpose of the ident is to make a visually interesting piece that will engage the audience to make sure they remember the channel. One interesting thing to point out is that during the chase scene the police car the is pictured left has a 5 on it. This is to establish the link between Channel 5, also Channel 5 is known for having a lot of content involving American crime dramas such as  CSI and NCIS.

This is the Ident for BBC 3, the ident focuses on a family of orange slugs who repeatedly say the word "Three" obviously this is to create the link between the ident and the channel. There is a contrast between the cold ice blue colours in the background and the warm orange colours of the slugs in the foreground, brand recognition can be easily made as the harmonic tone of slugs singing "Three".

This is the ident for the channel ITV. This Ident is different than the more conventional ITV Ident's which would normally focus on solely on the ITV logo with the use of gold and black. This ident however has got more of an obscure concept.

Single Camera- scene descriptions

 

Scene 2: The BIG shot, track Jess from living room to Jacob who is on phone.

Jacob mildly ill, several layers on

 

Scene 3:

·         Long dialogue sequence,

·         Jess tells Jacob that T.V isn’t working.

·         They argue over going to see a doctor.

·         They argue Jacob falls to floor

·         They make up

·         Jacob comforts Jess

Jacob removes a layer, health is deteriorating. More sweat on hair.

Scene 4: Focus on Jess

·         Long track shot of Jess looking for water bottles

·         Gets annoyed t T.V turns it off.

·         Gets frightened by window

·         Emotional scene of man dying outside

Scene 5: Flashback

·         Jess writing by window

·         Jess and Jacob  dialogue

·         T.V playing news show

·         Jacob picks up lunch Knocks off water

Scene 6:

·         Jacob blurry eyes

·         Jess notices eyes bleeding

·         Jess going to get help

·         Jacob stops her and faints

Scene 7:

·         Clock ticking, time moving forward

·         Dramatic shot of Jess watching T.V

·         Jess sits watching Jacob

·         Jacob wakes, Dialogue

·         Jacobs ear bleeds

·         Just the two of us dialogue

Down to t-shirt very sweaty eyes very dark

 

Scene 8:

·         Jess wakes and reacts to T.V

·         Talks to Jacob but no response

·         She crawls to living room to look at T.V broadcasting emergency

·         Calls for Jacob

·         Remembers water falling, finds it.

·         Drinks some and goes back to Jacob

·         Jacobs dead

·         She lies next to him

·         The End

Jess looks visibly ill and dehydrated. Jacob looks pretty dead.

Single Camera Drama- Lighting plan

Lighting Plan:

Lights we have:

2 LED ghost lights
2 Tungsten work lights
1 Desk Lamp
2 Floor Lamps

How we are going to light the scene:

For the shots in the living room we will use LED's to simulate the light from the TV. We will also put a couple of floor lamps around to warm the colour and add general brightness.

For the main scenes we will use a desk lamp on the desk in view of the cameras. we will then use a couple of work lights to bounce of  walls and maybe a reflector. The aim for this scene is very soft natural light.

overall style:

We want a lot of the house to be dimply lit and in shadow. The dialogue scenes will be well lit by the lamp. The scenes in the living room need to be very dark and difficult to see what's going on. The light from the TV will catch facial features for a dramatic look.

Video Podcast plan

• Superman 1978- made in the United States 
• Man of Steel- 2013 made in the United States
• Both movies share 35 year gap so there will be differences in budget, production value and themes e,g fears and current events.
• Superman 1978 had a Budget of $55 million 
• Man of Steel had budget of $255 million 
• Due to inflation the gap is smaller however Man of Steel has a considerably bigger budget due to the popularity of Superhero movies and production values
• Superman 1978 was given a PG by the MPAA
• Man of Steel was given a PG-13 by the MPAA
• Ratings may have been given due to the times of which the movies were released and that Man of Steel has a darker tone

• With the boom of Super hero movies in the late 2000's with movies Like Spiderman, Iron man Christopher Nolan's Batman Franchise could have sparked an idea for a reboot, also taking into consideration of how successful Marvels movies have been, DC would have taken this a time to reboot The Superman series so they could have a go. 
• Superman 1978, had the cold war going on at the time and nuclear tension was at an all time high, this could be reflected in the movie as Lex Luthor plans to use a nuclear weapon on the San Andreas fault line to benefit himself.
• Man of Steel dealt with more modern issues such as terrorism and the changing environment in the use of General Zod and how he want's to destroy the earth with his terraforming weapon to change the environment.

• Man of Steel was remade both as an artistic choice but also as a financial one, after the 2006 Superman returns they wanted superman to fit in with the more darker tones of super hero movies of today. You can't ignore how popular super hero movies are right now and this would also have been part of the decision why Man of Steel was made. 

• Marketing between the two are very different and this is due to the times that they were made in. The 1978 wanted to get in a more mature audience so they re designed the S on superman to give it more of an edge, also in the trailer they didn't show any performances on titles showing up on the screen. Man of Steel had a very modern marketing campaign starting on The dark knight website which had a countdown until the Man of Steel website launch which you could post on Facebook and Twitter, using social media and viral marketing is very common practise and it shows in Man of Steel

• With the original Superman movie being finically and critically acclaimed Man of Steel need to make a big impact, however for the most part it received mixed reviews while still being a financial success it was even mixed between fans, some loved the darker reboot while others were not interested and thought of it as a rehash of the 1978 version. 

I will be making a video podcast on the Superman franchise giving my opinion on the 1978 movie and the 2013 remake, discussing audiences, themes how they were both made and how they both hold up to a long time fan of the franchise.

Alex Thorn comments:

Great work, i would maybe research a few more facts and go into a bit more detail. For instance when you say the film was critically acclaimed find a sours to back this up. I think the part about Nuclear threat was interesting and how that is not a factor in the new remake. Focus a good amount of time on this. I also found the part about the design of the S interesting. defiantly devote some time to this interesting point. 

After Effects first lesson

This was the first lesson that we did in Ollie's After Effect's session, This involved a basic tutorial of the After Effects user interface, the task was to create a logo for this company which involved duplicating layers. The lesson was also used to make us aware of the different pre set animations in used for making our logo which would end up helping us when it would come to making our own ident.

Single Camera Production- Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule 

Day 1:

7.30 - 8.30pm:      Setup and lighting tests

8.30 - 9.45pm:      Shoot Scenes 2+3

10.00 - 11.00pm:  Shoot Scene 6

11.30 - finish:  Shoot Scene 4+7+8

Day 2:

8.30 - 10.00am:    Shoot scene 5

Big Relaunch

This lesson we looked at re launches primarily in television by looking at the different iterations of Doctor Who and how it went through a big overhaul from it's initial 1963 launch to it's reboot in 1970.

The X-files was an American Sci-fi horrow show which starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson who were both FBI agents who investigated many different bizarre cases which would divulge on instances of paranormal activity. The show has become a cult classic with quite a large following, the show was fairly popular through the first seven seasons. The show declined in quality through its 8th and final 9th season, David Duchovny left partway through season 8 and the show was cancelled in 2002. There have been several X files related mediums that have come out in recent years including video games, comic books and a spin off show called the lone gunmen. There was also a movie that came out in 2008. I feel this would be a great series to relaunch as it was such a popular series with a massive fan base but you would have to be careful when making it as you are wanting to get new fans without alienating the existing ones.

For my idea of the relaunch it's going to be set in modern times and it won't be focusing on Moulder and Sculley but two new agents. It will have them in Recurring roles as senior members of the FBI. This will give fans a familiar faces which will keep them involved while bringing in new fans.

Reboots in 2013

In this session we went over the concept of a reboot again particularly reboots that are scheduled for the near future. Reboots are made to give a franchise a new life or edge to make it more relevant for the audience at the time, incorporating the fears, hopes and world the people are living in at the time. We were given the task to propose a movie that is set for a reboot in the near future and discuss ideas such as, casting, story what are you going to change or what are you going to keep the same.

I chose to reboot the terminator franchise the 1984 science fiction action film franchise directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The first thing I want to change is Arnold Schwarzenegger and get a new actor, I chose Ryan Gosling just to give the terminator a fresh look. I also want the T-800 a more menacing creation with a wider variety of tools at his disposal.

Single Camera Drama- Prop list

Prop list:

• Variety of water bottles (all sizes) (no labels)
• Empty can of beans with spoon
• Selection of food jars and items
• A couple of used Towels
• Selection of different medication
• a large lamp
• A phone we can break.
• Tissues
• Notebook and Pen
• Lunch wrapped in ton foil.
• Work Bag
• Rucksack
• A Bandana

Story Details For Single Camera Production

This is our first plan for the happenings of the film. it is not detailed it was just meant as a prompt for the script writing. 

Opening montage shots

Tv playing warning tone. Camera swings round to Jess who is looking at the tv worried. We here Jacob inbackground on the phone. Jess now turns and walks down the hall to Jacob on the floor. No one answers the phone.

Dialogue covering why he is on the floor and who he is trying to call. He gets angry with Jess. We establish he is not well. We establish that it might be because of an attack. We establish that jess wants him to go hospital but he knows they cant leave.

Cut to jess in kitchen worrying about supplies. She heres a noise by the window. She approaches slowly. As she pulls back the curtain there is banging on the window and someone calling for help and choking. She does not let the person in. Emotional moment. Outside goes quiet.

Cut to flashback 1.

Jess is sitting by window in daylight writing. Jacob walks in and asks why. She says she has writers block. He makes a comment about being bombed. He then goes to work coughing.

Cut back to Jess by window.

Jacobs vision is blurry, he calls for jess who comes running. He coughs then she notices blood in his eyes before the audience sees it. Camera swings round. His eye is dripping blood. Panicked argument.

Cut to Jacob sleeping. Jess is watching him. He then speaks making her jump. Emotional scene where jacob thinks he is dying. He trys to phone his parents again but no answer. He throws the phone accross the room. He then says his good byes. Lots of emotion. Fade to black.

Montage of blurry vision with lights as though they are being saved. Jess says they are going to be okay.

Cut too him dying on floor. Jess is trying to wake him. He has died.

Single Camera production begins! Overview of the project

Single Camera production begins! Overview of the project:

Written by Alex Thorn and Dillon Taylor

Our Group:
Alex Thorn
Dillon Taylor

Job Roles:
Story by Alex Thorn and Dillon Taylor
Script by Dillon Taylor
Directed by Alex Thorn and Dillon Taylor
Director of Photography: Alex Thorn
Edited by Alex Thorn and Dillon Taylor
Colour and visual effects by Alex Thorn
Sound by Alex Thorn and Matthew Cooper

Staring:

Jacob Davies-Giles
Jessica Chamberlain

Possible names?

To Stay or Go
That's It
After the decline
Emergency Tone 
It's happened
After the Happen 

Tagline:

The Tone sounds, what would you do?
The Tone sounds, make a decision!


Reference for visual style:

This is a few grabs from a couple of films which demonstrates the lighting and colour style. We want dim, soft lighting. In terms of colour we like the first two shots which have a green Bias but we will experiment in post. we will use these on set to try and replicate the lighting style as best as possible.

Shooting Style:

We want to shoot with long takes and handheld camera work. However we will have certain parts that are cut more quickly like point of view shots. We will also use the occacional static shot for dramatic effect.

Synopsis of story:

Jacob and his girlfriend  Jess are a couple from a rural english town. Jacob works a stable job while his girlfriend is an aspiring writer. There life is changed after a chemical attack, as Jacobs health deteriorates they face a difficult decision on whether to stay as instructed or leave to seek medical treatment.

Singlecameramindmap

This is our mindmap for our single camera production, it was colour coded and we separated it into a beginning middle and end format. We sat around as a group and bounced around ideas and we would just write ideas that would stick, this was very effective as we were able to get a lot of different ideas from the group.

Remakes and Reboots

The topic of this weeks session was reboots and remakes, a subject that is great for debates and discussions as most people are going to have an opinion. I feel remakes are made for the purpose of getting source material of an older movie and making it more relevant for a modern generation. While a Reboot is used to give an existing franchise new life when it's run its course for example The Amazing Spiderman. 

48 hour film challenge

This is going to be the first of a few posts that are going to be about the 48 hour film challenge updates and just whats going on in general with the project. The group being Myself, Christian, Alex Thorn and  Billy

We got our genre and Line last week, the Genre being Thriller and our given line "But I won't do that"

A basic outline for our film, A man wakes up inside a room

With only a small time frame to get everything done we scheduled to shoot on Tuesday the 17th of September from 7:30pm till 10:30pm at a Rayleigh Mega zone conference room that we had booked.

We arrived in Rayleigh at 2pm and went back to Alex's house to  prepare for tonights film shoot. We made our shot list, prop list, script and a plan of action. Our main actor arrived at 3:30pm and we had a short meeting with him where we discussed what kind of role he would be playing and how he should approach it. Following dinner we went out for the shoot.

We shot from 7:30 and finished at around 10:20pm because of time constraints it was a consistent 3 hour shoot with only a small break in between. This is the first project where we got actual actor to perform instead of the usual routine of getting one of us or friends/relatives. This has greatly increased the quality of our production. They were great and really co-operative and considering the small amount of time we had I was really pleased with it.

Ident Perry Mccarthy

Here is the ident thay was made for Mr. Mccarthy. Evaluation to follow.

The Amazing Spiderman

The Amazing Spiderman

The Amazing Spiderman is a good example of how expectation can affect how popular a film may be. Spiderman a well-known name in popular culture to even the most super hero illiterate, getting his start in comic books before moving onto the quirky 1967 animated series, super hero movies really became a risk to film studios as several films involving the caped crusaders we’re negatively reviewed by critic and movie goer alike in the mid- late 90s including Joel Schumacher’s infamous Batman and Robin (1997) and Kenneth Johnson’s Steel (1997) which starred NBA star Shaquille O'Neal. Sam Raimi’s Spiderman was the start of a revolution in which would end up in Super hero movies dominating our movie screens until present and certainly for several years to come. The reboot of Spiderman came to a bit of a surprise to many fans, out with Toby Maguire and in with new boy Andrew Garfield expectations were mixed some were open for a fresh start while others were less than thrilled. (http://www.comicvine.com/spider-man/4005-1443/forums/how-high-are-the-expectations-of-the-amazing-spide-628799/)  Expectations do effect the enjoyment of a movie particularly super hero ones where there will be a mix of casual viewers mixed in with the hard core fans of the series 

The Amazing Spiderman was represented differently to Sam Raimi movies; While Raimi’s were much lighter in tone, The Amazing Spiderman decided it wanted to be darker akin to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight series which were a lot darker compared to the aforementioned Joel Schumacher movies. This can be seen by looking at the teaser trailer and posters for both movies.  People could interpret this as the studio trying to get rid of the image the previous movies had set which had a lot of silly moments more so in the third instalment.

Spiderman's darker reboot

The Amazing Spiderman had a big and in some ways odd marketing campaign which catered to wide variety of audiences, one of the first official pieces of merchandise were strangely Pez dispensers more interesting this was the first time people got to see what the main antagonist of the movie “The Lizard” was going to look like. These were handed out at the 2011 Comic con and these were very effective tools. Later down in the timeline construction toy makers Mega Bloks released their tie-in play set at an annual toy fair that recreated pivotal scenes in the movie almost a whole year before the release, this was effective and action figures were a lot of focus for their merchandise campaign, do you want to find out what happens in Spiderman? Well just go on down to your local Toys R Us.  For the kids there were a whole bunch of different food tie ins Kellogg’s cereal, Pop tarts, candy bars and different fast food tie ins such as Burger King which would sell small figurines with each child’s meal, there was also a promotion at a chain of restaurants called Carl Jr’s in which if you turned up dressed as Spiderman you would get a free Bacon and Cheeseburger. With a franchise as big as Spiderman there are going to be a lot of different merchandise aimed at child (and big fan alike) such as the Spiderman Web shooter much in the same way Andrew Garfield’s Spiderman as opposed to Tobey Maguire’s organic Webbing in the Raimi Movies, there was even more obscure merchandising including Spiderman After shave and Spiderman trainers. Merchandising is very effective in promoting a movie especially in Spiderman’s case, young children all the way to the much older fans of the series will be interested in getting this memorabilia for their own collection and it will get people talking about Spiderman.

   

Spiderman’s viral and interactive marketing there is a lot to say about because a lot was done and in turn it shows how the two types of advertising are very effective, there was a pseudo news broadcast that featured a story on whether or not Spiderman was a criminal. There was a Spiderman game which was updated weekly in which you would do a different activity and there would be a secret code hidden and when you used the code it would unlock different items including fake Daily Bugle news reports and the last unlockable was blueprints on how to make a web shooter. There was also a much more in depth campaign called ARG which a website called markofthespider-man.com which gave out 6 twitter accounts each account tweeted out a different location in the United States and the first select number of people to get there would receive a hoodie and a mobile phone, then later on they would get a call and in teams would go around the city spray painting stencils of Spiderman, these involved campaigns are great for promoting a movie this one effectively had people go on a scavenger. It gets the consumers involved with the movie and it’s going to get people talking on many different social media sites which in turn got a lot of word of mouth advertising for the movie.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U_7V8SeoY

San Diego Comic con, one of the biggest events in pop culture catering to many different different genres, whether it be games, movies, comics, novels or trading cards it’s going to be there. This event has become a way for studios to gather hype for an upcoming project. Spiderman having the following it has is perfect for Comic Con and has its own hall for it, Hall H at the 2011 comic con there was a Q and A panel in which the audience got to the ask the cast questions to get information about the movie, this is a good way for the film studios to interact with the audience and they can share their thoughts about the movie, similar to test screenings but a much smaller scale in terms of what the audience was actually shown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMcyclphuNs

Generally speaking when a movie gets a bad review, people are going to be less than inclined to go and see it. Normally before people go and watch a movie they may look at a review for it. Reviews have a big impact on a movie, Batman and Robin is a good example for the most it normally gets torn apart in reviews and rightly so, people aren’t going to want to watch it, however there is an interesting case.  A 2003 “Romance Drama” Movie by the name of “The Room” is regarded as one of the worst movies ever made but it has quite a large cult following screenings still happen regularly, it peaks peoples curiosity, it’s a so bad it’s good situation. The Amazing Spiderman overall garnered positive reviews from critic and fans alike

For the Amazing Spiderman, distribution was fairly simple it had its theatrical release then several months later it was released onto DVD and Blue Ray for your viewing pleasure most movies follow suit however there have been different cases in which movies have slightly altered the way they release their movie. Ben Wheatley’s a field was released in the cinema, on television, DVD and on demand TV on the same day, while it may not look the most cost effective way of doing things the movie gathered a lot of coverage as it was the first ever movie to this sort of thing which gathered interest.

Assimilation into Culture, this is when a type of media normally being a film or television series will reference something that normally you’d have to be a fan of what it was referencing to get it, for instance in the recent Man of Steel movie when General Zod destroys a satellite you can see on the Satellite that it says “Wayne Tech” Wayne Tech= Bruce Wayne= Batman and thus the reference is made and you have a little chuckle to yourself, it really makes you feel like you are in the “in crowd” Unfortunately there were none for The Amazing Spiderman, there nearly was. To coincide with the movie “The Avengers” which was released the same year during the big fight scene in New York you were going to be able to see The Oscorp Tower in the Skyline, however it was too far into production by the time so it never came to fruition. However these type of references get fans of the series involved and excited.

ARG Campaign

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/amazing-spider-man-arg-paints-the-town-red/#/0

Viral Campaign

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/amazing-spider-man-arg-a-mystery-arrives-in-the-mail/#/0

A Field Distribution

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/field-england-marks-uk-distribution-first

Spiderman Webshooter 

http://screenrant.com/amazing-spiderman-viral-images-videos-mechanical-web-shooters-kofi-167568/

Spiderman Assimilation into culture 

http://www.firstshowing.net/2012/amazing-spider-man-almost-tied-into-avengers-and-now-venom/

Spiderman Merchandise 

http://movieline.com/2012/07/06/odd-marketing-the-amazing-spider-man-toys-tie-ins/

Misrepresenting Poster

To start off this blog I thought it would be best to start off with one of our first smaller tasks. We were put into pairs and were then given the task to make a poster for an existing movie and do it in a way so it would misrepresent the product.This was after looking at a movie called "For the Record" which by looking at the cover was a gritty British gangster movie although ended up being a comedy mockumentary.

This is mine and Christians poster for "Goodfella's" the Martin Scorsese picture. A movie that is about an American Italian Crime family, we put a slight twist on it and added the Pizza and respective logo of the Pizza food chain of the same name. I think it works and is quite effective and I like the slight alterations of the faces that just add to it. I think it is fairly simple but it works.