Audience Engagement Research- Joker

Joker is a rated R thriller following Arthor Fleck, as life in Gotham continuously spits in his face and his mental state deteriorates, he becomes face to face with his alter ego, the joker. This film contains harsh language, and scenes of great violence. Therefore, this film is rated R and would hence have a similar audience to our film.

The posters all had a similar theme, the main character, the Joker. All of the posters had the main character in the focus of the posters. They didn't ever give away too much information but rather subliminally showed that the film would be dark and uncomfortable. 

They first released a teaser trailer that went viral on YouTube and racked up 62.1 million views. This trailer was a compilation of scenes throughout the movie, it was short and didn't release too much. Then they released the full length trailer and then the final trailer, they both were just edited scenes from the full length movie.

The website for the movie was very typical and didn't offer much other than the typical movie website content. They also released banner ads on websites and social media website platforms. The most interesting publicity occurred online and through news publications. The movie was scene as controversial as it depicted scenes of violence and the effects of a dangerous mental health eventually leading to a societal breakdown. This caused many to criticize the movie and it's potential to possible inspire similar events in real life. Therefore many people online and in the news spoke about the movie and their opinion. 

Using posters to advertise our movie would be the best option for marketing our film. We could easily create Poster that depict the main character as the center of the film without revealing too much information about the film. We would be unable to create trailers compiling scenes from the movie because we haven't filmed the whole movie only the first two minutes. We also would be unable to utilize the media and news to talk about our movie, because our movie is not of high profile and not very controversial. Therefore posters would be the best way to market our movie that, Joker also utilized.

Audience Engagement Research- Once upon a Time in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a movie by Quintin Tarentino, is a story focused on Hollywood in 1969, during a time of change. It follows Tv star Rick Dalton, and his long time stunt double cliff booth as they make their way through an industry that has progressed passed them.
Similar to our movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is rated R, it has mature themes that mirror ours. Both of our audiences would enjoy these themes and subject matter and hopefully be mature enough to comprehend them fully.




Their website was a more basic website, it was focused on selling tickets and more basic types of marketing such as stills and trailers.

They utilized the media and press to advertise their movie. They did this by releasing stills and hints as to who was acting in the movie. The movie contained many high profile actors, therefore by releasing their inclusion in the film, it stirred up a lot of attention and hype. They also had events such as the cast going onto late night shows such as Jimmy Kimmel. This technique of advertising would not work well for us because we do not have high profile actors.

Of the techniques used by the film, the one that we could use best would be the creation of a website. This works best for our film because the other method would not be possible for us to use, due to our actors not having a high profile.

Poster Photoshop Practice

I was practicing using Photoshop today in anticipation of making my poster in the future. This was my end result of the practice today, it does not relate to any scene of the movie, but rather is just practicing using random images. While it is rough around the edges, it is a start.

The art of the Title Class Activity

Today in class we analyzed some title sequences from ARTOFTHETITLE.COM. One that I thought was well done was Reservoir Dogs. The website comments on how the film opening managed it's pace, "originally filmed in 24fps and stepped down to an almost-jumpy 12fps, achieves a sort of snappy grace". The website also tells of how the actors titles are shown to us, "As the be-suited band of men strolls down an alley, each actor is introduced in a mustard serif typeface and the George Baker Selection’s 1970 hit “Little Green Bag” pulses upbeat". The website does a good job of telling how the film makers used certain techniques and also describes certain information such as the song played during the sequence. 


Techniques that i plan to use in my film are the showing of the actors name when their character first appears on screen, like so...

I like this technique, it keeps the film organized and does so in a slick way. I plan on using this in my film, when characters are shown the actors name will be displayed as well. I plan on doing the same thing with the title when it is displayed, this was also done in Reservoir Dogs.

Audience Engagement Research- Get Out

Get Out is a mystery, thriller, film that was rated R, released in 2017.

Get out and our movie, the rise would have similar audiences due to them having the same rating, R, and also, using similar elements of the thriller genre. Therefore we are analyzing the techniques and  ways the film was marketed.

How did they market their product?
The film was marketed in many different ways,
they used an ominous poster that showed scenes of the movie without giving away too much information, on this same poster, they had a quote with a connection to the movie. They also put from the mind of Jordan Peele, an iconic figure in the realm of comedy, and mention the producer and other popular films produced by them.

Get Out also had trailers that were advertised on YouTube. These trailers did not reveal too much information yet caused lots of excitement for the movie and what it could possibly be about. The use of advertisements on YouTube was intelligent due to lots of fans of Jordan Peele and the intended audience ages most likely using YouTube. Ads were also ran during sport events on Tv, this simply opened up the possibility of a larger audience seeing it.

Get Out also utilized the use of a website that had spoiler-free synopsis of the film, trailers, an art gallery, tickets that can be bought, and a share feature, allowing people to share the website on social media.

They also had a secret midnight screening of the film. This created a lot of buzz and hype surrounding the movie, due to those that saw the movie, talking about their experience on social media.

Marketing Our Product:
Of the techniques listed and used in Get Out, i would want to use almost all of them for our film, but due to lack of resources and time, i feel that a poster that could then be out on social media would best fit our film.

My Target Audience

Target Audience

• Age: 17 and older
• Gender: Male and Female
• Geography: The United States
• Income level: All income levels
• Education level: The audience should have somewhat of a high school education
• Maturity level: They must be mature

Our movie will most likely be rated R, this is because of the mature themes that will be included in the movie. While we are selling candy, which in the real world is not illegal, in the world of our movie, it is. The distribution of illegal substances is not the only mature theme in our movie, there is also violence in the movie, another mature theme that will restrict our movie to only 17 years of age and older, younger audiences can see it, but only with an adult.
Our movie is not made for any specific gender, therefore males and females can see the movie and find enjoyment in it.
Although certain aspects of our film are inspired by other cultures, for example the Italian name, our  movie is based in and culturally American. While other people from other countries can watch and enjoy our film, we feel that it will connect most with an American audience.
We do not control the sale price of our movie at theaters, therefore the price to see the movie will be what the theaters decide to price it. Any people that can afford to see the movie will be able to watch it, any income level can enjoy it.
Due to the rating of our movie, we feel that people with at least a high school level of education will be old enough to watch the movie, and also intelligent enough to comprehend the themes and dialogue of the film.
Similar to the education level, the audience must be mature enough to comprehend the themes of our film. They also must be a certain age to purchase a ticket to the movie, with this age would most likely come maturity.

Feedback and Revisions

We received primarily positive feedback on our film after presenting it to the class. However, there were some glaring issues that we must fix;
-The movie length
-The Mis-en-scene, costumes

To fix these issues we are going to re-shoot the movie, due to Tyanna wearing clothes that didn't make sense for her character, we were unable to simply edit the movie to lower the run-time. Hence why we will re-shoot the entire movie, except this time we will all be in better costumes and have more improved and better looking camera shots. We will cut out unnecessary scenes that pro-long the film, to cut the movie down to 2 minutes rather than 3. These changes will improve the film by making it a more concise and more visually appealing product.

Use of Conventions

>How does your product use or challenge conventions of your genre?

Our product uses conventions of our genre. Things such as the use of a handheld camera and non-artificial lighting portray the film as being realistic, other films in the genre also do this.  These are conventions that are used regularly in the genre. We also used the appearance of Rhianna’s character as comic relief, this is done in the genre to help breakup the seriousness of the films.

>How does it represent social groups or issues?

Social Groups: Our movie represents three main social groups; the dealer, the consumer, and the innocent. Shawn and Tyanna's characters both represent the dealers. They both sell candy and are primarily focused on gaining more money and power. While Connor's character represents the consumer, a person who is centered on buying candy and nothing else. Meanwhile, while short, Rhianna's character's appearance in the film symbolizes those unrelated to the interaction between dealer and consumer, and does not want to become involved. Her character is one that is innocent and is centered on preserving this.

Issues: The main character Giovane, portrayed by Shawn, faces many issues that make up the content of the film. As seen in the beginning, he is inexperienced at selling candy and therefore he faces many issues as he learns the ways of the trade, this is a issue faced throughout the film. Another issue shown in the intro is the issue of not knowing who you can and cannot trust. Shawn's character has to make important choices throughout the film on who he should trust and should not. Finally, an issue at the center of the action is that of competition and territorial defense, as seen by Tyanna's character defending her territory and literally beating the competition, which is Shawn's character.