Film trailers and their importance for distribution and marketing

This is a theatrical trailer for Burn After Reading. The film was released  on 17th october 2008.

The films Unique Selling point is the actors, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, it makes the audience want to see this film for them as theres a huge following for these 2 a-list actors.

This film, is predominantly a comedy, but what makes this different is that it mixes comedy with action. Also, Brad Pitt and George Clooney very rarely do comedies.

The theatrical trailers primary purpose is tho show clips of scenes in the film, and allows us to know the storyline. The theatrical trailer is just under 2 minutes, which is average for a trailer. It definitely makes the audience want to see more.

The trailers show that is very comedy based, with an action twist, we can see it is quite a "positive" film.

It is a selection of probably the funniest shots and the ones with the most action, or the most noteworthy parts in an abbreviated form without producing spoilers.

The boat that rocked - Exhibition

This link http://business.pearlanddean.com/filmplanner/filmdetail.html?FilmID=4133 shows the information on how the film was distributed, it shows that 64% of people who went to see it were Female and 36% were Male. It was most popular in the 15-24, 25-34 and 45+ all with 28%.
This was sucessful as it appealed to audiences of all ages.

Poster Analysis

This is a poster for Love Actually.

It has a white background, and white is often associated cleanliness and simpleness.

It also has all the main characters across the mid centre, allowing you to focus on the middle of the page, to the main protagonist, Hugh Grant.

Hugh Grant is an advertising technique in itself, as people want to see a film with a big star like Hugh Grant.

The Ribbon running horizontally along brings the theme of Christmas.

The use of red relates both to Love and Christmas, it is used alot in the poster, with red highlighting the "Love" in Love, Actually, to show the significance of it. Red is also used for the caption on the top of the poster to draw attention to it.

There is text and reviews and slogans at the top of the poster which shows you what how the film has been perceived to reviewers.

The film was released around christmas time and the christmas tree in the background reflects this.

Distribution

Love, Actually, was released nationwide in cinemas on the 21st november, 2003.

Its target audience was anyone from the age of 16, which was a friday, which is a good day to release the film as it was the start of the weekend, allowing more people to view the film.

It was released at the end of november as the film was christmas related.

Love, Actually was a mainstream movie, marketed worldwide.

The unique selling proposition was the tag lines, there were various tag lines.

Love actually is all around.

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Coming soon actually.

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The ultimate romantic comedy.

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Very romantic. Very comedy.

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All You Need Is Love

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It's All About Love... Actually.

Production - Patterns and Issues

Case Study: Notting Hill
UK Release: 21st may 1999

Notting Hill was a very succesful film, wih excellent reviews from the media, and was one of the highest grossing British films.
The Romantic Comedy starred Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts alongside other well-known actors such as Emma Chambers and Hugh Bonneville.

Synopsis
An ordinary bloke (Hugh Grant) who works in a book shop in Notting Hill comes face to face with an international film star (Julia Roberts). They fall in love...but the road is a steep and rocky one, coupled with ludicrous flat-mates, dinner parties, and the press on their tails. Can the most famous film star in the world fall for the man in the street?

Production

The main companies involved were Working Title Films, Polygram Film Entertainment, Bookshop productions and Notting Hill Pictures.

The Screenplay was written by Working Title's very own in house screen writer, who had also written the hugely sucessful Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Notting Hill Awards

.Audience award for most popular film at the BAFTAS (2000)
.Best comedy film at the British comedy awards.
.Best sountrack at the Brit awards.
.Best British Film at the Empire awards.
.Best British actor at the Empire awards.
.Roger Mitchell got the best British Director award for the film at the empire awards.

Distribution

Notting Hill was distributed by MCA, Universal and PolyGram film entertainment. The film i think was aimed at women of all ages, as well as young couples and married couples. The genre is a romantic comedy and follows the traditional british rom-com values in which 2 people from different backgrounds meet and fall in love.

The main poster used to distribute the film features Hugh Grant walking past a billboard poster of Julia Roberts. The image of Julia Roberts is much larger than Hugh Grants is used to show Julia Roberts character has a higher status, Aswell as being on a billboard, showing how she is famous. The colour (or lack there of) is very unusual compared to other film posters, with colour only showing on Hugh Grants clothes and the names of the actors on the top of the poster.

Working Title Films

Working Title Films was established in 1984, where a year previous New Zealand born Tim Bevan set up a music video production company.

Eric Fellner also started in music videos, making them for the like of Fleetwood Mac and Duran Duran. He then went to work at British production company Initial Pictures, he left initial to join Bevan in 1992.

Working Titles brakthrough film was released in 1994, Four Weddings And A Funeral, a romantic comedy. There was a long dry period where many of their films were not sucessful internationally. They soon worked through it and produced many sucessful films such as:

.Among them

.French Kiss

.Dead Man Walking

.Fargo

.Elizabeth

In 1999 Working Title signed a reported $600 million deal with film giant Universal Pictures, this gave the pair to commision films with a budget of up to $35 million without even consulting their pay masters. It seems that Romantic comedies are what they are best at.

Their most recent success is the opening of WT2, an offshoot to design smaller budget films.