Unit 26 Film - Assignment 3

High School Musical

The Disney Channel Original Movie High School Musical premiered on January 20, 2006. The film is an American teen/children's musical romantic comedy. 

Marketing and success

When the film was released on the 20th January, 7.7 Million viewers watched it and 6.1 Million the next night. Disney Channel aired High School Musical seven times in one month – gaining 26.3 Million viewers in that time. 

High School Musical was created with a $5 Million production budget. Even before the movie appeared, Disney released the High School Musical Soundtrack, which became the best selling soundtrack in the United States in 2006. Disney promoted the soundtrack by asking the boy band B5 to record a version of the song “Get’cha Head In The Game.” The first month of the soundtracks release, the songs hit number 133 on the Billboard 200 hit list in January. However, after heavy airtime on the country’s 56 Radio Disney stations, the song hit number one in March. 

The first movie reached almost 20 million children in 2006, and boosted Disney Channel UK's audience by 35%. 

The cast of High School Musical did a stadium concert and an ice tour across worldwide, this was a very successful part of the marketing as it was played for 50,000 seat stadiums. I think they did this because they know children/teenagers will be asking their parents to go, so the more people went, the more money was made. 

Disney chose to put the film on Disney Channel because the target audience was so young, this is because they knew the children, the disney channel viewers, will watch it and it will get more views and make it a higher success for the market. 

Disney also promoted adverts to make sure viewers go on the DisneyChannel.com and download lyrics before the release of the karoke version of the film. This is also another huge way of getting more views because they know when the children know the lyrics they will be determined to go and see the film again, making the film an even bigger success.

Video games, books, jewellery and clothing has been created to promote the film, this is because Disney knows what attracts young children so they did this because they know their parents will buy their children these sort of presents.

Comparison

Avatar had a very successful marketing scheme before the film was actually released. The film was released in December 2009. In August 2009, they released the first photo of the film, this was to notify the public that it was being released. In October, Empire magazine also released exclusive pictures, this was also to get the public talking about the film. There was three trailers in total, these are little teasers to the public to get them really excited about the film and wanting them to be determined to go and watch it.

The three-and-a-half-minute trailer of the film premiered live on November 1, 2009, during a Dallas Cowboys football game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on the Diamond Vision screen, one of the world's largest video displays, and to TV audiences viewing the game on Fox. It is said to be the largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history.
(Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29#Marketing)

The Coca-Cola Company collaborated with Fox to launch a worldwide marketing campaign to promote the film. The highlight of the campaign was the website AVTR.com. Specially marked bottles and cans of Coca-Cola Zero, when held in front of a webcam, enabled users to interact with the website's 3-D features using augmented reality (AR) technology.(Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29#Marketing)

Audiences reaction

The target audience is mainly aimed at teenagers aged between 7 - 13. The audience is boys and girls because the main characters are both male and female. There has been good reviews and bad reviews about this film. Some good reviews people said about this film is: 

"High School Musical" was a movie that can pick you up and make you "dance". The songs were great especially "Get your head in the game". With some dance moves, the movie also added great humo,"love",and for those jocks out there BASKETBALL! The actors rocked the stage and just made the movie a teen can watch and who knows maybe one or two can relate to "Troy" (Zac Efron),"Gabriella" (Vanessa Anne Hudgens), or even "Sharpay" (Ashley Tisdale). Disney has proved itself once again as the movie magnet! Like other movies "Right on Track", "Go Figure", "High School Musical" is a great movie which you can sit with family or with friends and enjoy and you never know when you might be singing along!"

"What really blew me away and made this movie stand out from the other Disney channel original movies, however, was the music, singing, and dancing. I loved the songs, especially 'What I've Been Looking For' as sung by Sharpay and Ryan, 'Breaking Free' by Troy and Gabriella, and Gabriella's solo, 'When There Was Me and You'. I was impressed by the vocal skills exhibited by the four main actors and actresses. The dancing sequences are also fun and well choreographed, and I loved how they were right in sync with the music."

I have read a lot of film reviews online and many people enjoyed the songs because most of them say they liked singing and dancing along to them. However, High School Musical isn't going to be everybodys cup of tea, a lot of people also found it cheesy, for example: 

"Why!? The movie was terrible! The music, the singing, the lyrics to the songs, the general writing and the old kiddy movie "We were mean to you but now we're sorry" act! I understand this is a kids movie but it doesn't have to be so cliché and terrible! Zac Efron...if I here that name one more time I will go insane. "Oooh he's so cuuuuute!" ENOUGH! He may be "cute" but his acting sucks! And he lyp synched the whole time. Check the trivia for this movie. We get the stereotypical dumb guy from the stereotypical mean girl's brother. We get the cheesy love story that works out in the end through the most cliché ways. Overall, bad singing, cheesy story, bad script, bad acting. The only way I would See this movie is if you paid me...Lots of money."

"The absolute worse movie i have EVER seen. stupid. too many kids obsess over it. i have always hated this movie... bad role models and bad ways to look at the world. the world is not perfect, and no you can't do what ever you want. but...i can see how 6-8 year olds would like it..so yeah...whatever"


Conclusion

Overall, after looking at the reviews this film had, not everyone enjoys cheesy pop musicals like I do. Not everyone likes a little cheesy romance either. This is why this film applies to the younger age group. However, this film is guilty pleasures for some adults!

My video tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI5JdGzOIvY&feature=youtu.be

How are films marketed?

Reviews, teasers/trailers, internet "leaks", tv adverts, fan clubs, linked music tracks, spin - offs, merchandise, tv shows, video games, posters, sequels/prequels, events (premiers).

Toy Story

Toy Story is a 1995 American computer animated buddy comedy adventure produced by pixar animation studio and released by walt disney pictures.The film was directed by john Lessester. The film is about A little boy named Andy loves to be in his room, he loves playing with his toys, especially his doll named "Woody". when Andy is not with them the toys come to life. As a toy, Woody believes that he has a good life. However, he must worry about Andy's family moving, and what Woody does not know is about Andy's birthday party. Woody does not realise that Andy's mother gave him an action figure known as Buzz Lightyear, who does not believe that he is a toy and quickly becomes Andy's new favourite toy. Woody, who is now consumed with jealousy, tries to get rid of Buzz. Then, both Woody and Buzz are now lost. They must find a way to get back to Andy before he moves without them, but they will have to pass through a ruthless toy killer, Sid Phillips.

Toy story is very popular to a younger age group, the film was such a success that the director decided to make four other films. Toy Story has a wide range of marketing. Marketing for the film included £20 million spent by Disney for advertising as well as advertisers such as Burger King, Pepsi Coke, Coca-Cola, and Payless ShoeSource paying £125 million in tied promotions for the film. All the characters that were played were toys as this has made it easier to promote the film by making merchandises. All around the world there are many ways you can these toys, either go in to supermarkets, disney stores and even on the web (Amazon, Ebay ect). Another way of marketing Toy Story was to bring out a soundtrack album, "You've got a friend in me" was the most popular song as it was nominated for two awards. It was also the theme song in the sequels, Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3. Toy Story got so big that they released Toy Story 2 and 3. 

Even though their are many merchandises to promote the film they have sold the film by making trailers for the audience to watch, which was critiqued by viewers and the film reviews got positive feedback,this shows that the trailers caught the audiences attention.Toy story has also been promoted on social networks such as facebook it has made 35,149,068 likes world wide.


The film is targeted at a younger age group 5+ however their parents would have to take them to the cinemas which would mean that they would be watching it as well this would bring the popularity of the film higher as the money for the film would be increasing and family deals would be included,which has attracted more people to watch it.

Script

Script

Hello and welcome to our video tutorial, we're looking at cameras, multi camera set ups and post production. 

First of all, I am going to show how to set up a tripod, frame a camera, focus a camera and manage exposure. 

To set up a tripod the first thing you have to do is spread the tripod legs, release the locks on the legs, and extend the legs to the desired height. Adjust the pan/tilt handle to the preferred angle. The handle is typically operated with the right hand, while the left hand operates the camera functions (focus, etc). Experiment with different angles to find which is most suited to you. The tripod can be attached to a track or a dolly, this is for a tracking shot.  

The next thing I am going to tell you is how to frame a camera. You decide what shot you think is best for the scene and to move the camera to the best position. The basic shot types are very wide shot, wide shot, mid shot, close up, medium close up, extreme close up and cutaway which is when the shot cuts between to subjects repeatedly. 

Focusing a camera is pretty simple, all you have to do is turn the dial on the lens, this will make a shot clearer and make it easier for the audience to see what is going on in the scene. 

If you are filming a shot and there is too much light, this may distract the viewer and give them a different perspective of the scene. For example, in a horror film, if the lighting is bright in a particular scene then this will make the audience less scared, so if you make the scene darker this will create a more mysterious effect. So managing exposure is important. On a digital camera, the iris is used to control how much light is coming through the lens, the more the iris is opened, the more light is going to be in the scene. 

A multi-camera set up is when more than one camera, usually 3 or more are pointed at the same subject. For example in a scene where a character is running through a corridor, around corridors and up stairs, this would be almost impossible for one camera to follow. But with multiple cameras at different viewpoints more action can be caught on camera. But this isn't the only place when multi-camera set ups are useful. They are also used in live news broadcasts and other live events like sports.

Finally, during in the post production process, a Mac PC is used for editing with
Final Cut Pro software which allows you to edit videos and audio. In Final Cut Pro the I & O keys can be used to mark in and out in the trimmer. You can import many sounds through final cut pro such as foley this is the use of many different objects being used to recreate sound seen in a film, for example a horse trotting is two half coconuts banged on a surface.

ASFC Magazine - ET and Avatar

ASFC MAGAZINE

Hollywood

Hollywood is the central hub of filming, it is located in the California. In the golden age of Hollywood, there were five popular studios, these studio were; Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and Warner Bros. The first film to be made entirely in Hollywood was the 17-minute short In Old California directed by D.W. Griffith, which was released in 1910. Since then, Hollywood has been the major factory producing high budget blockbuster films in all sorts of genre. The film industry began to locate in the region because they wanted to take advantage of natural sunlight that allowed year-round filming and the southern California landscape provided cheap scenery. 

E.T - The Extra Terrestrial

The film E.T the Extra - Terrestrial was released on 11th June 1982. The film is 120 minutes long. The budget was $10.5 million and the box office was a huge success as it gained $792,910,554. 

Highest grossing film 

It was the highest grossing film of its time and had the record for many years, it did this by overtaking Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). It was produced by one of the biggest studios in Hollywood, Universal Pictures. 

The Director - Steven Spielberg

The director, Steven Spielberg knew that Science-Fiction was becoming a big genre and wanting to extend that. As he was known to be a huge director in 1982, everyone knew it would be a good film. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as foundation's for modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres, He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. It was a risk to use these young actors for such a film like this because they had minimal acting experience, however, it worked out well for Drew Barrymore as she is one of the most biggest actresses of her generation. 

Genre

The genre is Action, Adventure and Fantasy. It is aimed at people in the younger generation as the main characters are children and the story is told in Drew Barrymore's point of view, as well as that, the alien itself is a child. The film is about a group of aliens which visit earth and one of them is lost and left behind stranded on this planet. The alien is in the back garden and he is found by a 10 year old boy, Elliot. Soon the two begin to communicate, and begin to develop a close friendship in which E.T learns about life on earth and Elliot learns about some new values for the true meaning of friendship. E.T. wants to go home back to his family, but if Elliot helps him, he'll lose a friend forever...

ET stuntmen

"Most of the full-body puppetry was performed by a 2' 10 tall stuntman, but the scenes in the kitchen were done using a 10-year old boy who was born without legs but was an expert on walking on his hands." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083866/trivia)

The film was nominated for nine Oscars at the 55th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, but it lost both to Gandhi.

ET and Super 8 comparison

ET is basically about children helping an alien escape earth and return to his home world, as the film was successful in 1982, Steven Spielberg decided to make a similar remake of it in 2011, "Super 8". The film is also about an alien who has came in contact with children and they help it to return to its home. 

Avatar

Avatar was released 18th December 2009. The film is around 160 minutes long. The budget is $237 million and the box office was $2,787,965,087, which is known to be the highest grossing film in the history of films. 

James Cameron

Avatar was directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron who has the two biggest box office films of all time. He first found success with the science-fiction hit The Terminator (1984). He then became a popular Hollywood director and was hired to write and direct Aliens (1986); three years later he followed up with The Abyss(1989) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron). 

20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox was the company which distributed the film, which led to why it was such a successful film as it was one the most popular studios in America. 





What technology was used?

Cameron used computer generated images to build his virtual world. Avatar's footage is built from around 70% CGI, including the female lead, a blue alien played by Star Trek's Zoe Saldana. As a result, the cast donned motion-capture suits – essentially, leotards covered in sensors that feed the movements of the body back to a bank of computers – and acted out their scenes on a "performance capture" stage six times bigger than anything used in Hollywood before. Cameron also attempted to crank up the realism by improving the way the suits captured the actors' facial expressions, using a skull cap with a camera enhancement that closely monitored their eyes, mouth and other small movements. One major advance with Avatar's setup was the creation of a virtual monitor that allowed the director to see the motion capture results in real-time, as they were filmed, instead of waiting for the computer to render the images. (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/aug/20/3d-film-avatar-james-cameron-technology) 

Genre and cycles

Avatar is an Action, Adventure and Fantasy. The film is about Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, who is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl)

Avatar was a massive success because it was the highest grossing film of all time, so there is an Avatar 2, 3 and 4 in the making and yet to be released in the future.  

The Winner!

Out of the both films I have researched, Avatar was the most successful because the breakthrough technology had a massive impact on the film as it looked so realistic to the audience watching and the box office was $2,787,965,087 whereas, the box office for ET - Extra Terrestrial was $792,910,554, I think it earned less because the technology wasn't as technical as the ones they used in Avatar and the audience was mainly aimed at children. 

Factors contributing to success:

• Actors 
• The story line
• Famous director
• Budget (How much money spent on production)
• Link to video/computer game
• Popular genre (eg - zombie)
• Social networking genre > publicity > good poster > publicity > good trailer 
• Being in a successful series (eg - Harry Potter)
• Link to successful book 
• Link to tv series 

The history of Hollywood questions.

The history of Hollywood

1] Give one reason why the film industry settled in California 

Because of the ideal weather conditions and varied terrain. 

2] What was the name of the first synchronised sound and dialogue movie and in what year was it released?

The Jazz Singer, it was released in late 1927. 

3] What years are given for the GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD? 

1927 to 1948. 

4] What were the names of the five big studios?

I] Paramount

Ii] RKO

Iii] 20th Century Fox

Iv] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

V] Warner Bros

5] Give a reason why the films of the New Hollywood were seen to be controversial

Because of the graphic images that included violence and death. 

6] Many Hollywood films of the Golden Era were made by following set formulas for different types of film. How does the AUTEUR THEORY differ from this?

The AUTEUR THEORY says that a film director's films express his/her personal vision and creative insights. The development of the auteur style of filmmaking helped to give these directors far greater control over their projects than would have been possible in earlier eras. 

7] How would you define a BLOCKBUSTER film?

A film that was expensive to make. 

8] In what ways have VCR, DVDs and HOME CINEMA changed the way films are consumed?

When a new film was released the only way to watch it was buying a ticket and going to the cinema, however, they then realised people preferred watching films in there own home so they all had an idea to release the films on VCR's and DVDs. This raised more money for the company.

9] What do Disney`s TREASURE PLANET and THE MATRIX REVOLUTION have in common?

They were both released in the IMAX cinema. 

10] What do you think is meant by the phrase the highest grossing film franchise of all time [HARRY POTTER]?

This is how much money people spent on buying tickets to see it. 

Basic equipment needed for video editing suite

Hardware (physical)

• External monitor - displays the video being played
• Speakers
• Mixer-voice over recording
• Desk
• Capture card/box
• Digital camera
• Computer
• Broadcast monitor
• Audio mixer
•