Major Project: Promoting Through Social Media RESEARCH

Our film is getting closer to the screening date, and I want to make sure that we have all the promotion needed on all our platforms to make sure we are giving the best behind the scenes and pictures as we can. I have begun to research into other upcoming films ways of promoting themselves and have found a variety of techniques and ideas which could potentially help our films promotion. 

I looked at the website Smashing Magazine (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/movie-website-designs-examples-and-current-practices/) which was extremely helpful on things to post onto the website, it included so many examples and some things I knew, but hadn't fully thought about.

Some of the things which they mentioned are;





FLASH

A lot of websites now use Flash, which allows them to have moving content on the background, such as videos or games. These are really great things as audience love things which are interactive, and videos will give them a better insight into what the film is about. It would be great if I could incorporate these onto our website but I'm not sure what sort of thing to put, as I like the idea of the trailer not being TOO big.

LARGE BACKGROUND IMAGERY 

A lot of films now have huge pictures on their backgrounds as the main image, and then other smaller videos and imagery beside it , which really stands out. I have already done this on the website when I created it last year, however, I think it needs updating and I can use some imagery we took, or some dramatic stills from the shoot which could work well also.

SHORT PAGE LENGTH
This is something I researched into last year and tried to do on our page - have everything on the page, without scrolling down. This ensures the viewer gets to see everything and doesn't need to scroll for any other information as all the links and videos are there infant of them.

DOWNLOADS
Something I hadn't yet thought about that was brought to my attention through this article, was a downloads page. This can feature imagery that the viewers can download and would be an interesting concept to have on the website.

FUN EXTRAS

Some websites also have additional content such as games and activities. This works on most genres, however, I feel for our film it would not work as our film is very serious and there wouldn't be a game we could create that would fit without it looking like we created it just to put it there. Additionally, i'm not sure how much it would cost and we don't have the budget to do this right now!

Reference: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/movie-website-designs-examples-and-current-practices/

Add content & build pages

As complicated and high-tech as some big-budget Hollywood film websites may appear, they’re always short and simple when it comes to information and content pages. The standard things they’ll always include, however, are as follows:

• A trailer
• Release date information
• Synopsis/storyline
• Awards and nominations and/or critics’ ratings
• Names of cast, crew members and all companies/studios involved
• Images and videos of the main cast
• Social media buttons and icons

Reference: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/how-to-make-a-website-for-your-film/


The image below, is for the upcoming film 'Criminal'. Although there isn't many pictures featured heavily on the website homepage, they still have a lot of information about the film and have made it stand out with the colours and fonts they have used.

Although 'Bad Neighbours 2' isn't in the same genre of film as ours, I still looked at it to see what they would do to market their film, as I know for the first film there was a lot of marketing and build up to the film. I noticed that on the homepage they have stills and short videos of the cast and have made them really bright and colourful to fit with the summer vibe of their film. The continued theme of pictures goes all the way down the website and it's something I could also try on our website. I'd have to take some stills from the film as I obviously don't want cast and crew in it, however, i'm not sure if the same effect would work - as this film is very comical, whereas ours is more serious and the nature of the writing may not fit, unless I made it very dramatic and bold.

Another detail I have noticed is that all the films start of their film with the trailer playing HUGE, on the front page. This is something I definitely want to do, this will mean it's the right thing our audience see's and will straight away have a little insight into what the films about. This will also encourage them to stay on the page to find out more information on the film if they enjoyed the trailer. Right now on the website, we have a teaser which is featured, however, this will soon move to another page, and the trailer will be featured first on the front page.

'Now You See Me 2'

I looked at the website for 'Now You See Me 2' which has done amazing with their marketing techniques. Obviously, they have a lot more budget and team behind them but we could still do some of the smaller things which they do such as imagery and video effects. As the film is based around magic and a thriller theme, they have tailored their website around an animation in which you scroll through the different 'levels' and see information about the film while also getting a taste of what the film will be like. There is a lot of colour and pictures throughout which makes you want to carry on scrolling through to find out more. It is probably one of the best film websites I've seen in a while as right from the beginning it's like a puzzle that you go through and on each animated section theres lots of things to look at and it definitely keeps the viewer interested and is a great way for you to make them look through the whole website and information without them even intending to - animation/pictures definitely work a lot better than just text by itself.

They have also created individual posters for each cast member which when you scroll through them all together on the website, it's really enticing and they have made it look really strange to fit with the theme of the film.

This is something I hadn't thought of however, if possible, it would be great to do some individual posters of each cast member to edit them to fit with the style of our film.


Instead of just looking at the websites alone, i've moved on to looking at their other social media pages to see if they have put the same amount of effort into each one. On the image to the right, you can see that they have filled their page with videos, imagery and the same theme as on their website, which is great as I can immediately see that it's the same film. I also like that the logo on the default picture is so simple yet really fits the theme of their film and isn't boring at all.

I also found that on the Facebook page they have gone to a lot of trouble to create short GIF's, moving images of the cast to tease the audience into wondering what will happen. Scrolling further down they have done this a lot and the videos aren't at all boring, although very quick the colours and boldness make you want to click to watch them.

 The website has also heavily featured posters that they have creates which is definitely something I will be doing once we have created it. Along side the poster they write simple messages to accompany the image.

I also checked out their Twitter, which is also quite similar and sticks to the same themes once again, posting a variety of cast and crew imagery along side animated imagery that they have created purposefully for marketing. There are definitely some things we can do to create enticing imagery for our social media and i'll definitely look more into it.

Finally, I looked at the film 'The 5th Wave' and it's promotion on social media. It was quite similar to the others and also featured a video as the background, along with the trailer playing in the upper left corner. I really like how they are all so simply yet really effective. They also stuck to the small page idea, not having to scroll to see anything else and all the links and information on the landing page.

Something this website has done, which I also made sure to do, was to feature a track playing in the background, which can be paused if the viewer doesn't want to listen to it. I think this builds up the hype on the website and allows you to feel how the film is going to be like - style and tone wise.

Looking into their Facebook and Twitter pages, they carried the same theme across, allowing us to easily establish that they are the same film. Once again, their logo is very simple, yet so effective. I think I have been thinking too much about it, trying to make it over the top and stand out, when a simple font on a simplistic background can really make it pop. They are also constantly posting on Twitter, not only about the film directly, but advertising the film indirectly. They post pictures along with little quotes from the characters which is nice and entices you to wonder what will happen.

Another thing they did on their Facebook page, is the same thing again with the quotes but a little differently. They have edited the character with an effect, and placed a quote in the post. I think this is a great idea to do and will allow us to show more of the characters before anyone see's the film, along with letting the audience get to know the characters more themselves.

Overall, this research has been very beneficial to me, and although the website has already been created, it will be great to develop it further from the pre production stage and with more content now available to me, I can update all the social medias further to create more enticing pages for the viewers.