How a product advertises - P1.

‘Deadpool 2’ is the product of choice.

Deadpool 2 advertises by posters, videos, real life visits to countries by greeting fans and members of the public and much more.

One example of this is where Ryan Reynolds visited South Korea to make an appearance in a tv show they have, this was called ‘King of Mask Singer’ a singing competition. Ryan Reynolds appeared in a unicorn mask and sung Tomorrow from the musical Annie. This created awareness of Deadpool 2 in South Korea because this popular show has now had Ryan Reynolds have an appearance to promote his new Deadpool 2 movie. This also introduced the Deadpool 2 product to the South Korean market by visiting and singing a song from the Deadpool 2 soundtrack. As a result, this creates an increase in sales in South Korea. Ryan has also allowed himself to rebrand the product because he has never advertised the previous Deadpool in any style like this, he essentially advertised Deadpool in a completely different way that allowed him to catch the attention of newer audiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiBPUpCJ7MQ

Another way Deadpool 2 was advertised was by using a new character (Peter), as an advertising method. This was done by making him a LinkedIn and Twitter page of Peter, they advertised him as an X-force member since April whereas before he’s known as an Excalibur sales manager for 20 years. This allows for immersion into the film and makes the film more realistic and creates a USP by advertising newer characters like this, because superheroes without superpowers essentially make people feel like they can be heroes too. This gained extra attention because if someone stumbled upon one of these pages they may become curious what the X-force is and then find out about Deadpool 2 due to this. This method allowed Peter to be represented as a normal person who has no powers (which is true), but therefore hints to the idea that anyone can be heroes. Advertising on LinkedIn allows people who don’t read comics or haven’t seen the first movie as it makes them search up what the X-force is and as a result will be faced with Deadpool 2 and therefore, possibly want to watch the film.

The poster below is a joke poster that they made of other large movies but changed them, such as Booty and the Beast with the X-man Beast as The Beast and Deadpool as the Booty, not beauty. This is a nice play on words that gave viewers a nice laugh at the joke and was an easy way to give viewers a laugh and find enjoyment. This is a good marketing strategy because it’s Ryan Reynolds comparing his movie to others that are similar. In the first instalment of the Deadpool series, Deadpool is the beast and Vanessa is the beauty. Reynolds also jokes about Deadpool 1 being a romance comedy and as a result, using Beauty and the Beast is a good way to show this.

Reynolds also tried to use pop culture celebrities to advertise Deadpool 2, this is shown by Reynolds (still in Deadpool’s costume) dressing as Bob Ross and badly painting to try and draw the Deadpool 2 cast including new faces such as Domino. This allows us to see the team and also is a nice joke as viewers will know who Bob Ross is and therefore, when noticing Deadpool as Bob Ross at the start of the video, will be interested and keep watching.

Finally, a fun way that Deadpool 2 was advertised was by doing a teaser trailer on Cable. But all the CGI wasn’t used yet. Therefore, the metal arm that Cable is meant to have is just a green sock on his arm. This is a nice joke at the film and points out how tedious it is for CGI to take place. This was finally finished up with Deadpool getting a cable action figure out of a play house and replacing all scenes in the trailer that contain Cable to be with the figure instead. This is also a way that editing is used in films as commonly, figurines are used in movies. This is a clever way that Reynolds shows that editing is used in films and TV.

In conclusion to all this advertising. Deadpool 2 took the box office with $301 million during their opening weekend. Whereas they spent around $5.45 million on the advertising alone. This proves that they were able to be successful on their advertising as their first weekend profit to advertising budget was 55 times the budget. This is only for the first weekend, meaning they had more to come too.

 

What I expect of this unit.

For this unit I expect that we will learn how to create a piece of work based on advertising.

Production log - P3.

Report - M4, D1.

Review.

We used a variety of shots such as a close up shot when I was being dragged to get my expression and to show the struggle my character is going through. Then, in the talk between the two characters at the start (Lisa and Sam) we used over-the-shoulder shots and tracking shots as Sam enters the room. This shows importance and allows the audience to know that dialogue is happening between the two when they were both sat down with the over-the-shoulder shots.

Instead of using transitions we decided to use cuts. These were more effective for the style of editing that we wanted to use. This makes the scene much more sharper and sudden. It makes any jump scare that may happen seem more like a surprise as they're usually seen through cuts and not transitions. The idea of only using cuts allows the scares to be more surprising.

We chose the colours to be bright when it was based on the two friends talking about Simon being missing. This brightness also gives the viewer a false sense of security because they think the movie is friendly until it casually gets dark and darker as the scenes go by. The same goes for when Simon was outside with a slight hint of grey to suggest darkness and evil. But, there was a large amount of darkness when he entered to show that the place is rundown and hasn't been unused in a large amount of time. This gives the audience an idea that no one will be in the place so when my character (Simon) encounters two different characters he gets scared not only from their appearance and what they say, but that he's not alone. During editing I had to edit a large amount of colours such as at the starting scene with the two friends talking, one shot was drastically brighter than the other ones which meant we had to mess with the contrast and saturation within that scene. Later I had to edit scenes of me walking down the corridor so that some of the posters we didn't cover were not noticeable. Also so that when I entered specific rooms the lighting wasn't too bright, if the brightness is similar throughout this scene, the surprise of seeing Eve's character is less obvious. The darkness here also creates suspense and tension throughout the film. It also means no one can see what's far within the movie.

For the sound and music I went for an old fashioned basic music style. This gives more of an original feeling because most movies these days have complicated soundtracks and therefore, the music I added isn't as complicated to make the audience pay less attention on the music and more on the characters and movie. This allows the audience to get more associated to the characters and know them better as we get to understand who they are. Since I made all the music myself, the music is essentially copyright free and therefore, we met the criteria of the brief to make your own music and sounds. I made one point in the music where it has heavy beats, all these heavy beats create tension within the movie and prepares the viewers for something that is going to happen soon.

When planned the movie we had to take so many factors into consideration. This included with how we had to film on school grounds. This made it harder for us because we had to make sure that the area was similar to a horror based area. If we chose to base our movie in a school it'd be too generic as most other groups were working towards that idea. Although, we decided to use an insane asylum instead. When we started filming we faced a problem in filming inside the building, this is because there's so many posters in the school which are extremely bright and noticeable and tell the audience that this is a school. So what we decided to do for the scene where my character entered, we covered the posters and walls with newspapers. This created more of an abandoned effect, although was hard to put up as it was very time consuming. This allowed us to meet the criteria of the brief as we therefore.

Therefore, since the entire cast are British, the directors and producers are British, the movie is set in a school in Britain we got the main criteria of the BFI perfectly set. Production and crew being British is also a major part which since the entire team contains five characters who were apart of the crew that are all British we passed the BFI test and now just need funding to advertise our movie on TV and cinema.

Codes and Conventions of our horror movie - M3.

Most horror movies are based in places where the characters are unable to get help for example, A Nightmare on Elm Street: Their dreams. Friday the 13th, A summer camp. Horror movies also contain a specific danger, we may not be given one instantly, but this danger is apparent later in the horror movies. Most horror movies also contain the victim also failing to survive in obvious ways. For example in most movies such as scream, a character falls over trying to get away. This is similar to ours where the character stumbles in the long hallways when running away. Horror movies also contain tons of jump-scares/scares. This could be from rising tension or just sudden scares, such as in ours the character turns right to see a spirit in his face. Most horror movies also contain a death at the start, this sets the tone for the following parts of the movie and gives a reason for the movie to continue. This is like how my character dies within the first three minutes that our opening takes place in.

Mise-en-scene analysis - P4.

The mise-en-scene in this image is that the darkness suggests evil. Also the area is slowly getting darker this suggests that the danger is increasing and binary opposition, the good guy entering a bad area. There's a slight sight of the newspapers on the walls, this shows that the area appears rundown and therefore, there's an idea of the character feeling safe in the area because he's therefore, got an idea of security and will be surprised that he's not actually alone.

The mise-en-scene in this image shows the character running down the stairs. The idea that the character gets smaller and smaller shows how weak he is to this force. He is vulnerable and this makes him look inferior to the spirits. The spirits could find him weaker and weaker by the second. This stairs also means that the character is going the wrong way, the image shows a door to the top left corner this could possibly be his safe haven as he is still a larger figure when passing the door.

Finally, the mise-en-scene in this image is that the angle is a low angle shot, this makes the character seem inferior once more, but this is the door he passed earlier, notice how when he passed the door it was closed. When he is dragged through the door was already open meaning the scenery changed and shows a mystical side. This is a small detail we made between these two shots to give a good idea that the character is being attacked by spirits.