Charlotte Makin, TV and Film Production : October 2013

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THE AVENGERS

THE LOGO

The title is BOLD it's in your face, this reveals that it's going to have some action in this film and the target audience is males. It has a glow in the background which seems to symbolise space and fantasy. This is showing that fans of this film would be mainstreamers, they know what they will be getting from this film from the title, it's comforting for the audience to get a grasp of what type of film this will be from the title. Also I think that aspirers would be fans of

this film because of the Iron Man films, young aspiring boys might seek to fulfil a materialistic lifestyle like Tony Stark. Having MARVEL at the top of the logo is already drawing in fans from other superhero films that have been created by Marvel.

This photo shows that The Avengers are a fictional team of superheroes that are trying to save the world, to you can see aliens and fire flying through the sky and the heroes ready to engage in a battle to save the world. You can see that they all have different powers and all stand for different things by the way that they are dressed and that they are individual Marvel characters. The colours are very bright and bold, the background on the first image is of New York, you can see that some of the buildings have been destroyed and the blue colour of the sky is dull and the explosions are very bright. Captain America, Iron Man and The Hulk stand out to me in these pictures because their costumes are the brightest whilst Hawk Eye and Black Widows costumes are all very dark and dull and Thor although he has a red cape. The target audience is again Main steamers and aspirers and explorers looking to seek discovery.

TRAILER LINK

This trailers shows explosions in New York City and this is a sign of what's to come for the audience. We can also see the Army being called out to face the deadly threat but we all know they won't have the firepower to deal with this. It's making the audience excited to see the familiar faces that they know and love in a brand new superhero action film. We can straight away tell that The Avengers is made for the enjoyment of males, we can tell this straight away because of the producers use of stereotypical assumptions that draw in the male species for example, explosions, soldiers, gun shots, police, violence and the trailers background music and voiceovers draw the audience into the trailer and makes them think this is awesome.

It's not fully clear if this destruction happens at the beginning of the film but we know there has to be some major threat that give reason for the Avengers to get together and do something. This is making the audience think who's causing the explosions, who's the villain to this story? We then see Loki a character from the film Thor, he's known for causing mischief and we can see him in a dark room with a voice over of him saying "You were made to be ruled, in the end it will be every man for himself." This part of the trailer gives the audience an insight on who The Avengers have to be up against and defeat in this film. With all the explosions going on in the trailer the audience knows that it's time to do something about it.

The trailer then has a high shot showing a secret base, which shows Nick Fury saying he has an idea to bring together a group of remarkable people. And we see a number of different shots of the different members of The Avengers and Nick Fury says "Gentlemen what are you prepared to do?" This makes the audience feel like
they are in for a wild cinematic experience. Visually it looks great and there are elements of Michael Bay all over some of the slow-motion city destruction scenes. There's a reason fans of the Transformers love those films, even though some people think the films are rubbish. It's because the producer knows what the fans love to see and that's just like The Avengers. All these things help to attract the mainstreamers because The Transformers and these certain things in action films, the viewer is expecting to see in the film, they are comfortable with what's going to happen, they know what they've paid to see and they want to see it. The reason an explorer might enjoy this film is because they like adventure and are typically younger, The Avengers assembling together is an adventure to save the human race, they like excitement and thrills and that's why that certain pyschographic would be a fan of this film. Iron Man is an inspirational figure for aspirers because he is a "Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist" this is a perfect role model for materialistic young people, that's why aspirers are fans of The Avengers.

The trailer is showing Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, these characters which have their own films, on dvd, their is merchandise for them...it's buying into fans that already exist, preparing a fan base before they even made this film and having a built in fandom before this film made it easier to sell the film and the reason why it made so much money and is extremely popular. With a fan base you know the fans will go and watch the film no matter what, even if the film is terrible they will still love it because they are dedicated to that film, fans are crazy and the reason that this film is marketing heaven is because they can go ahead and create lots of different sequels for each individual hero, it spans multiple genres including comedy and action because Robert Downey Jr plays Iron Man quite comically. And the conflict between Captain America and Iron Man, Thor and Loki that we see in the trailer adds an interesting dynamic to the team, they don't get on but they are willing to come together to help save the world.

POSTERS

Movie fans love 'The Avengers'

The film grossed $207.4 million over its opening weekend and $1 billion in less than 3 weeks after it's opening night. his is all because of the fans and the love for this film. If this film didn't already have a built in fan base due to the comic books and the previous film, there wouldn't be much love but anyone who is a Marvel fan will go and watch this film and love it religiously, being a major fan of something is like a religion it's something you believe in and stand by and defend even though others don't and that's why The Avengers is such a huge success, because of the pre-fan base before this film. It was destined to have fans engaging hugely into the film, because they've followed the rest of the films up until this one, where all heroes unite. The fans already have the connection with the character development, they already know Iron Man is sarcastic and has a sense of humour, they know Captain America is a true good guy trying to do his best, they know Thor is from a different planet, they know Hulk turns into a green rage monster. It's easy for the fans to relate so a film like this doesn't need a lot of character development. In my opinion I think this is a masterpiece of comic book cinema, it's an enjoyable and well-written and engaging superhero film, that's why the fans loved it so much. It's different than any other comic book film because of the individual characters stories in their own films leading up to this one, it has a strong script and excellent performances from well known stars, which sells the film even more.

Identify who the target audience is for your film

Psychographics

Aspirers - Seek status they are materialistic, typical younger people

Mainstreamers - Seek security, tend to be domestic, conformist, favour family brands. Nearly always the largest group

Explorers - Seek discovery. Likes to explore new ideas and likes adventure, typically younger

Age

- Probably young boys and teenagers and maybe young adults

Gender

- Male

Genre

- Action/Fantasy

Plot

- Nick Fury is director of S.H.I.E.L.D, an international peace keeping agency. The agency is a who's who of Marvel Super Heroes, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawk-eye and Black Widow. When global security is threatened by Loki and his cohorts, Nick Fury and his team will need all their powers

to save the world from disaster.

Marketing and Success

Twilight

Link to examples of trailers

In these trailers, the scenes chosen and the music makes the film seem dramatic and intense every thing that I see whilst watching these trailers is what I expect to see from a romantic fantasy drama film, I think the target market for these films are mainstreams, they are looking for what they know is familiar and what they are comfortable with and also aspirers because they are typically younger and young teens would enjoy this film because they seek status and it's a very popular film and the stars are meant to be attractive for younger people. Maybe also explorers because of the fantasy part of the film likes adventure and is typically younger.

Twilight doesn't just have one poster for each film, they have around 7 for each film because they know that the fans will buy every poster, one of the whole cast and their favourite characters. Each character might appeal more to different people, in this film they have team's for example Team Edward and Team Jacob so the fans of the certain character will buy the posters with which Team they are on.

When you go onto the Twilight Saga website, there is a picture of a boxset of the films which says availble from November 5th of 2013. This is advertising and marketing the films which most fans will probably already own, but because this is a complete boxset they will most probably purchase the boxset. I think that the film producers used these marketing techniques because the posters sell the film and the film sells the posters, they have put attractive stars in this film so that teens will buy anything with their faces on.

Competition

Merchandise

Soundtracks

I think that these techniques are effective in marketing twilight. Paramore fans who hear this song would go and see the film and they already have thousands of fans, that's why I think the producer choose to do this because they would be bringing in a fan base that already exists.

Also the competitions and the merchandise market the film because these get the fans excited and the fans also will be using social media to tweet or instragram or write on facebook about these competitions, if they've won and what merchandise they've recently bought. This advertises the film and makes more of an audience want to see this film.

This is how much Twilight made due to the marketing techniques the producer used

Comparison

Twilight posters and The Avengers posters are similar because they have posters for each individual characters because of the audience. Different members of the audience will have personal favourite characters so they will buy the posters for which one they like.

Competitions

These competitions have used similar techniques because they are both advertising the film, and when it comes out in cinemas/or comes out on dvd. The T-shirt that you would win on the twilight competition is advertising the film whilst you wear it, it's basically like your a walking billboard and buy winning these things it's using advertising. I think that this campaign was successful because both of these films are extremely successful. And these things would only promote the film even more than the producer and studio already has.

Audience reactions

The Avengers

Reviews

From IMDB user review

Here's why "The Avengers" fails so badly.

1. Wrong, wrong director - Joss Whedon is a TV Director. "Serenity" worked because it was essentially a TV movie. And he has here made "The Avengers" a TV movie. Bad move, this should have gone to J.J. Abrams, Bryan Singer or Brad Bird.

2. Dreadful miscasting - only Robert Downey Junior can hold his head high. Chris Evans is as wooden in this as the flat "Captain America" film. Those playing Thor, Hulk, Black Widow either phone in performances or look embarrassed.

3. Weak, weak villain - Tom Hiddleston plays a slight, camp character who offers little panache or interest and more closely resembles a spoiled teenager than anything else. This film needed a "General Zod".

4. Too much obvious CGI - come on, it's 2012, there's no excuse for the George Lucas-y effects like the flying Shield craft graphics.

5. No drama, tension and a script so obviously flat that Whedon inserts misplaced self conscious quips to lighten the tone.

For anyone growing up with Marvel comics in the 70's (chime with me on this), we deserved SO much more. For younger audiences, it will pass I'm sure.

IMDB critic review

Whilst this conglomeration of superhero personas is undeniably fun to watch, the film is ultimately just another overextended entry in this CGI-swamped blockbuster action era of screen entertainment. Better than most? Yes, certainly, even at its most generic; this is undoubtedly thanks to Whedon’s genuine feel for the material, his indisputable love of the genre, and his talent for creating an even spread of participation within a serviceable narrative that neither over-complicates or over-simplifies matters. Likewise, Whedon’s sense of humour, often wickedly employed, is a key factor; a smorgasbord of genuinely funny one-liners and sight gags contribute to the sense of amusement that is never forgotten amidst the comic-book carnage.

My problem with Iron Man rests in the form of Downey Jr. himself, an annoyingly idiosyncratic presence who brings irritation to virtually every character he plays on screen these days. His mannerisms and method of delivery differs little between Tony Stark, Sherlock Holmes or innumerable other 'creations'. All are strictly Downey Jr.performances or variations on a theme, not an actor able to sever each from his domineering persona. Fortunately Whedon keeps him under control here, relatively speaking.

Total Film

Avengers Assemble is a power-play that’s unprecedented in Hollywood history: launching three different $100m franchises (four if you count the 2008 reboot) to construct one super-mega-franchise. And it has to be said, handing it to a 47-year-old fanboy whose single previous feature film (Serenity) couldn’t even scrape back its budget at the worldwide box office was a massive dice-roll.

But could any screen be big enough for all them? Would Avengers Assemble look like four bodybuilders in an elevator? The suit, the smash, the hammer, the shield... Like X-Men: The Last Stand, Spider-Man 3 andIron Man 2, there was a real danger of heroverload.

Sure enough, it takes Whedon a while to assemble his Avengers, as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Phil Coulson (Gregg Clark) recruit the superheroes to save Earth after Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thor’s power-mad brother, returns to enslave mankind with an all-powerful cosmic cube.

“What does he want me to do, swallow it?” asks Ruffalo’s Dr. Bruce Banner. And from there, the zingers keep coming.

With X-Men and X2, Bryan Singer showed how you could disguise a compelling ensemble drama as a superhero actioner. This is exactly Whedon’s speciality – as well as creating cult TV phenomenon Buffy, he worked on the scripts for X-Men and Toy Story – and his screenplay drags together a group of characters with pretty much zero interest in each other.

How? By locking big egos in small rooms and letting the funnies fly. Lifting the movie’s pace every time he steps on screen in the first half, RDJ’s Tony Stark catalyses the Avengers with machine-gun wit.

He gives both barrels to Thor, whether it’s his cape (“Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?”), his kingly lingo (“Shakespeare In The Park”) or the fact he hasn’t had a haircut since his own movie came out (“No hard feelings, Point Break”).

Arguably the least interesting and most poorly dressed of the Avengers, Cap duly suffers in his first brawl with Loki and finds his 1940s brain drubbed like a speed-ball by the sarcastic Stark.

But affectionately, Whedon plays to his characters’ weaknesses as well as their strengths as his comic-book heroes bounce off each other. And we do mean that literally.

Despite being mere mortals, Jeremy Renner’s laser-sighted archer Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson’s gymnastic spy Black Widow find key roles in the story. (And, just so you know, the coolest cameo in the moviedoesn’t belong to Stan Lee.)

Despite Scar-Jo’s seam-straining catsuit and S.H.I.E.L.D. eye-candy Maria Hill (How I Met Your Mother’s Cobie Smulders, a Wonder Woman contender), there’s no sex factor in this superhero sausage-fest.

Instead, maybe the most interesting frisson sparks between fellow brainiacs Tony Stark and Dr. Banner. Third time’s the charm: Mark Ruffalo’s hand-rubbing performance as Bruce feels definitive and Whedon, in a few short scenes, captures a far more dangerous relationship between Banner and “the other guy” (as he dubs his alter ego) than we’ve seen in two previous big-screen Hulks.

One of the problems was that Mr Hyde never really looked like Dr Jekyll. But with Ruffalo’s features used to construct the CG monster’s face, a much more humanised Hulk emerges as the movie’s unlikely stand-out. Once the green giant bursts free, he grabs hold of the movie and yanks it out of Downey Jr.’s hands. The best moments and the biggest laughs belong to Hulk’s smash-happy personality – and only one of them is blown by the trailer.

Unlike Banner, bigness doesn’t come naturally for Whedon. So it’s no surprise that much of Avengers Assemble involves people talking in rooms. He hired Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (We Need To Talk About Kevin, Atonement, High Fidelity) for that, but he’s also surrounded himself with a crew of slam-bang assistant directors who’ve worked on everything from The Bourne Ultimatum to Tarantino’s upcoming Django Unchained.

Behind the camera, Whedon’s dream-team help him put his money (more than $200m of it) where his mouth is: after an airship siege high in the clouds, the movie surges towards an exciting, epic extended finale of city-smashing carnage that stretches for a Transformers level of mass destruction.

As Loki’s army pours in from another dimension, one showboating unbroken action shot swoops through the battle to track each Avenger kicking ass against gigantic flying robo-fish and alien warriors riding space chariots.

Perhaps inevitably, there’s never quite enough real drama or danger for our effectively invincible protagonists. But this 142-minute romp between gods, monsters, men and supermen packs so much crowd-pleasing colour and humour that it’s impossible not to walk out grinning.

ON FORUMS OR YOUTUBE FIND HOW MUCH THE AUDIENCE LIKED AND DISLIKED THE FILM

some people liked it...

some people hated it...

http://calmsearagingundertow.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/why-i-hated-the-avengers/

"Marvel Entertainment, and I use the words with extreme sarcasm, though I realise this is not art but created for the fear of money or the loss of it. The collapse of Hollywood’s money cow that no longer gives milk unless it’s squeezed to death with monkey wrench hands. Forces the pinnacle of overcompensation and teenage loudmouth rantings to shadow Hollywoods underwhelming achievements, sophomoric mental abilities and desperation."

Comments on the Youtube Trailers...

ARTICLES ABOUT THE FANS OF THE FILMS

Audience theory

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/the-avengers-the-movie-i-have-waited-for-my-whole-life/ - article about the film by a fan

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/the-avengers-the-movie-i-have-waited-for-my-whole-life/

- This is a blog post about a fan who went to meet the actor Mark Ruffalo who plays Hulk in The Avengers at a signing.

On this website there is also posts about fans meeting the director Joss Whedon, you can tell that this man is a FAN of the film, not just a person who likes it. A person who likes the film wouldn't put any thought in trying to meet the director or finding out where he is etc.

FANDOM

You can tell who is a FAN of this film if they have...

Bought the merchandise/costumes/comic books

Why fans love these films...

Fans love these films because the films already have a fan base from the fans of the comic books. Also fans love films like these because they simply love superheroes, it's someone who saves the world and protects us. What's not to love? Even though not all superheroes are created equal. Some are funny, flawed, and complex also with moments of self-righteousness or self-doubt sometimes. And other heroes can be strong, fiery, and fearless. But because of these personality traits fan bases can relate to superheroes with their day to day lives and their own personalities might be similar to a hero from The Avengers. In a way it gives them hope that they can also be strong in tough times like their favourite hero. Also superheroes tend to reflect the society and culture of the day. They are very visible role models, and their behaviour is influenced by social values that are actually valued in the real world we live in. Also they provide a reflection of current affairs and real issues that speak to people in different societies. I believe that fans love these films for those reasons, to them it doesn't matter if the film is a piece of art, if the film flops the fans will still stand by it, because in their own personal way it means something special to them and producers know this and understand that it's human nature to love a good person who is willing to go out their way to help other peoples lives.

Power of fans and why it's good for producers...

When a studio releases a comic book film and they know the producer already knows they have a fan base from the get go because of the fans of the comic books. And in The Avengers case they will have fans because the heroes already have their own individual films for example Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Thor, Hulk and Captain America. The fans of those films will have seen one cross over at the end of each film and it will have been an exciting build up for them to finally see them all finally come together. And new fans that have just watched Avengers Assemble will want to go out and buy all the other films about the individual heroes.

Basically fans will buy anything that the film poster is on weather it be t-shirts, bedsheets, socks, clocks etc. The power of fans makes the profit of the film increase larger, without fans films wouldn't make any profit because they don't make any money for the production from cinema tickets until the last three weeks of showing the film at cinemas. So this helps the studio get the money back they paid out to make the production plus also make a nice profit.

Some fans might have a favourite of The Avengers and buy every piece of merchandise with their favourite hero on. There's multiple posters of each hero, the studio knows this will make the fans buy every poster and they will make more money. The different characters reach a wider audience because each individual person can relate to their favourite.

If a film has fans it will always make money no matter what, they will make even more Avengers films and even more merchandise for each film and fans will love the film for as long as they live so a fan base is what you need when you want to make a large profit from your studio film.

Charlotte Makin, TV and Film Production

Thursday, 24 October 2013

Tech Workshops

Unit 26 Assignment 3 - Fandom Blog Post

Friday, 18 October 2013

Unit 26 Assignment 3 Notes

The Avengers 2 Trailer (FAN MADE w/ Spider-man!)

The Avengers - Top 5 Fan Videos

X-men Vs The Avengers Theatrical Trailer (FAN-MADE)