The Gaurdians of the Galaxy research

The Guardians of the Galaxy

The Guardians of the Galaxy was produced by Kevin Feige

 

It was directed by James Gunn

 

The budget of the film was $170 million and the box office made $752.8 million

The actors that star in it are:

·         Chris Pratt

·         Zoe Saldana

·         Dave Bautista

·         Vin Diesel

·         Bradley Cooper

·         Lee Pace

·         Michael Rooker

·         Karen Gillan

·         Djimon Hounsou

·         John C. Reilly

·         Glenn Close

·         Benincio del Toro

The Guardians of the Galaxy used a lot of costumes and make-up effects like prosthetics, face paint, etc to bring the characters to life. They also used motion capture technology.

 

There were several different marketing tools used to promote the film. These included twitter pages, face book pages, websites, trailers, posters and more. This helped reach a wider audience all over the country and helped people all over the world access the trailer through the internet.

 

The Disney store sold Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise which is an example of synergy as two products came together to promote each other.

 

There is use off media convergence as it has magazines and prints posters as well as face book, twitter and instagram pages. There is also use of technological convergence as there are Guardians of the galaxy games you can buy on play station or Nintendo wii and you can also download apps to play the games on smart phones.

 

Guardians of the galaxy world premiere on July 21^st 2014 at the Dolby theatre in Hollywood. It was released in the UK on July 31^st and released in the United States on August 1^st.  The film was available in both 3D and digital.

The target audience are an audience that like action/adventure films which would mostly consist of young adults/adult males. It could also appeal to young boys and girls too so it has a wide target audience.

The Film Chain

The Film Chain

Production

During the filming process, there are three main stages of production; pre-production, production and post-production.

·         During the pre-production the film is planned and broken down into scenes in detail. They decide on what props, cast members, locations, costumes, special effects and visual effects are going to be used in each scene. The script is written and finalised at this stage.  All the necessary elements or people are arranged to be available to the film-makers at the appropriate times.

·         The production stage is when all the filming is carried out carefully. All the scenes planned out in pre-production are filmed at their relevant locations as planned. Some scenes may be filmed more than once according to the director to make sure they have the best quality shots. This stage must be taken with a lot of care to make sure each scene needed is shot, as it may sometimes be hard to go back to re-film incomplete scenes when it comes to the post-production stage.

·         Post-production is when the film is put together by the editor. First the editor builds a rough cut taken from scenes and sequences based on individual shots. This helps to order and select the best shots. Then they will create a fine cut by getting all the shots to flow smoothly in a seamless story. Trimming is done through this process – where they short scenes by a few minutes, seconds or frames. The editing is also done in this stage and the music, graphics, menus etc are added in this stage. After the director and producer has approved and screened the fine cut, no further changes can be made so the picture is “locked”.

 Some of the main producers of films in America are DreamWorks Animation who has made films like Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon. They are currently distributed by 20^th century fox. Another film production company is Universal Studios; some of the films they have produced are The Mummy, Spartacus, Beethoven, Jaws and many more. Furthermore another famous film production company in America is Paramount Pictures and they have produced films like The Godfather, Star Trek, Indiana Jones and Ghost.

An independent film production is when a professional film production is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system.

 

Distribution

Distribution is the process of making something available to a number of recipients. When distributing a film, the distributor will come to an agreement with the cinema on when to release the film. They will arrange the transportation of the film to the cinema. This is normally done by a professional film distributor who will decide the marketing strategy for the film, decide the release dates etc. The traditional way films are normally released are firstly released in cinema and then released to DVD approximately 16 and half weeks later. However the producer may choose to release the film straight onto DVD and the internet instead of releasing it out in cinema first.

Film festivals are films shown in one or more cinemas/screening venue, usually in a single city or region. They may focus on one particular film-maker or genre and show films that are relevant to what the festivals focus is on. Film festivals are used to promote and market the latest films to the audience. Some of the most famous and well-known festivals are the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival.

A distributor may choose to release there film on a particular weekend depending on the event occurring around that date. For example if they are releasing a film that is aimed at a teenage audience, they may choose to release it during the half-term as they will be off school and it would be more likely that they will go to the cinema that week. Another reason may be that if they are releasing a Christmas film they would most likely release it during the Christmas holidays as more people are off school and work.

 Distribution is essential to the film chain because it is the process of connecting the film and the audience and promoting it to the public. If a film cannot secure a good distribution deal the film is less likely to do well and be as successful as a film that secures a good distribution deal. Less of the public will know about it as it wouldn’t be promoted and marketed very well.

 

Marketing

Marketing a film is promoting it and getting it to reach a wide audience as possible. It’s different to distribution because distribution is the process of getting the film out there e.g in cinema or on DVD, whereas marketing a film is actually promoting the film. This includes trailers, posters, social networking pages like face book and twitter, merchandise and interviews with the cast and directors.

One film currently being released is Love, Rosie:

This film has a trailers, a face book page and a twitter page so the audience can access it and so the film is promoted to a wide audience. It also allows the public to have audience participation.

Some American films can be promoted to a non-English speaking country by having different language trailers. This makes the film accessible for every country around the world so everyone can watch it. For example Avatar has a Spanish trailer so everyone in Spain that doesn’t speak English has the advantage of understanding and knowing about the film.

 

Exhibition

There are many different ways the audience can access films today. Some of these are:

·         Cinema

·         DVD

·         Blu Ray

·         Television

·         Netflix

·         Internet

Box office is where the public can buy admissions to an event. The box office measures the success of a film from the amount of people that have paid to watch the film. The producers earn most of the money produced by a film or anyone else involved in the film, depending on the contracts and agreements. Sometimes the actors invest their own money from the film as well. Cinemas make their money from the popcorns and snacks they sell.

Ancillary markets are ways of viewing the film outside of the cinema like DVD, home video, television etc. This allows the film to still be watched after it comes out of cinema so people that have missed it while it was in cinema still have access to it.

The BFI is the British Film Institute who is the lead organisation for film in the UK and use lottery funds to support film production, distribution, education and audience development. They encourage UK film releases and fund and support them through the process of producing to distributing and audience development.

Film chain diagram for our swede

Guardians of the galaxy

Guardians of the galaxy was directed by James Gunn and produced by Kevin Feige. The production budget for this film was $170 million.
This film stars:

• Chris Pratt

 

• Vin Diesel

• Bradley Cooper

• Zoe Saldana

This movie uses lots of prosthetic and make up effects as well as motion capture technology.

Guardians of the Galaxy used many marketing techniques, this includes bus adverts, trailers on tv, billboards, merchandise as well as pages on social media (e.g. twitter and facebook.) 

There is use of cross media convergence as there are numerous forms of social media for this movie such as a Facebook page and a twitter page as well as an instagram page.

There is use of technological convergence as there is a game both online and as an app for smartphones.

This film was released worldwide, the main release dates were :

• 1st August- USA
• 31st July- UK
• 1st August- Canada
• 31st July-Australia

This film was available in both 2d and 3d.

The audience of this are fans of action/adventure films ( perhaps young adults and adults.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B16Bo47KS2g - trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fushyFwH0b0- Soundtrack

Key assignment

The Film Chain

Development

There are numerous stages involved in the production of a film.

The first stage is development. This is where all the ideas for the film are produced and they may begin to think about where they will source their budget for their film. The outlines of the film are produced for example characters and scenes and the screenplay (written instructions about what happens in a movie) is produced. Also if the ideas are based on a true story, book or play then they need permission and to buy rights to these.

Pre-production

This is where the script is finalized and all actors and film crew are hired. Venue and equipment are prepared and all props are planned and organised. A production budget is also drawn up to plan expenditure 

Production

This is where the actual film footage is recorded.

Post Production

This is when all the footage is put in order and sound is added, footage is also overdubbed at this stage and special effects etc is added. Once this is all done the film is complete and ready to be distributed.

Producers

In america the most popular producers are Dreamworks animations, Twentieth century fox, Universal studios, Paramount pictures, Warner bros and Walt Disney.

Ownership of the film studios means the studio will be more likely to make films of the owners orference or what makes the owner the most money, e,g, big blockbuster films rather than independent films.

An independent production is a film which is often made on a considerably lower budget and has a limited budget with not much marketing or publicity.

Distribution

Distribution is when a film is made public so it is available for public viewing. This can be done through cinema, whereby the film is bought by cinemas and available for viewing from the release date until roughly 4 months after the release date. A professional distributor s hired in order to make deals with cinema companies and finalize release dates etc. The traditional way of releasing a film in first in cinema and then after sixteen and a half weeks in cinema it will be released on DVD. Now films may be distributed straight through the internet and DVD, rather than going through the cinema.

Films may also go to film festivals, these are events where the latest films are evaluated, this can be used to market and publicize films, one of the most famous one being the film festival in Cannes. A distributor has to carefully choose the release date of their film, the need to release their movie at times best for their audience in order to make the most revenue. For example a horror will be best released on Halloween in order to attract the biggest audience and hence sales.Distribution is essential because if the film is not distributed no one will watch it and therefore no revenue will be made!

Marketing

Marketing is selling the product to the audience, not literally but theoretically. Distribution is the literal selling of the film to the audience.

For example:

Hollywood movies also appeal to foreign audiences, this is why alterative trailers are produced where either subtitles are used or words in the original trailer is substituted with music. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zrBlaw8KM4 

Exhibition

Audiences can see films through,

cinema

internet

dvd

blue ray

tv

netflix etc

The box office is  concerned withall the cinema views for a film. Box office can represent how successful as film was as you can tell how many people watched it etc. As a film gets older the more the cinema makes however the revenue from the success in the first few weeks is mostly eaten up by producers rather than cinema. Cinemas make money through snacks etc.

Ancillary markets are ways of viewing a film other than cinema.
BFI is the british film industry, they support the making of uk films and encourage more uk film  releases.

Posting our swede

After filming and editing our swede we posted in on its own YouTube account. We then shared and promoted the swede on its on and personal twitter account which we created as well as its own Facebook page which we also created, as you can see see we got nearly 300 views and 3 likes.

The likes on YouTube and feedback from twitter were examples of audience feedback to tell us whether our video was entertaining or not. Based on the feedback we received we found people found our video funny and got 100% positive feedback. Facebook and Twitter were examples of synergy we used in order to promote our swede. 

 Twitter

 Facebok

Text message

These are all the promotion we used to make people aware of our swede. We communicated with a lot of people through these which made our views go up a lot.

we also used word of mouth to people we may know as we was walking around the college and we told them what to type in and watch our swede , then told them to recommend to their friends.

This is our first attempt of our poster , also known as a trailer… There is going to more better and improved posters as we know when a film is being published there are many trailers to attract the audience

 Our swede of white chicks ; 

2 girls were the white chicks -----> Shannon and Beau 

2 girls dressed up as the FBI cops -----> Dilem and Zahra

Then Bushra was an extra as the girls friend.

WATCH OUR GREAT SWEDE 

http://youtu.be/l13CznTocDw

Recommend  and share to friends

Filming and Editing

During the post-production process, we created a story board of our swede. This gave us an idea of what scenes we were going to do and helped us plan out our swede scene by scene so we don’t get confused. We made a twitter page, Facebook page and poster to promote our film. The Facebook and twitter page is useful to target our audience which is teenagers as it is mostly used by teens. It also helps the film get all around the world because the internet is worldwide and everyone uses it no matter where you are. Our trailer was uploaded to YouTube which also helps promote the film all around the world as YouTube is very popular and is used by everyone.

We used props like guns, wigs and a steering wheel. The gun showed that it might be a film that involved a case with police or criminals, so it gave an idea to the audience what it will be about. The wigs showed that there might be something like an identity change and also presented the characters; the police were wearing short hair wigs which showed they were representing police men. The steering wheel made it clear that that particular scene was set in a car while someone was driving.

Our filming process went well as we managed to film every scene that we planned to film. However we were short on some characters so we had to use other people that weren’t part of our group, so next time we should plan our characters properly and make sure we have enough characters to play the roles. Furthermore the editing process went well as we added music and different effects to our trailer. In the beginning it is slow motion and we have a sound track to create a dramatic effect and also show what the film will be about. However, we were short on some scenes so we should have recorded more scenes that would’ve made our trailer make more sense and be more interesting.

Filming Our Swede

After deciding our swede and sorting out our props we began filming. We all helped set up the camera and began filming in the corridors for 3 of our scenes and filmed the final FBI introduction scene outside near the entrance of the college. Bushra and Dilem did a lot of the filming and Beau and myself did the acting, however Dilem did act for 2 scenes and myself and Beau regularly check the footage when film and suggested ways to film it better if needed.For one of our scenes (the 'Hold My Poodle' scene) we needed to borrow a student from one of the media classes as we needed a male for this scene, and our group only had females in it. We completed all our filming in the designated time and managed to upload our footage on the hard drive. We will edit our film in our next media lesson (Wednesday).

Planning Our Swede

Last weekend we were debating which film to re-enact. We came up with numerous ideas which included:

• Mean Girls
• Whitechicks
• Harry Potter
• In Time

We were looking to make our swede humorous and thought we could add a funny twist to each of these movies. In the end we decided on whitechicks because we all thought that although it would be challenging, it would also be the most entertaining and interesting to both film and edit. We had to watch the trailer for whitechicks several times in order to determine which scene we wanted to do, which was quite difficult as all of them had bits we wanted to include. After much discussion we chose the following scenes:

• The FBI Scene
• The Car Crash Scene
• The Car Scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKTaTT0ouE
• The Hold My Poodle Scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mypmNjNyB38

We also discussed what props we needed and how we were going to get them. Firstly we needed to make a steering wheel from card for the 2 car scenes. We also managed to get 2 wigs and guns for our fbi introduction scene, we got this from the media departments 'prop box.' For our poodle in the 'Hold My Poodle' scene we used a wig as we did not have an actual/toy dog available to us. We also decided that Bushra and Dilem would do the filming, and Beau and myself would do the acting.

Zahra

Swede Storyboard