Reflecting on the Overall DMA Course
Looking back on DMA I appreciate the online media focus it encouraged. As a film student trying to concentrate in Producing I don't utilize online media programs that focus on editing or photoshop as much as I should. It was sometimes enjoyable to edit something that wasn't for class and was just editing for fun. I already had an understanding of editing and know how to do it, but my practice wasn't as recent as it should have been from the time we started editing for DMA. I learned more about photoshop and sound editing. I had never actually overlapped sounds before, that was an interesting technique to learn. I really liked picture editing and wish I could have done more projects were we edited fun music videos that pertained to our subject of study.
Reflecting on a Selection of Spring-Semester Courses
Reflecting on the School Year
This final double exposure picture is of me location scouting with a faint picture of me cleaning a location in the background. Most of what I did this year revolved around locations for films, finding locations, and making sure they were returned to their original state.
Is online advertising influencing our interests more so than we realize?
Movies
have target audiences. Why not target those audiences more creativity
my approaching them through the websites they are most likely visiting?
The web is a vital source of communication and outreach. Looking to
broaden your audiences from just the trailers shown on TV and in
theaters, there are several other means of grabbing the public's
attention of your new project. Social Media has become a booming means
to communicate quickly and efficiently any magnificent new film you're
developing or trying to market. Its important to remember that while
film is an art, even artists have to eat. So marketing, advertising your
film online through ads, tweets, posts, anything you can do, will
increase your chances of having a steak dinner every once in awhile.
What I Learned:
Films, especially for the little guys, the indie film, the low budget
films, the films scheduled on kitchen tables in studio apartments, are
hard to market. The lesser known you are the harder it is to get your
name out there. Your film will be harder to get an audience to, and
making any profit afterwards is almost not going to happen. You have to
be creative, proactive, and target all your resources to get your film
in front of people. Target audiences, If you’re movies a chick-flick
think like a girl, advertise on feminine websites. If its a teen film,
get on facebook, make a page, think socializing, that’s literally all
teenagers want to go, so do it too to get your film an audience!
Marketing a film isn’t going to be easy, production doesn’t stop when
the camera stops rolling. There’s this whole new monster called
“marketing” that now must be tackled immediately so you can start seeing
a reward or payback for all the work that you’ve put into your project.
“Smart
filmmaker know that a film’s marketing is crucial to its success or
failure—and doing it well requires an enormous amount of time and
effort.” A
filmmaker must go above and beyond to make sure his/her film is seen.
It take a lot to get to get a film into a theater or a festival. A lot
of effort comes from every crew member on a film. You want the film that
everyone dedicated so much time to, several hours a day for sometimes
months, to be seen. Film, like any other art form is meant to be seen by
a large audience. Marketing a film is how you get that film seen.
Marketing may seem like such mundane business affair, but it becomes a
crucial part of a film, because it determines whether or not a movie
will be seen or left on a shelf to rot.
What I Would Like to Learn More About:
I would really like to look into how larger companies target their
consumers. Understanding how the major businesses with the incredible
funds target their consumers, could help smaller groups or businesses as
well. A big budget plan can be reworked to be utilized at a smaller
scale. I want to know how women are specifically targeted. And why women
are targeted based on their insecurities? How are children’s products
marketed? How are men’s products marketed? Why is the teenage market so
large? Teenagers are marketed to all the time, at every hour of the day,
on so many different platforms. How many different platforms are
teenagers marketed to on? How can you jump start a social networking
marketing plan? Are indie films using a team of people to market their
films are can it be done with a few or even by just one person? I’m also
curious as to how marketing can benefit or harm a film? How much money
is spent marketing? How much money of what the consumer spends goes into
marketing? How much time and effort goes into marketing before a film
is screened to the public? How many test groups, people, screenings, do
should I be going through? How do I know what demographics to screen to?
Knowing that three things sell: animals, children, and sex, should I
utilize this information to market my film to guarantee an audience or
simply market the story? How much should I listen to focus groups? How
much should I spend on focus groups and marketing? What percentage of my
budget should I allot to marketing. How should I market? Twitter,
blogging, Posters, Netflix, trailers, podcasts, how many outlets should I
utilize to make sure my film is heard and seen? "Some of the most successful movie marketing campaigns in recent memory have used the Internet and social media almost exclusively to fuel audience interest, or more precisely, audience engagement, in their movies."
My Video Exercises:
I
composed my videos elaborating specifically on how women are targeted
in advertising. Their perception of beauty and what it means to be
beautiful are both targeted so I decided to exploit these things in my
video compositions. I used an old Betty Boop cartoon because she has become the image of beauty for years since her creation, and she has also become a model of what women should consider femininity in American culture. I accompanied this video with a images of women of every size walking down the catwalk, an environment usually seen occupied by thin women of unattainable physical standards for the average woman. I used resources from archived images or videos that
are now public domain, and I also used songs that are popular or
familiar so that the association of the images and songs is stronger.
My Project Video Composition:
For my second video I composed a video of advertisements that use women to glorify something that is inherently unattractive. Smoking cigarettes is awful for your health. Everyone is aware of the side-affects. And vacuuming is no fun however you are, chores are just that 'chores'. But when you put a vacuum or a cigarette in a pretty hand the image completely changes. My goal of this video was to show that marketing can change how you perceive an action.
Marketing tactics usually have a way of making us believe that we want or need something based on association. We all know smoking isn't good for us and chores are never fun, but some how we always fall for the same old tricks. If things look fun or enjoyable we want to to those things too. If a pretty girl looks good doing it, won't we look good doing it too? These basic associations are constantly fanned in front of us. We so easily believe that a good time could happen vacuuming or inhaling as long as the people look happy and a catchy tune plays in the background.
Looking into this prevalent theory, I created a video that mimics (or mocks) how commercials are targeting their audience.
Introducing my Online Film Marketing Research:Is online advertising influencing our interests more so then we realize?
Movies have target audiences. Why not target those audiences more creativity my approaching them through the websites they are most likely visiting? The web is a vital source of communication and outreach. Looking to broaden your audiences from just the trailers shown on TV and in theaters, there are several other means of grabbing the public's attention of your new project. Social Media has become a booming means to communicate quickly and efficiently any magnificent new film you're developing or trying to market. Its important to remember that while film is an art, even artists have to eat. So marketing, advertising your film online through ads, tweets, posts, anything you can do, will increase your chances of having a steak dinner every once in a while.
WORKS CITED
*"Building Feature Film Buzz Online." ClickZ. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.
*Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.
*Hantke, Steffen. Horror Film: Creating and Marketing Fear. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 2004. Print.
*Pham, Annika, Neil Watson, and John Durie. The Film Marketing Handbook: A Practical Guide to Marketing Strategies for Independent Films. London: Media Business School, 1993. Print.
How Women Perceive Themselves
A woman's confidence and ambiguity can both stem from the media and what they decide to share with the public. Looking into this thought, I composed a video that combined an old "Betty Boop" cartoon and a Fashion Show. Betty Boop is a highly commercialized character that a lot of women look to, and this particular fashion show emphasizes the beauty in every form and figure. I wanted to show a woman's confidence in herself, shown in the way she moves and the happiness she exerts in her confidence. Though women can be seen as objects of desire, when they so called "flaunt themselves", I see their strength in their image as a positive asset. Betty Boop was seen as a beauty and fashion shows are seen as "superficial". BUT both are seen as feminine figures or hold feminine attributes which can be admired or respected. The juxtaposition of this fashion show ans this highly commercialized figure, accompanied by the Icona Pop song "I Love It", together create this feeling of determination to remain feminine and powerful.
The 1st video I made was a double exposure video through the entire length of the short.
The 2nd video I cut only have one element of double exposition, and the rest is just picture cut.
Looking at the 3D definition of professional, I do agree with its general description of what it means to be a professional. I'd like to think I uphold all three tiers, but like all I falter. Upholding a professional attitude within your work is extremely important. But there's also something to be said to keeping a light-hearted manner to keep tensions low and productivity high.
Personally, I hope to one day be able to say I am a professional producer. Keeping that in mind, I decided to look into online marketing. Marketing a film online is an invaluable tool that I hope to one day possess. I surfed the web to see what I could find on the topic and came across several websites stressing the importance of this ability and outlet. I fully intend to continue researching all I can on how to market an independent film to gain an audience. There have to several blogs that continue this conversation and several websites as well that give details on how it has been done in the past. Eventually, I'd like to put my studies to practice and try marketing a film, or at least obtain an internship with the focus. This is the beginnings to a long and, hopefully, fruitful endeavor. I know I'm just starting to look into this, but I am truly excited to learn more.
As a means to continue my studies examining how my professional life correlates with my personal life, I created two audio files and overlapped them. Each file represents a fraction of each aspect of my life. For a reflection of my personal life I recorded the sound of me brushing my teeth, emphasizing my stress on good hygiene, especially dental care. And for my professional life I used a sound recording of one of my days on set. Using these sound files I have been able to examine my life and its different aspects in a different light. Focusing just on the noise I hear in my life emphasizes the sounds I have grown familiar with and take for granted on a daily basis now.
Taking a gander back at what we have already learned and experienced, I have to say that the most recent TED video we watched when the fabulous speaker Koblin shared his findings on human connectivity was probably the most captivating. Watching a music video created frame by frame by different people that shared a common fandom for Johnny Cash was extremely cool.
I also remember being intrigued by Csikszentmihalyi's video lecture wanting people to escape into the "flow" that they experience in their art on a daily basis. Keeping this in mind, the double exposure photograph seemed to give a visual to that theory: being able to blend these two elements of your life until they become one solid image. Seeing so many people contribute to this idea of blending your "art life" with your "daily life" reflects back to Koblin.
Exploring a concern we have, mine being "why do we smile?", led me to create this double exposure image displaying the smile of both a young and old women. Studies have found that the more we smile the longer and happier we live. I find this question extra appealing because it effects us all inherently in the most fantastic way.
Blogging about our findings here, and more frequently on Facebook, allows us to see how each of us is interpreting the same lecture or idea with slight, or sometimes dramatic, differences. Personally, I think my posts have developed since the beginning of this class. My thoughts are more thorough and I feel like my explanations are becoming more in depth.
