OSIRIS UNBOUND - The Complete Marketing Campaign

Evaluation Activity #2: Directors' Commentary

Sync this audio track with the trailer video in order to recieve a mind-blowing aural and visual experience, as myself and my co-director Nicholas Ashurst discuss how various narrative and genre theories can be applied to our film. Enjoy!
   

Evaluation Activity #2: Creating A Marketing Campaign

Through the combination of a theatrical trailer, poster and magazine cover we were able to create a marketing campaign for our sophomore feature Osiris Unbound that would dominate a variety of different mediums – online video sites, advertisements and print media. The campaign was both successful and iconic through a consistent theme and design that emphasised both the lead stars of the film as well as the conventions of the action genre, namely guns, guns and more guns.

All three products give precedence to our lead actor, Nicholas Ashurst, as well as our villain, portrayed by James Richardson. This was done to showcase the protagonist and antagonist of the film, as well as the rivalry between these two Binary Oppositional forces of good and evil. While both appear in the main poster and magazine cover, for The Hollywood Reporter, the two characters were given a special ‘character poster’ and GQ exclusive, respectively. The Lucas Thorne character poster features a strong close up on our lead in order to directly involve the audience with his character’s struggle, while the GQ cover, contrastingly, offers insight into the actor and composer behind the film rather than his character – though his costume is consistent with his portrayal in both poster and trailer. His choice of costume is consistent across the three mediums so that the character of the film’s villain is instantly recognisable by audiences, while similarly Thorne is dressed in the same shirt throughout the campaign. The Hollywood Reporter cover is an exception as it is portraying the cast of the film outside of their roles, so they are dressed formally to give them a sense of class and sophistication as would be expected of movie stars.

Both the theatrical trailer and poster focus on exposing the key differences between our hero and villain, but also the similarities. This is a fact highlighted with Richardson’s line in the trailer, “We’re not so very different, you and I…we’re both destined for the same damnation…it’s just I’m willing to let the world burn along the way”, and demonstrated through the almost identical poses that the two characters exhibit. This blurring of the otherwise binary oppositional forces offers a somewhat unique approach to the genre. Of course the genre is a very significant part of film, and thus our marketing campaign, so this is made pretty clear in trailer, poster and magazine cover, therefore allowing them to work really well together. The characters are also shown holding weaponry – even in the case of the actors on THR cover, with Zubin Parekh holding a balaclava to further emphasise these action conventions.

Emphasis is placed on the film's title, appearing in a bold, recongisable typography that reoccurs in both the climax of the trailer and at the bottom of the poster. Similarly it is the largest lettering on the magazine cover (with the exception of THR logo) though the choice of font was made to reflect the style of the magazine rather than the logo of our film. The logo's design was a conscious choice to establish the brand of the film. Enigma codes are developed through each of the products, for example through the imposing eyes at the top of our poster, and the numerous cliffhangers that appear throughout our trailer. The extract from Prometheus Unbound, by Percy Blythe Shelley, in the trailer's opening is also a good example. The use of enigmas helps further invite audiences to watch the film, to discover the truth behind the various mysteries that we present.

All in all, each of these choices across the mediums of the marketing campaign work together, fulfilling the 'Uses and Gratifications' of audiences (Blumler & Katz, 1970s), notably escapism, entertainment and perhaps even social interaction, as we point out our involvement in previous projects and include a number of reviews from well-established publications ensuring that viewers will want to be discuss the film with others. By including enigmas, and presenting the film from both a narrative-based and technical viewpoint, the audience can get to know the film on various levels, while emphasising the central players of the film ensures that audiences will be interested to know more about them by watching the final film. Thus, we have crafted a successful and cohesive marketing campaign that should appeal to a wide range of audiences.

Feedback v.04

You have made a good start on your evaluation, with task one completed and four begun. You have applied theories of audience, and considered how your trailer conforms to or subverts generic conventions.

Targets:

Evaluation task 3 - re-upload the audience feedback for your finished trailer - you should sum up what you have learned (positive and areas to develop) in your analysis

Evaluation task 2 - record a voice over/interview style footage where you discuss how the three tasks combine effectively to create a marketing campaign

Evaluation task 4 - what about the software you used to create your poster/magazine cover? Blogger to record your work? YouTube to view other trailers etc? Make sure all of this is discussed.

Remember to also upload any written responses you complete for exam preparation to add to your evaluation

Evaluation Activity #3: Audience Feedback (REDUX)

After screening the final edited version of our theatrical trailer to Osiris Unbound - complete with narration and a number of structural alterations - before a jury of our peers, the same audience that had previously offered feedback, we conducted another feedback session, listening to comments and answering questions posed to us.

The first point that was made was that film definitely had the look of a large budget Hollywood blockbuster, one of our key aims while we were in production - therefore this was a great success for us. The "clean-cut" and "to the point" nature of our trailer's editing meant that we both revealed elements of the film without compromising the storyline and the film's ending. The creation of enigmas and therefore a sense of mystery was especially achieved with the opening narration, when Lucas Thorne recites a passage from Prometheus Unbound, where our film's title is derived, which hints at some of the themes and character journeys in the film's plot without out-right stating it. The line"We're not the only ones left with a stake in this world", doesn't explicitly explain what "stake" it is referring to, but the nature of the word gives the sense of something large-scale and important, therefore elevating the character's journey to one of earth-shattering consequences.

The end scene was another created with the intention of crafting and shaping enigma's in the audience's mind, though this dominant reading was clearly not perceived by one audience member. His conflicting reading was that this scene, with Thorne's sudden lift of his firearm, was one of pure triumph, rather than of equal notions of hopelessness and potential, and so the music should have reflected this. James Richardson's score in this scene was written to convey a sense of foreboding and despair, something observed by the other members of the audience who approved of its subtlety and juxtaposition of music and the final seconds of the shot.

Again, our variety and frequency of different locations featured in the trailer received particular praise, with comparisons to films such as Skyfall, and the idea that this gave the film a sense of 'space' as well as ensuring the pace of the trailer was in constant movement and provided enough visual stimulation.

The major criticism that we encountered, albeit slight in the overall scheme of things, was something that we ourselves agreed with to an extent. This was that the voice overs were sometimes difficult to distinguish between, in the case of Richard Young and James Richardson's characters, largely due to the fact that they were voiced by myself rather than their respective original actors. This was a conscious decision made both due to lack of availability but also due to the merits of using my voice over theirs: whereas they both have rather high pitched voices that are not befitting of either their characters or the film itself, I am capable of creating several different voices that better reflect the film's tone and suit the trailer. While I did think I offered two distinctive voices, with differing vocal patterns, the audience were somewhat drawn out of the trailer by their prior knowledge of the actor's real voices - something furthered by the lack of shots that include them speaking (though we made sure that the narration is accompanied by several shots of the respective characters.We also offered the artistic reason as an alternative that the similarity in voices was done to further blur the lines between the binary oppositions of good and evil.

The role of the sole female character in the film was also picked up on, with audience members questioning her ostensible lack of non-stereotypical involvement in the storyline, seen as 'always running', a statement invalidated by the fact that she appears in two shots, and only running in one of them. We responded by stating we were adhering to the Male Gaze Theory in order to address male audiences, and fulfilling Propp's character type of the princess. I also emphasized that the male actors in the film were visualized in this partly exploitative way to a greater extent through depiction of their manly feats, through fighting and agile activity.

We were asked about how we gave prevalence to the various characters in the trailer. Several of the film's leads are given their own section in which their narration and shots largely featuring them are used, while several different shots are included so audiences may distinguish between the positions of characters, while we offer a hint at their roles and the character traits. Lucas Thorne is principally shown in closeups, contrastingly the villain in shown only wide shots until the mid-point of the trailer, and Zubasu only appears for split seconds at a time. The purely silhouetted opening, with some brief close up views of bodily appendages, as well as the aforementioned differences in shots of characters, further the creation of an enigma code, and as one audience member explained, create more incentive for them to find out more about the film's characters and their involvement in the story.

As feedback on the final version, it was interesting to see what improvements we had made and which creative and technical choices were the most successful. The numerous questions on seemingly inconsequential elements of the trailer also enabled us to think more openly about our choices, sometimes helping us realise things that perhaps weren't superficially there before.