Marketing Techniques for our film – Other Films and their target audience

Through more research into marketing our film and finding the target audience, our group realised that we had not planned marketing techniques for after the films potential cinema release, for example DVD promotions and television showings on such channels as Film4 and Shorts TV. We then decided to research these other methods of marketing.

After checking popular websites like Amazon and Play.com, as well as researching TV advertisements we agreed that our film needed to be connected to other films of a similar genre, to draw people in who may have missed the film’s original release or just not been interested or persuaded by the marketing techniques.

After looking on sites that are popular for DVD buyers, I discovered that when looking on any film, there are always recommendations for other films of a similar genre. I personally know that this can be very helpful as it introduces people to other films that they may not have been interested in before. I felt this was important to our films potential success, and the group agreed that we needed to look at similar films to ours and try and draw in viewers of those films to ours.

One film we felt was a good place to start was ‘Moon’ (Dir. Duncan Jones, 2009). The film itself focuses on the main character Sam, who has committed to a job on the Moon for Lunar Industries for 3 years. Everyone in the group has seen this film, and we agreed that it had similar themes and tones to ours. The fear of isolation, only one companion to confide in and the feeling that things aren’t as they seem. The audience for this film was quite varied, as older sci-fi fans and newcomers went to see it, and the film has also been very popular on DVD. The group thought that a ‘for fans of’ section on posters and websites for our film would be very useful and ‘Moon’ will definitely be there.

Another film the group thought was similar to ours was ‘Blue Velvet’ (Dir. David Lynch, 1986). After a fairly ordinary opening, the film delves deep into the hidden realms of this ‘normal’ town and reveals a dark underbelly of lies and deceit. We as a group felt that the general feel of this film captured ours perfectly, and that the slow revealing of the monsters inside the characters was something we were looking to demonstrate in our film. David Lynch has a very large cult following, and we feel that this is something our film may generate as well, because of its differences to the norm.

After more research, our group found another film that we thought we could use to help propel ours. The film was ‘Blow Up’ (Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966). This film is very eerie and uses minimal amounts of non-diegetic sound, creating a real sense of dread and misguidance. The director also uses a vast amount of different camera shots, with many shots lingering for minutes on end. Another trait the group found intriguing was how no character is ever referred to by name, making everyone seem fragile and guilty. Being an older film, we thought that by relating our film to this one we may be able to tap in to an older and more intellectual audience, rather than today’s mediocre film goers.

The final film our group has agreed to relate our film to is another cult classic, ‘Donnie Darko’ (Dir. Richard Kelly, 2001). This film again centres on a main character that feels alone and, like our main protagonist the patient, is in therapy. Though the film is more surreal and psychological than ours, it possesses a similar darkness and takes the viewer on a comparable journey. A favourite to many in our group, we feel that this is another film that could help us gain more fans.

After much researching, we believe that these similar films will help ours stand the test of time and keep gradually gaining more fans long after the original release. Many of these films have survived not because of successful cinema runs, but because of DVD sales and growing numbers of fans.