Distributing/Advertising a Film

Over the years the techniques to promote a film have evolved as technology has gotten better and more accessible. Here I have broke down the main means of distributing, or advertising a film. I have decided to not include websites and Tv advertisements as I believe they are not as effective as they used to be.

Billboards/Posters

Billboards are used to catch peoples attention, which means they cant have much 'cluttering' them. Typically billboards have one to two main characters and some bold text so the person can quickly see what film it is for. A good example of a billboard poster design is the Dark Knight poster shown here. This is particularly good as the Joker is a easily recognisable character so there is little need for explanation on the actual poster and can just show a close up of him. Then you have the iconic Batman logo with the film title. This is good at 'hyping' the audience up as they may be big batman fans or just in general like the look of the Joker as it is a different actor to other previous batman films (He is recognised as the best version of the Joker). Then you get some of the really creative billboards like The Expendables 3 billboard with the bright red bold text and the cast made so it looks like they are sitting on top of the billboard. People will like the design of this as its quite funny to see them sitting on it as they drive past in their car. As most billboards are situated on the sides of busy roads they are designed to give all the information a person needs in the seconds of attention that the person will give it. Also on the other hand in buys traffic people may read the billboard and be curious whether to watch it.

Posters are usually placed on the sides of bus stops and cinema walls. This is so that people going past or, as said about billboards, in traffic will read it or just take a second to look at the film. A good example is this Spiderman 2 poster. This is a special example as this is a backlit one meaning that its easily visible at night. It also works really well being backlit as it compliments the lightning bolts. With this poster its also as a special example because for Spiderman you don't really need the title to be outgoing as Spiderman is such an iconic character people will know without having to read anything.



Before films/In and outside Cinemas
Before films are played at Cinemas its a prime time to capture the audience's attention. Showcasing film trailers similar or aimed to a similar audience as the film about to be shown is a really good way to make them want to come back to see the said advertised film. A personal example of this was when I went to see Kingsman 2 there was a Thor Ragnarok trailer. These are both films aimed at teenage/young adults and I went back to see Thor when it came out and was very satisfied with my decision. Similarly when I saw Jigsaw there were other horror films showcase before hand which is highly effective.


Social Media
With millions and millions of people using social media such as Facebook and Twitter it would make sense to take advantage of these 'free to use' sites to promote a film and make some advertisement revenue at the same time. A huge part of this is YouTube. With over 30 million users a day YouTube being a free platform is an amazing way to promote a film. For example Star Wars, The Force Awakens first official trailer nearly generated 100 million views. This is an incredible amount considering that nothing close to that would there be viewers of billboards and they have to pay for billboards and uploading to YouTube is absolutely free