Cross Media Convergence and Synergy are vital processes in the successful marketing of a media product to audiences. To what extent do you agree in relation to you case studies?

We are living in a society where technology is all around us. This has increased the potential for more companies to work together to help make a film successful. In this response I will argue that cross media convergence and synergy are a vital process in the marketing of films as they help to market and distribute films more directly. However, synergy and cross-media convergence are used in different ways depending on the budget of a film.

Warner Bros. Pictures is one of the 6 major conglomerates in the USA with many subsidiary companies such as Warner Bros Studios. This means they set high budgets for each film and therefore they are able to use the use of synergy and convergence in a number of ways.

‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012) was filmed with IMAX cameras for 72 minutes of the film. Christopher Nolan doesn’t believe in the idea of 3D. However he wanted his films to be of a high quality. This highlights the increase of IMAX as in ‘The Dark Knight’ there was also a scene shot in IMAX. In January 2012, six months prior to the film's release, tickets for midnight IMAX showings in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles went on sale and sold out immediately.

More and more films are being marketed on the internet and through mobile phones with Apps. The official website for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ was released in May 2011. The website introduced a viral marketing campaign which was similar to Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’. The website also revealed the first official image of ‘Bane’; this highlighted the use of New Media Technology.

The social networking site ‘Twitter’ was created where the target audience created a hashtag for the film ‘TheFireRises’, this allowed the film to get more noticed and well known to the audience.

As Warner Bros. Pictures set a high budget for the film, they were able to distribute the film to their target audience in a number of different ways. When the teaser trailer was released, they had competition with ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’, which was also a big success in the box office. The theatrical trailer was released with ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’. ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ was shown again with the release of ‘The Avengers’. Warner Bros released many different types of trailers which advertised to the audience the new release of the film where the audience where then reminded about the tickets are now on sale.

The interaction between Warner Bros. Pictures and the American international Toy Fair, Mattel unveiled figures of Batman, Bane and Catwoman. This ensured that the film was being marketed correctly to its target audience. This is beneficial for each company through efficiencies in expertise and costs. Warner Bros also partnered with Mountain Dew to do a cross promotion that included a special paint scheme on the No. 88 Chevrolet Impala owned by Earnhardt, Jr in the NASCAR sprint cup series. In July 4, 2012, Warner Bros. Studio signed a deal with Formula One team Lotus F1 to have the films logo appear on the Lotus E20s. Similarly, Warner Bros had done a similar promotion in 2088 British Grand Prix, when promoting ‘The Dark Knight’.

However when distributing and marketing ‘The Inbetweeners’ box set of the series 1,2 and 3 to help them purchase the Samsung Galaxy Ace mobile at Phones 4 U stores, but also to celebrate the release of the new ‘Inbetweeners’ film.

They  used the cross-media publicity to get their target audience attention to remind them about the new release by going to talk to ‘Absolute Radio. For people who missed this on the radio they had an opportunity to download it on iTunes and subscribe to Podcasts.

Another way in which they marketed their film was by placing an advertisement on ‘The Nations Noodle’ box. They also released a Year Book and started a completion for their target audience.

Due to them being an independent they didn’t have a lot of money to spend on advertising. Therefore they set up a Facebook and Twitter account where members from the movie spoke to their target audience. The E4 website released the official trailer for ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’.

In today’s society we no longer need to buy DVDs as we can download them online or watch them on YouTube. Blu-Ray DVDs carry more features than the original DVD and it can be played on HD TV. The Inbetweeners Movie was released on Blu-Ray which included features and an extended cut of the glim that restores approximately 4 minutes of material omitted from the theatrical release. You could also rent the film on 4OD and on LOVEFiLM. There was a prediction that the release of the DVD for ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ was going to be successful due to the success in the series of The Inbetweeners, this gave an advantage for the company as they knew that their target audience was going to be interested in this new release.

In conclusion depending on which type of company is producing the film, for example an independent or major company, the budge of the film will be different. The independent will have a low budget and the major will have a high budget. This will vary on how successful each film will be due to the amount of money spent on marketing the product. 

January 2013: ER – Age

The clip ER is representing age; this suggests to the audience that the older you are, it doesn’t make you wiser. This representational issue is shown through camera, sound, editing and mise-en-scene.

The clip begins with a mid shot of two doctors outside a patient’s room where you can hear the sound of phones ringing. The audience can tell that they are doctors by the uniform they are wearing; white coat. The first scene the audience can clearly see a role reversal between the doctor and the little boy; this is because the little boy knows a lot of things for his age which indicated to the audience he is quite mature. As the doctor goes into the room, the boy immediately says ‘so it worked’ and then the doctor questions the little boy about his strong knowledge. This highlights the issue of age and that it doesn’t matter how old you are as you can still have a mind of an adult.

Many close ups are used to highlight the seriousness in the shot reverse shot. This helps the audience to identify with the characters and understand the meaning of the message. The audience can see this through the dialogue “would you like me to be there”, this is because they boy hasn’t told his mother about the disease he has been diagnosed with, this also highlights the change of roles as he is more worried about his mum than himself as normally you would see the parents worrying about their kids. The low key lighting helps the audience to sympathise with the little boy as it highlights that the boy knows exactly what’s going to happen to him.

The next scene consists of many patients sitting in the waiting room; the3 audience can see a long shot of these patients with the non diegetic sound of the phones always ringing and people speaking. There is a contrast between this boy and the little boy who is in the waiting room in scene 2. This is because the boy has been bitten and is crying about it which what you would usually see compared to the other boy who has been diagnosed with an illness and isn’t crying about it.

In the next scene the audience can see that they are in a surgery room due to the equipment being used and the low key lighting. There is a long shot of the surgery room and the representational issue is highlighted through dialogue and sound. There is a loud beeping noise from the equipment which gradually gets louder as the scene gets tenser. Also there are quick jump cuts between the lady trying to help the patient and the doctor talking to her but she doesn’t really care as she believes she knows what she is doing. This is because the doctor said something and she replied back saying ‘but I’m sure you’re going to tell me’, this suggests to the audience that just because he is older, he knows more but at shown at the beginning of the clip this isn’t true. There are also quick jump cuts and close ups to highlight the conversation.

Towards the end of the clip there is a lot of tracking of the camera in the waiting room going left to right and right to left. Also at the end as the doctor comes out of the elevator the audience hear the elevator opening. This is because there is a close up of the woman and as the doors open there is a pan towards the elevator. As the woman walks with the doctor to the room, half of her face darkens and a black shadow is on the face, this suggests to the audience her dark side and that she may have something to do with the missing bullet. This is also shown through a zoom into the female doctor’s face as she says ‘vanished’. The lighting in this scene is a lot darker compared to the rest of the clip, this may signify that she knows something about it and doesn’t want to say anything.