Presentation Strategy
My short art-house film-poem will be distributed on two of the biggest video sharing websites in the world, both Youtube and Vimeo, when targetting both my primary and secondary audiences. As a way of targeting my main primary demographic of viewers, who happen to be of a more mature age group, I will advertise, promote and publish my film under smaller-scale, independent arthouse cinemas and short film festivals that tend to attract long-time industry specialists and individualist film fans. Advertising will play an important role when creating 'hype publicity' before the film's release, avoiding trendy social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook due to their young userbase, evaluating a study and experimenting with the art of a perfect film poster to attract peoples attention, having the imagery follow a strict Dada collage style.
The goal of posting on youtube was to target a website with such a vast userbase and attract the niche demographic of individuals who fit my prefered target audience. As my audience is heavily wester-focused, a research study by Pinckney suggests that "73% of all adults in the US use YouTube, with 81% being between the ages of 15 and 25" while also "reaching more 18 to 34-year-olds than any cable network in the United States". These figures suggest that my younger secondary audience will heavily benefit from YouTube's accessible nature, utilising a series of hashtags that outline key selling points that outline my film's overall genre and inspirations, furthermore recommending the product to the Aspirers psychographic of students who use the site as a means of watching short-film content. Although not in the top percentage of users, the mature primary demographic I have chosen to target will still benefit from this youtube release, as a LinkedIn study has suggested that the target viewership could reach ages starting from 49-year-olds on Thursdays, Fridays And Saturdays. While considering that they might occupy a five to nine weekday job and that most students will have classes during those days, I could post the film at around twelve and four in the evening on Saturday and Sunday. Although Friday is also a very viable option, a more popular day for posting videos, its high levels of video 'traffic' created on such a hot day for marketing your videos could minimize my chances of reaching out to a substantial viewership.
Although I hadn't been able to find any substantial information on the viewing habits of users on Vimeo, I will apply the same strategy I have made for my Youtube premier, now occupying a much older age group of determined artists, designers, and professional creatives who fit a better representation of my primary target audience. As Vimeo is more short-film orientated, I could utilise a platform like Reddit to advertise a link to the Vimeo version of my short film, appearing more professional by being the default way up and coming filmmakers make their mark on the independent world of cinema. I will once again target subreddits like r/Artouse and r/cinematography.
Art house Theatres:
When distributing my film to a variety of Art-house cinemas, I have decided to take a local approach here in the Uk. Before I decide to target much of the other Western world and specific parts of Europe, I will distribute the film in local arthouse cinemas in the United Kingdom to gather information about general audience reception. This concept will help me understand areas of the film that need improvement, knowing how I could refine my skills for my future Film attempts while also understanding the gradual process in which I have improved, being able to build on my style template and continue reinventing the way I construct my stories.
To complement the previously mentioned Art-house Cinema way of receiving feedback, my film will not only be put onto various short film festivals around the country to reach both my primary and secondary audience, but it will also act as a form of networking. By visiting these popular industry-trusted gatherings, I am bound to build a helpful catalogue of contacts fond of my work, allowing me to begin working outside of my college briefs and begin making a name for myself. These festivals are also the best way of obtaining inspiration for my future solo projects, being able to seek help from industry peers who broaden my creative horizons through valuable insight into film courses one takes when wanting to reach the next stage of their career. Some of the film festivals I will target my film towards include places like the 'London Short Film Festival', 'UK Film Festival', 'Norwich Film Festival' and the 'Aesthetica Short Film Festival' (due to their accessibly close functions that allow me to travel closer distances and attend each premier in person.)
As a way of tying all of these releases together, I have decided to create a Dada collage-like poster after having researched and evaluated a study paper on the art of advertising and poster creation. When formating it in a rather comical nature, I will link back to the Monty Python research paper I had created based on the budget and time restrictions with the creation of The Holy Grail, examining Terry Gillimas Dada inspired art. I have also compiled a list of both art-house movie posters and modern-day reimaginings of old Dada art, gathered into a moodboard-like arrangement down below.
Art-House Poster Examples:
Dada Imagery Inspiration
To achieve the Dada collage art I have used as a backbone of the general way in which I want to structure my art-house poster, I decided to book a morning in the college television studio and shoot a portfolio of general shots of my actor that allow me to experiment with some of the techniques shown above. This activity proved to be of a successful nature when it came down to the quality and variety of the images I had taken. It allowed me to develop and further improve my understanding of three-point lighting and ways I could break those basic film rules to achieve a more artistically full result that extolled the unusual seriousness of cinematography techniques I have decided to undergo.
An initial problem I faced with the first batch of photos I had taken was that the black curtains provided a vary unease background that wouldn't permit me to cut Samual out of each image due to his fairly dark costume. To amend this problem, I changed the overcoat he was wearing, but when that didn't match my expectations, I changed the background behind him to the greenscreen.
As a part of the development side of my brief, I have decided to repurpose this Dada experiment into something more rewarding and effective for my plot rather than my film poster. Some of the test drafts created didn't match my initial expectations and proved to be a toll on my current photoshop skills, something that would inevitably slow down the well-oiled production process that has allowed me to stay on top of my tasks. For my inspiration montage, I have drafted an early sketch of various storyboard panels that depict our character creating said Dada Collage art as a form of inspiration gathering. I think this works far better than using my collage designs for a busy and uneasy on the eyes film poster that doesn't inevitably achieve what I want it to. I have looked at and examed other routes that allow me to perform my exact intentions in a much easier to communicate way. If you want to view the 'inspiration montage' shot that has adopted this Dada theme, click the button below.
The Art of Saul Bass:
Ambiguity. One of the main focal points of my Final Major Project. A significant part of the story's effective nature of destroying the audience set expectations that has only been shown throughout various sections of my early narrative drafts. With the now failed attempts of creating something that falls under the category of Dada collage art, my poster needed to display the previously mentioned crucial ambiguous nature without experimenting with a surrealist approach. Something that has assisted me in achieving this very same outcome was the very abstract and collage-like art style of Saul Bass's famous movie posters. Once a pioneer who reinvented how people went about creating advertising for new film releases, Saul Bass's strategy of simplifying a film down to one core illustration ambiguously inferring a very basic comprehension of the pivotal theme found throughout the story nicely complimented my art-house release. The poster you see on the right is the final result of my experimentation with Bass's work. I took influences from the rather jagged and scissor cut lines found through his posters, the uneven and roughly drawn style of the font, minimalist colour palettes only comprising of three to four colours and a similar boarder-like rectangle that separates the image and film details (something seen in the previous arthouse posters I had shown). I am very pleased with this result. The apple seen is a simple nod to René Magritte, while the name (translating to beans on toast in French) is a reference to un Chien Andalou's nothing of a title that complements the surrealist approach of abstract humour that falsely challenges the audience to question the meer nothing metaphor it holds.