My films all have different techniques in which they use to connect and empower their audience with. I have chosen the films of Knight and Day, Skyfall and Source Code and looked into what the institutions have done to make the audience more involved.
In terms of E-Media, all of my films obviously benefit from social networking sites such as twitter and facebook. Skyfall specifically uses twitter to gain a larger fanbase and encourages audiences interactions by using quizzes and competitions. This in turn makes the audience more active. Source Codes presence on facebook (in which has over 500,000 'likes' currently includes exclusive photos of scenes, information about the actors etc. Institutions benefit from User Generated Content highly online. Knight and Day does not have an official Twitter page, but as it's a fairly low budgeted movie it comes under the Fox official twitter. There are seperate fan-made pages that have 1.5K + followers that offer additional audiences to comment and review the film. Although Source Code does not have an official website, it does in fact have many fan sites linked to it. 'Source Code fansite' being the main one, featuring more behind-the-scenes information avaliable to the audience (According to uses and gratifications for surveillance reasons). There are specific fansites for the actors in the film, Jake Gyllenhaal has a large fanbase and so all of the websites created for him feature Source Code and promote it.
In terms of print, Fox distributed only one Knight and Day official poster that featured the silhouettes of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz both carrying weapons. This was to immediately connect with the audience; as they can identify the celebrities in the film and also the genre of action. Skyfall used the typical silhouette also of the 'James Bond' pose to catch the audiences eye and allow them to know straight away what film it is referencing.Source Code did a similar thing with the posters that they distributed. The poster featured Jake Gyllenhaal smashing through glass with a gun indicating action, danger and mystery. This would intrigue an audience and encourage them to investigate more into the film. All of the posters feature weblinks at the bottom, which helps the audience gain access to the information on the e-media platform. They all link to the institutions websites rather than any official website for the films, this helps to promote the company as much as possible and make the audience more active within the whole film franchise.
In conclusion, all three films have in some way, connected with the audience through the different platforms and allowed their films to be accessed in many more ways than just on-screen. There is a higher demand for the background of the films and for exclusive gossip and information, and the Institution must adapt to meet these needs.
Really good structured answer covering the three main platforms and shows research. To improve you could use a few more really specific examples from social networking sites plus include some theories. :)
ReplyDelete*Two main platforms, could include broadcast next time for improvement as well
DeleteA good answer Sophie, but perhaps needs a little closer reference to theory and debates -for example, Are audiences given too much power now? Or do audiences actually change things about films and institutions or do they actually hold less power than we think? Also what about the 'empower' part of the question?
ReplyDeleteOverall good coverage of your case studies, and a strong source of knowledge on them.
ReplyDeleteObviously Broadcast needs to be covered, and I think more media terminology would be good here. such as, codes and conventions, ideology, uses and grats etc.
I like how you've linked print and e-media with website links. However, I think specific article information from critics would be good- this can then be linked to audience interaction with how many sales the magazine recieves.
As Miss said, try and add in debates and theories, and it might benefit from a couple more paragraphs with a few more media products? Also, i would say you need a paragraph on broadcast so that it covers all bases!! I really like your references to specific statistics and UGC though and you seem to know a lot about your films.
ReplyDelete