Cinderella 2015 Merchandise

MAC Cosmetics released a collection of exclusive, cinderella themed make up. The items all came in blue packaging, following the theme of Cinderella's traditional dress colour.

17 items were available online on February the 26th, and were released in store on March 5th. 

Here are images of a few of the items which were sold:

MAC decided to adapt their best selling products and sell them with the cinderella packaging, ensuring that the collection was successful among usual buyers, as well as fans of the Cinderella film. 

Disney have tried to target an older audience by releasing merchandise with MAC, as they usually stick to releasing merchandise through their various Disney stores. This shows they have a more varied target audience and are perhaps hoping for this film to be even more successful than previous Disney princess films.

Case Study: Vertigo Films

Vertigo Films is a UK Film and Distribution company founded in 2002 by Allan Niblo and James Richardson. Vertigo's mission (as quoted from their website) is to 'create and distribute commercially driven independent cinema'.




Monsters was first previewed in America on 13th March, 2010 at the Southwest Film Festival. However was officially released on the 31st of October, 2010.

The film was nominated for 10 awards and won 9 awards. A majority of these awards were awarded to the director Gareth Edwards who was commended on his work on the special effects of the film which were very technical.

In the Uk, the film in it's opening weekend made £348,577 at the box office and over the subsequent
five weeks, the film managed to gross £954,614 (in the UK).
A critic named Roger Ebert commended Edwards for "evoking ... awe and beauty" and for the creature designs, drawing audience's attention to the special effects.
Furthermore, Jeanette Catsoulis of The New York Times said the film was "wondrously atmospheric" and "effortlessly compelling", and praised Edwards on his "beautiful, otherworldly" visual effects. 

Here is the trailer to the second film:



Here is a helpful web link to a page that has information on how Vertigo decided to distribute and market their film 'Monsters'.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/uk-film-council-digital-innovation-case-study-monsters.pdf

Vertigo wanted to create a 'buzz' around the film before it's release and draw the audience into the cinemas. They teamed up with the social networking site 'foursquare' which allows members to 'check in' wherever they are and communicate with other users and the venues themselves. The aim was to raise awareness of the cinemas showing the film and generate interest. As the director, Gareth Edwards, went on a UK tour, Foursquare created 'infected zones' in each key city, with volunteers dressed in protective clothing handing out fliers. Fans who logged into the 'infected zones' could win prizes and discounts on their tickets. The increase in awareness of the film was a huge success. This is an example of a film company using the latest technology to attract a target audience. It was also a networking opportunity for vertigo to gain information about their audience from the cinemas.

Case study: Cinderella 2015

Me and my media studies class have decided to observe how disney decide to advertise and use marketing to spread word about their upcoming film, Cinderella.
The film is set to come out in the Uk on the 27th of march, 2015. Although this is an american film there are mostly english actors/ actresses to be featuring in this film (such as Richard Madden, Helena Bonham Carter, Lily James and Cate Blanchett.

One way in which disney have decided to spread word about the upcoming movie is via social media, as you can see here they have made a twitter account to tweet updates on new trailers, exclusive behind the scenes footage and a countdown on how long to go until the film comes out. 

The first official trailer for the film came out on May 15th,2014 (just under a year before the release of the film), However this trailer did not contain any footage from the film, but just featured a sparkling glass slipper. The second official trailer featured on Good Morning America, which did contain footage from the film and was a minute and a half long. Deciding to feature the trailer on Good Morning America was an effective way of releasing the very first trailer due to the amount of people who watch the show.

In the first 24 hours of the trailers release, the clip on youtube had 4.2 million views, and 33 million views on Facebook (which is the highest views any disney film has ever had). 

Here is some merchandise for Cinderella, being sold in shops ahead of the release date for the film.

http://9to5mac.com/2015/01/07/ihome-disney-2015-cinderella-ipad-iphone-speakers-cases-headphones/

On the 31st of December, a second trailer for cinderella was released, this time previewing more footage for the film in order to excite the target audience once again. This is so that people planning to go see the film do not go months without seeing any advertisements/new trailers, this keeps them interested and eager to go to the cinema once the film is released

Disney Prezi

Here is a prezi me and my class mates made on Disney's four main business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment and consumer products.
Since being founded in 1923, Disney has adapted and evolved to fit the demand and preferences of its audiences, which are forever changing, primarily due to technology changing our everyday life. Instead of falling behind and not keeping up with society, Disney have changed their ideals and aims accordingly to keep up to date. 

BBC tour video

Here is a video of what we saw and learnt on our BBC studies tour trip!

More filming for film opening

On Thursday, the 20th of november the media studies students in both year 12 and year 13 are going to visit the BBC Studies in London!
Luckily, this gives us an opportunity to film a bit more, on the journey to the studios, we will be taking a train into London.
Fortunately we can then film shots of the moving train and entering marylebone station. This will be used to represent Samanthas early morning routine in which she travels to work.

Inspirational Film Openings

This film opening has given me a lot of new ideas on what I could possibly use in my two minute film opening. As similarly shown in the Lizzie McGuire film, the opening scene switches between two narratives. In Legally Blonde the scene alternates between showing the protagonist getting ready and showing the journey of a letter. Also, it builds up slight tension as we never actually see the main characters face, not until the letter everyone is signing reaches her.
It's also very girly, focusing on makeup and her painting her nails, not to mention the pink curly writing showing the names of the cast members.

In terms of using these ideas in my two minute film opening, as with all other chick flicks I will aim to use:

1. A Girly font (soft colours with quirky, curly writing)
2. Upbeat, cheerful music 
3. Perhaps a voiceover from the protagonist (as shown in Confessions of a teenage drama queen)
4. Perhaps I could also alternate between two different scenes in order to further the storyline and give the audience a wider understanding of the protagonist's life (in terms of my idea we could alternate between our intern working at Vogue then working at her actual job in tescos, serving a customer shopping). 

Top Chick Flick Directors

As part of my research for my final AS task I am going to look at two different directors who have successful movies in the chick flick genre.
The first director I looked at was John Hughes. He directed a few of my top favourite chick flicks such as Sixteen candles, The Breakfast club and Pretty in pink. All of these films have elements of humour in them, drama at times and most definitely romance. Two out of three of these films have a female protagonist. The Breakfast club in fact contains four main characters, but overall there are only 5 characters in the whole film. Quite often, John Hughes' films have catchy songs, such as the iconic scene where Judd Nelson fist pumps the air whilst 'Don't your forget about me' by simple minds plays in the background. I managed to find a clip on youtube which shows this iconic ending:


Also, John Hughes' films contain stereo typical high school characters. This is especially shown in the breakfast club and pretty in pink. Pretty in pink shows a girl (called andie) who's quirky and different, who has a male best friend called duckie who is hopelessly in love with her. She does not even consider the idea of being with duckie as he is not attractive nor is he popular at school, This is shown in contrast to a popular boy called blaine who expresses an interest in Andie, and she immediately is taken by the idea of dating blaine simply because he is rich and popular at school.
Similarly in the breakfast club, four teenagers are forced to attend detention on a saturday. All are from completely different social groups and think that because of this they can not get along. However, funnily enough they end up enjoying the time they spend together but all agree that come monday, they will be back in their original social groups, avoiding one another as they have done all along.

Another director I have decided to look at is Gurinder Chadha. She directed two of my most enjoyed chick flicks (Bend it like Beckham and Angus, Thongs and perfect snogging) Both of these films largely consist of humour, drama and romance, which is very similar to John Hughes' films. Again, as with Pretty in pink, the two main characters are quirky and different to your typical girl, they challenge the stereotypical teenage girl idea, however these quirky characters are surrounded by typical teenage characters. Such as, the popular good-looking boy, the mean girl, the caring friends and the parents who don't understand their daughters.
Below is a scene from Angus Thongs and Perfect snogging which shows how the humour and romance commonly shown in chick flicks.


From my evaluation of these films I can conclude that it would be ideal for me to base my 2 minute film opening in a high school environment. This will be useful as I can ask my peers to complete questionnaires on what they would prefer to see in a chick flick film.