You need to choose a recent blockbuster film - Spectre, Star Wars the Force Awakens, Mockingjay pt2, Hunger Games, Avengers Age of Ultron, Fast and Furious 7, Jurassic World, Minions
You are going to prepare a presentation - emaze, prezi whatever you fancy. Some information is harder to find than others. Your first stop will be imdb.com, wikipedia and the film's website. Then start doing more in-depth research www.launchingfilms.com (Sight and Sound - guardian/independent reviews etc) and keep collecting everything you find for your film along the way. You need to know your film and the process inside out.
Your research should involve:
- Pre-production information (anything that leads up to the filming)
- film's press release
- Front cover - poster - release date
- historical context - any info about the background of the film
- General facts - release dates in UK, US - Production Company, Distribution Company, Director, Cast, Production costs, Marketing costs
- Institutions -The main institutions involved - production, distributor (what else have they produced, distributed) what is their tv involvement? examples of programmes what is their online involvement? what is their film involvement
- Production (stages involved in making the film) Info from director, screenwriter, producer etc look for interviews, locations, sfx, TECHNOLOGY
- MARKETING - this is a crucial section as a lot of the questions in the exam will cover this area. If you can find out the marketing budget great if not just focus on how much marketing there was. Any differences between countries?
- Upload all the trailers from teasers to final. What were the dates. How many views do they have on youtube? Do you know what films they were attached to?
- Posters, billboards, press, radio and tv interviews. Show clips - mention all of them.
- MERCHANDISE Any games, clothing, happy meals, cinema prizes, competitions, universal studios or Warner brothers theme parks, board games, arcade games.
- Who are they targeting? What do the posters/trailers represent?
- ONLINE presence - Facebook sites, twitter feeds - go back through them all and summarise. The website. Any virals? Online games? Mobile games. Unofficial fan sites/games?
- Did they win any Golden Trailer Awards? Any cross promotion like Godzilla and the snickers bar / doritos etc https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=godzilla+snickers+commercial
- Box Office figures in US and UK/around the world
- EXHIBITION AND EXCHANGE- think worldwide here when did it open? opening takings? what else was going on at the time, what time of year and what did that mean? what was its main competition? how many screens? premiere where? reviews popular and high-brow - Any 3D or IMAX or Impact screens? Where was the film most popular? US and UK comparison of takings. When did it become available on 3D, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital downloads. What other formats is it available in? What were the dvd elements? Where is it available for streaming?