Post-production

In the post-production phase of a film's life the main task is editing. Most of the people involved in the pre-production and production phases will have finished work on the film, apart from the producer and director.

Post-production sees the hiring of editors, dubbing engineers, special effects engineers and graphic artists (to work on the titles and credits). The process of editing includes the selection and shaping of shots, the arrangement of shots, scenes and sequences and special effects, the mixing of all sound tracks and the matching of the sound track to the images.

Film Editing

Once the film stock has been sent to the laboratory to be processed, the editor then assembles the footage from the best takes into a 'rough assembly' which the director and producer view and comment on. This is tightened up into a 'rough cut' and then into a 'finished edit' or 'fine cut'. During the shooting of some films, editing begins during production, with the editor and the director conferring about the rushes film shot the day before and tentatively putting together a rough assembly.

Recent developments in technology are having a profound effect on the skills of the editor and process of editing. Computerised editing allows for greater flexibility, speed and accuracy, and gives the editor the chance to try out a variety of sequences, whilst doing away with the need for the traditional 'cut' of the negative.

Sound Editing

The sound editor or dubbing editor puts the sound onto the film and puts together several different sound-tracks, sound effects and music. During the recording of the film the sound is recorded separately. The film and sound tape have to fit; there has to be lip-synchronisation. If there are alterations needed to the tone of the dialogue, the actors are re-called in the editing stage to re-record their lines. This happens in a small studio while they are watching the corresponding piece of film.

The sound effects on a film are carried out by the Foley team. These skilled artists work in small studios, and whilst watching the film will create appropriate noises for the film. Their skills lie in using weird and wonderful methods of simulating particular sounds, for example, breaking ice cold celery in water which sounds like a leg breaking!

The Soundtrack

The composer is responsible for writing the music for the film, and will become heavily involved in the post-production stage, having already met the director and/or producer to discuss the type of music needed. The music adds mood and tension to a film, and the composer will watch the completed film and synchronise the music with the editing. Although music is often thought of as incidental to the action, it plays an important part in helping to create the overall 'feel' of the film.

A good soundtrack often becomes famous in its own right indeed there are some films for which the driving force is the music and not the plot. Those responsible for marketing films at the distribution stage have been quick to catch on to the selling power of a good soundtrack, and most films now have an accompanying CD and tape. The involvement of a well known band will help in getting airtime on radio stations and therefore, additional publicity.

Recent examples of particularly successful soundtracks include'The Piano', composed by Michael Nyman, 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' with the sound-track sung by Wet Wet Wet, and 'The Flintstones' soundtrack by the B52s, under the name of the BC52s.

Special Effects

These are key to a Bond film. They will involve anything from dealing with green screen effects to adding additional explosions, scene creation or addition of enhancement to explosions. In most cases, these effects are created on computer.

Distribution and Marketing

When a film is being made it could be looked on as a prototype comparable to the design for a house or the draft of a novel. It can be changed and scenes added or taken away.

Once it is presented to audiences, and is on release, it then becomes a product, something which has to be sold. Audiences need to know that the film exists, need to be persuaded to go and see it, need to have their interest aroused in the film.

This change from prototype to product can happen even before a film has finished shooting. Marketing of films often begins months before a film opens and with current production schedules, the marketers of a film might only have seen a few minutes footage from the film and have read the script; yet it is on this evidence that they must attract us, the audience, to see the film. They must create an awareness that the film will be ‘Coming to a cinema near you’ in the future and must create ‘Want to see’ in the cinema-going public. This is the job of the film distributor. How does the distributor go about this task of selling the product to the consumer?

If the production company responsible for the film is a large organisation with its own distribution department, they will deal with the films being made by that company.

Whatever their size, all distribution outfits work along similar lines, holding the rights for a film in any one country, which means that the distributor has the power to hire copies of a particular film to cinemas and to publicise the film in that country.

A film is a product unlike any other, and the marketing of a film is very different from marketing any other product. The distributor will work on building awareness of a film in the months leading up to its release. No two films are the same, and each film is dealt with on an individual basis; a great deal of time and effort is invested in selling a film, and once it is released, the same amount of effort is invested in the next extremely different product or film. A marketing team may be working on more than one film at a time each with its own appeal its own unique selling point.

Making an Audience Aware

The Unique Selling Point

As with any product, the potential buyer needs to know that a film is coming to a cinema. Not only do they have to know about the film, they also have to be persuaded to want to go and see the film.

In starting to market a film, the distribution company has to decide how it will present the film to the potential audience they will look for the ‘unique selling point’ (USP) of a film. If, for example, a distributor is looking at a science fiction film, they will need to look for the aspect of the film which sets it aside from other science fiction films. Normally, in deciding what the USP of a film is, the distributor will first of all look at the storyline to see how this differs and what the key elements of the story are.

This is vitally important as the key storyline elements will influence the way that the visual campaign posters, trailers etc. are put together.

After this they will look at such things as stars, special effects, director, to see how these can be incorporated within the campaign.

With a film such as ‘The World Is Not Enough’, the initial USP is the fact that it is a Bond film. However, the challenge to the marketing department is to come up with a fresh angle on Bond, to persuade audiences that this not simply ‘another’ Bond film, but that it is different to previous ones whilst still retaining elements which we would expect from the genre.

The Campaign

The Release Date

When a film is released depends on a variety of issues the subject matter, the genre, what else is being screened at the time of release. Some decisions are obvious the best time to release a children's animated film or family film would be during the school holidays. So, certain times of the year are deemed appropriate to certain types of film. Bond movies have come to be associated with the Christmas period and thus, as we have seen, the release date for the film was set well in advance, even before the film was in production.

PANDA

The money spent on marketing the film is known as the Publicity and Advertising (P & A) budget. This is set at around 40% of the estimated box office income. The P & A budget is set by assessing a number of key ingredients in a film. The potential box office is assessed; this is based on last pictures the star appeared in; this gives the distributors an idea of popularity of the star. For example in setting the P & A budget for a film starring John Travolta, the box office of his last film will be used as a guide for the box office estimate. Therefore films which do not feature stars could have a greatly reduced box office and therefore a smaller amount will be spent in the P & A budget.

However, some films defy this logic. For example, ‘Trainspotting’, released in 1996, a film which did not feature any stars, used a bold marketing campaign, featuring characters from the film and the synonymous orange. It captured the imagination of the audience, plus it gained critical acclaim and meant that it was a huge box office success both in the UK and US.

To quote William Goldman again, ‘Nobody knows anything’. Even though a film may have big stars and vast amounts of money is spent on marketing the film, there is no guarantee that the film will recoup its money. In the end, it is up to the audience to decide whether a film is a success or not. Very few films make a profit at the box office; this does not mean that they make a loss, but that they make their money in pre-sales deals with television and video deals, which are referred to in the Production section of these materials.

Selling the Film to the Public

A marketing campaign is divided into three areas:

Advertising

Publicity

Promotions

In much the same way that the production budget is divided into money you expect to spend and hidden costs, the publicity campaign is also divided into 'above the line' and 'below the line costs'.

Here, the 'above the line' costs are for advertising, where the distributor pays a certain amount of money to buy advertising space (on television, in newspapers and magazines). They pay for a slot and know what they are getting for their money. They know the size of the advert, when and where it will be placed and roughly how many people are expected to see it.

Marketing and promotions are 'below the line' costs where money is spent, on bringing stars in from America for example, and the distributor hopes to get good coverage in the media, but it is not guaranteed. It's all about taking a risk and hoping the gamble pays off.

How A Campaign Works

Advertising

Once the distributors have seen the film they organise a strategy and a budget. This involves working out who the target audience is and how to advertise to them for example, a film for young people (16 24) might be targeted by advertising in 'The Face' magazine, and on Channel 4 on Friday night. The advertising budget would be limited, and advertising is expensive, so this stage has to be carefully considered.

The Poster and Artwork

The poster campaign, the primary medium for advertising the film, will generally start in the early stages of a film's production and continue during the weeks building up to the release.

The poster is the basis of the whole publicity campaign and out of this 'Key Art' or central image comes the synopsis, standees (large cardboard cutouts which you seen in cinema foyers), ranges of posters and television adverts.

Artwork for a film poster can either be an original painting based on a key idea in the film, or it can be produced from the colour transparencies which are taken during the shoot. The aim in both cases is to find a 'narrative image' that sums up the film.

The Copy

As well as a visual image, posters carry a certain amount of copy (writing), depending on the stage in the campaign at which they appear. Catchphrases are used to underline the key elements of the film on the poster copy. Awards won or names of director or cast can also be used. Quotes from critics and tag lines on the poster also help to reinforce the image and make the poster more effective.

The Trailer

The trailer often plays in the cinema around six weeks before the release of a film and continues to play until the picture opens in the cinema. The trailer aims to raise audience awareness of a film by logging the film title in their minds. It gives an overall impression of the film to its potential audience and it makes sure that the audience is aware of the stars, particularly where their names will help to sell the picture, and it should create the desire to see the film when it finally opens. Trailers tend to use a combination of footage from the film, graphics and voice-over to generate curiosity.

'Teaser' trailers also exist to whet the appetite of the audience, and give them a shorter, sharper hint of what is to come. Lasting approximately thirty seconds, they play in a cinema for anything up to six months before a film opens. However, it is important to realise that cinema advertising will only reach cinema goers. It is always important to make as many people as possible realise that a film is coming and so other audiences must also be reached.

Media Advertising

The distributor will look to buy advertising space in as many different media as is appropriate both for the film and for the budget.

The media normally available are newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Increasingly, with larger films, internet websites are also set up to announce the arrival of a film.

The form of the advertising in each medium must tie in with the overall campaign. Thus, newspaper advertising will be based on the campaign poster, whilst TV advertising will have elements of the cinema trailer in it.

What is vital is that the right media outlet is chosen for the film. Research will already have shown what the target audience for a film is. It is up to the distributor to decide which would be the best newspapers, magazines, time on TV and radio to select in order to reach that audience.

Radio Advertising

As well as press, extensive use is made of radio advertising on regional commercial radio stations. Radio is a powerful medium, and reinforces the message of the poster and trailer, particularly if the film has a strong soundtrack.

Radio advertising is considerably cheaper than television, and is usually used for mainstream films or titles with cross-over potential, although targeted radio stations a jazz station or a classical station, for example might be appropriate for the advertising of specialist films. Adverts themselves consist of music from the films and narrative voice-over detailing the cinema and release date.

Keeping Track

Throughout the marketing campaign the distributor will be concerned about the effect of the pre-release film publicity. Private companies are employed to conduct the audience research, which can take a number of forms.

Audience Tracking

At regular intervals leading up to the release of a film and during its first weeks of play, a random selection of the public will be interviewed, either over the phone or on the street by a research company. This is known as tracking. They are asked whether they have heard of the film, whether they intend to see it, or, if they have, whether they enjoyed it. This type of information can then be used by the distributors to find out how effective their marketing campaign is and if there are any serious problems — that, for example, the audience does not know that the film is coming,, then they can change the emphasis of the campaign.

Publicity

Publicity involves gaining attention for the film in the media, television, newspapers, magazines and radio without paying for the space. Some distributors employ freelance companies who specialise in this area; these are known as PR companies, short for Public Relations. Working in this area involves dealing with national and regional journalists, keeping them informed about the film using the following publicity tools.

Star Interviews

Touring a star is a costly business, but one that usually pays dividends. Stars are brought into the country at the distributor’s expense, which means paying for flights, travel (usually a chauffeur driven car), hotels, meals, a daily spending allowance and entertainment.

The distributor plans the tours down to the last hour, making good use of their star’s time and carefully scheduling interviews to make sure that a spread of media are covered, and that publications or television programmes with similar audiences do not clash. Newspapers such as ‘The Express’ and ‘The Daily Mail’ with a similar readership, and television programmes such as ‘GMTV’ and ‘The Big Breakfast’ will want exclusivity of a star.

For radio broadcast, tapes of interviews are usually syndicated: for maximum publicity one radio interview is recorded with a star or director and then sent to local radio stations on a tape ready for immediate broadcast. As with the press and with television, interviews of this kind are a good boost to circulation as well as 'free' publicity for the film.

Where stars are unable to travel, perhaps because of other filming commitments, a press junket will be arranged. For this, journalists are taken out at the distributors’ expense to take part in a round-the-table interview with the star(s).

The Press Screening

Before the film is released, the press who are reviewing the film will be invited to a special screening which will encourage the spread of 'word of mouth' recommendations among the media.

Gala Premieres

For the high profile films, the release might be preceded by a Charity or a Royal Film Premiere. These premieres are prestigious evenings where the cast, crew and celebrity guests are invited to see the film a few days in advance of the release of the film. The media are also invited to secure coverage of the event and increase awareness of the film among the audience.

The benefit of a premiere for the distributor is that they usually gain a great deal of media attention. It is very expensive to organise a premiere and therefore only films with larger publicity and advertising budgets can afford to do this. A large cinema is hired and a post-screening party is organised. We are all familiar with shots in the newspaper or on television of stars arriving at these events, usually in formal evening wear. The guests are delivered to the cinema in chauffeur driven cars, and members of the public often turn out to see the arrival of the celebrities, all adding to the premiere being a ‘special occasion’. Tickets for the event are extremely difficult to obtain, with those that are sold raising money for a selected charity. However, the publicity gained for the film, including newspaper editorials and news items, is better than any advertising.

Screening Programmes

To build on awareness for a film, screenings are organised prior to the release of the film in conjunction with a media outlet which will appeal to the target audience. An example of this would be the screening programmes organised through ‘The Big Breakfast’; these are free screenings and the tickets are obtained by calling a Hotline number advertised on the television screen.

Merchandise and Promoting Campaigns

Ever since 'Star Wars', movie merchandise has become an important part of film marketing.

The merchandising deals that can be made from a potential 'blockbuster' are very lucrative, and, in some cases, can even necessitate the setting up of a department which deals solely with merchandising produced for the company's films. Merchandising has become a sophisticated, well-oiled department toys, clothes and gimmicks such as pencil cases and lunch boxes are common place now.

Promotions give added awareness to a film and help reinforce its title. They tend to take the form of joint involvement with another party, known as the third party, who will gain from their involvement. For films in the Bond series, third party promotions are very carefully selected so that they fit in with the overall image of Bond himself.

The Big Seller

Research has proven that the key thing which will get audiences in to see a film is something which cannot be bought the personal recommendation of a friend or acquaintance who has seen the film. It is word of mouth that really gets audiences into cinemas.

Creating an Audience

Films are made to entertain us. They also have to make money for the companies who produce the film so that the companies can go on and make more films. So, people have to be encouraged to go and see the film.

Activity

What makes you want to go and see a film? Write a list of all of the different things that persuade you to go and see a film.

An Image of the Story

A film critic once wrote that the advertising campaign for every film has to give a 'narrative image'; that is it makes a promise to an audience that they will be seeing a particular type of film. The trailer, the poster both of these will help build up a picture of what the film will be about. Also, as you will have seen, the type of film will also help us understand what the film could be about.

So, the publicity department who are publicising ‘The World Is Not Enough’, would know that an audience already had some understanding of what a film about Bond would be like, but their job is also to make an audience realise that the new film about ‘The World Is Not Enough’ will be different from all others.

Activity

You will have seen the poster for ‘The World Is Not Enough’. Look at the poster again carefully.

Can you design your own poster for ‘The World Is Not Enough’?

What information would you give on your poster for ‘The World Is Not Enough’?

Would you try to sell the film in a different way?

What you should also have on your poster are some pictures or drawings which will let the audience know what the film is about. The final choice is yours but you should make the film look exciting! Make people want to come and see the film!

Activity

One of the things that you could have said persuaded you to go and see a film was the review of a film in a newspaper. Imagine that you are a film critic. Once you have seen ‘The World Is Not Enough’, write a typical film review. You will obviously need to read some reviews of other films in order to get an idea of the format that a review takes.

Activity

Film companies are using radio advertising more and more these days. What you must do now is, using a tape recorder, create a radio advertisement for ‘The World Is Not Enough’. What information would you give? How would you interest an audience in going to see the film? What you must come up with is a thirty second trailer which will really excite a potential audience for the film. Your trailer should reflect the image of the film that you have given in your poster.

Activity

Any advertising campaign has to be targeted at a ‘prime’ audience. This will be the group of people who will be most interested in the film. Looking at the film, who do you think will be the ‘prime’ audiences?

How would your idea of the audience for ‘The World Is Not Enough’ affect where you placed publicity for the film? What types of magazines and newspapers would you advertise in? What time of day would you place your radio spots? If you were advertising on TV, when would you want your advert to be broadcast? You need to think about the types of newspapers your prime audience would read, and also when they might watch television, or listen to the radio. In order to find this out, you will have to do some research of your own.

Activity

During the next few months, try to keep track of ‘The World Is Not Enough’. Collect together the reviews of the films and any articles about the film. How do the articles and the reviews describe the film? Do they try to place it in a particular genre? How do they describe the stars of the film?

In any articles, what is said about the making of the film? What extra information is given about the film that is not in the film reviews?

How is the film advertised in your area? Have radio and television been used? What advertisements appear in the newspapers?

You could also keep track of how ‘The World Is Not Enough’ audio tape does in the charts. Does it get to number one? How long does it stay there?