Let's say you made a movie.
  You wrote a script, prepared the shoot, assembled  a cast and crew, shot the film, edited it,
  and sound mixed the thing until it's ready  for the world.
  And it's awesome.
  Congratulations!
  Now… you just have to convince an audience  to come see it.
  These days, that's more important than ever.
  With hundreds of films, TV series, and online  videos competing for our attention, filmmakers
  and distribution companies need to find creative  ways to make their content stand out.
  From posters and trailers to celebrity press  junkets, let's take a peek at the world
  of marketing.
  [Opening Music Plays]
  In the earliest days of film, movies were
  the marketing.
  People bought tickets just to see pictures  move on a screen.
  As it became clear that film was going to  endure as a source of mass entertainment and
  communication, a permanent infrastructure  emerged – things like movie studios and
  theater chains.
  Those studios started making more movies to  keep up with demand.
  And, suddenly, moviegoers had options!
  Audiences also became more sophisticated viewers.
  They wanted stories, and they wanted stars.
  Film studios and distributors were faced with  greater competition and needed to find ways
  to persuade people to see their film, instead  of somebody else's.
  That's where marketing comes in.
  And, in fact, many of the elements of cinema's  earliest marketing campaigns are still with
  us today.
  In the 1910s, the studios that made and distributed  films noticed that more people bought tickets
  for movies starring actors like Florence Lawrence,  Mary Pickford, and Lillian Gish.
  So they began to market their films based  on celebrities, which helped create the star system.
  Celebrities continue to be a powerful weapon  in a film's marketing arsenal to this day.
  They can be deployed to talk shows, magazine  spreads, or press junkets, where hundreds
  of journalists are wined, dined, and given  a few precious moments to interview a personality.
  Today's celebrities also leverage their  own social media to increase hype around their movies.
  But as flashy as the star system is, in many  ways, the cornerstone of film marketing is
  the poster or one sheet.
  Whether they're organized around an iconic  image from the film, or covered with the movie's
  most famous actors, these graphic designs  can be used in print ads, transformed into
  billboards, or displayed outside theaters.
  The best posters represent a movie in a single,  powerful image.
  Think of the shark rising up toward the swimmer  on the Jaws poster, or the moth over Jodie
  Foster's mouth from The Silence of the Lambs.
  Posters often include taglines as well – brief,  memorable catch-phrases that sum up the theme
  of the movie.
  Like Alien: "In space, no one can hear you  scream."
  Or The Shawshank Redemption: "Fear can hold  you prisoner, hope can set you free."
  Posters might also feature quotes from film  critics.
  Remember, this is all an act of persuasion,  so if critics are raving, people might get
  curious enough to see a movie for themselves.
  Trailers or previews were another early development  in film marketing.
  The earliest trailers appeared at the end  of serials, early short films that told a
  longer story in weekly installments.
  Each episode would end with some kind of cliffhanger,  and include a shot from the next week's film.
  Once feature films became the norm, studios  would mine a film for shots of its most famous actors.
  Then, they would pair those shots with title  cards – or after the advent of sound, a
  narrator – to tell the audience how incredible  the movie was going to be.
  In the 1960s, American movie trailers began  to break this mold.
  Alfred Hitchcock famously starred in the trailer  for Psycho, in which he gave the audience
  a walking tour of the film's set, describing  where various grisly murders took place.
  In 1964, Stanley Kubrick made his own trailer  for Dr. Strangelove.
  It's a funny, fragmented creation, intercutting  very short clips from the movie with title
  cards that ask the movie's big questions.
  Since the 1970s, films have also advertised  on television.
  Jaws was among the first, featuring a shortened  version of the theatrical trailer.
  And during this time, another big change came  to Hollywood marketing.
  Before the 1970s, the marketing departments  of major movie studios began their work after
  a film was done.
  The studio produced the movie, and then the  marketing people sold it to an audience.
  But by the 1980s, those studios had all been  purchased by big multinational corporations,
  where the marketing professionals were consulted  before many products were fully developed.
  That strategy trickled down, and by the mid-1980s  the in-house marketing departments of places
  like Paramount, Warner Brothers, and 20th  Century Fox began weighing in on which films
  should actually get made.
  Studios like Marvel have taken this to a whole  new level, staking out release dates and creating
  promotional material for movies before they've  developed a script, hired actors, or picked
  a director.
  Meanwhile, sponsorships and product placements  have existed in some form since the dawn of
  movies, but in the 1980s, they reached a whole  new level.
  Companies like Coca-Cola or Frito-Lay would  pay to have their products featured in movies
  aimed at an audience they hope to reach.
  And it often worked!
  For instance, after Hershey's agreed to  spend $1 million marketing Stephen Spielberg's
  E.T. in exchange for a prominent use of Reese's  Pieces in the film, sales of the candy jumped
  by a whopping 65% in just two weeks!
  And the Internet has revolutionized movie  marketing in many ways.
  Not only is it cheaper to deliver trailers  over the web, but marketing departments can
  now target their material to very specific  audiences.
  And savvy use of social media can amplify  the marketing team's message.
  So rather than paying to advertise on every  major television network, the marketing team
  of a new animated film can aim ads directly  at, say, people whose browser histories indicate
  that they have young kids.
  Now, when you're marketing a film, first  you'll have to figure out how much you'll
  need to spend.
  Generally speaking, marketing costs about  an additional quarter to a half of a film's budget.
  So if you've made a new comic book movie  for $150 million, you might have to spend
  another $75 million to make sure people know  it's coming out.
  And the problem is, now your movie has to  make $225 million just to break even!
  So where does all that money go?
  Well, the biggest chunk of a marketing budget  falls under something called Prints and Advertising,
  or P&A.
  Marketing departments will often buy print  ad space in local newspapers and on billboards,
  advertise on the radio, or make a series of  teasers and trailers.
  And depending on /how/ you release your film,  the cost of P&A can change.
  Each of these avenues has different marketing  requirements, expenses, and strategies.
  A theatrical release is generally pricier.
  The film itself has to be physically delivered  to theaters – which used to cost more when
  that meant hauling around heavy metal cans  full of physical film.
  But there are benefits, too.
  There's still some prestige attached to  having your film play in a movie theater.
  And films have to have at least a small theatrical  release to be eligible for major awards like
  the Oscars, for instance.
  And if you make a big enough marketing splash  when your film opens in theaters, by the time
  it comes out on other platforms, people might  remember hearing about it.
  Other films find release on cable television.
  Marketing these films is somewhat less expensive,  and the audience is easier to find –
  because they're already watching the channel!
  Channels like HBO, Showtime, and even the  History Channel have produced and distributed
  movies and miniseries to great success in  recent years.
  Then, there are paid streaming services like  Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
  They not only distribute films that have had  a theatrical run, but also let you stream
  original movies on your television, tablet,  or phone whenever and wherever you want.
  These companies know more about who their  audience is than anyone else.
  They know what you've watched before, what  you've searched for, and what you might
  be interested in seeing next.
  This level of detail is a dream for movie  marketing executives… and a little bit
  creepy if you think about it too much.
  Some movies get released on free streaming  services, like YouTube or Vimeo.
  These films often aim their marketing materials  at prominent users of a platform, hoping that
  someone with a few million followers will  spread the word about their movie.
  This kind of marketing can be less expensive,  but more time-consuming.
  Movies also get released on home video formats  like DVD and Blu-ray, and by film festivals,
  both live and online.
  Some movies use a successful film festival  run to market their films to buyers – distribution
  companies who will then release the film theatrically  or through video-on-demand.
  These distribution companies, from the major  studios to independent companies like A24
  or Magnolia Pictures, will use their expertise  and infrastructure to execute a marketing
  strategy and help the film find its audience.
  Film festivals also offer movies a chance  to be seen by critics, whose reviews can boost
  interest in a film and provide marketing departments  with quotes they can put on the posters and
  DVD art.
  Needless to say, different kinds of movies  aimed at different audiences require very
  different marketing and distribution strategies.
  And while a film's success relies on more  than just its marketing, every film does
  need to find its audience.
  For big-budget movies with a theatrical release,  the opening weekend box office is key to their success.
  The money and good press from a big opening  weekend can lead all the way to massive home
  video sales, successful sequels, and even  theme park rides.
  So there's a lot riding on the marketing  departments of major studios to get people
  buying tickets for their films right out of  the gate.
  They have some help, because many huge Hollywood  movies are based on characters or stories
  that people are familiar with.
  Sequels, prequels, and reboots, oh my!
  Since audiences are already pre-aware of these  stories, the job of the marketing department
  is to use tools like trailers, posters, commercials,  or talk show appearances to make people want
  to see these movies right away.
  Big-budget marketing efforts create a vicious  cycle, though, since the high cost of a national
  campaign means the film has to make even more  money at the box office to break even.
  Smaller, independent movies don't have the  resources to throw 100 million dollars into
  marketing, but they don't necessarily need  to.
  These movies are often made for much less  money, so they don't need to break box office
  records on their opening weekend to be a success  and pay back investors.
  So whether you've made the latest Marvel  movie or a DIY indie on your cell phone, marketing
  is an essential piece of the filmmaking puzzle  when it comes to finding an audience and getting
  them excited to see your film.
  Today we talked about the history of marketing,  from the earliest days through innovative
  online campaigns.
  We looked at the ways marketing professionals  use things like posters, trailers, and celebrity
  interviews to drive awareness of films.
  And we explored the costs and benefits of  various strategies for marketing large-scale
  blockbusters versus micro-budget indies.
  Next time we'll spend some time exploring  that age old question: should you go to film
  school, or not?
  Crash Course Film Production is produced in  association with PBS Digital Studios.
  You can head over to their channel to check  out a playlist of their latest shows, like
  Deep Look, Eons, and Infinite Series.
  This episode of Crash Course was filmed in  the Doctor Cheryl C. Kinney Crash Course Studio
  with the help of these nice people and our  amazing graphics team is Thought Cafe.
  
        
      
 
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