Marketing

My marketing campaign will follow the generic structure of any other film campaign, in terms of a teaser poster first, followed by a trailer and an actual poster and TV spots nearer to the film's release.

However i will also include a campaign where a certain amount of the money made from the film will be donated to the soldiers who at war. As my target profile is mainly a western audience, particularly American citizens, this could be effective as american citizens are generally very patriotich and support their soldiers.This would hopefully provide a secondary motive, other than the entertainment of the film, for the audience to watch the film, and could bring in more revenue and generate word-of-mouth promotion of the film. Also, i would create a viral marketing campaign where people are able to "alienise" their faces online, and can send the picture made to friends on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. This will hopefully generate a viral marketing campaign and spread the film out to the younger section of my target audience

Iconography:
The iconography of the film will connote “Action-Adventure” by the extensive use of guns, bombs, chainsaws, baseball bats and many other weapons. Also, a lot of vehicles will be used, including aeroplanes, off-road vehicles, tanks and old domestic cars. Overall the technology of the alien weapons will be much better and more futuristic than anything of the humans. However, everything that the humans have will be of the 21st century, as they have not been able to advance in technology due to their oppression. Talia and all of the army personnel will be wearing worn out army clothing to portray how they are in the army, however the other helpers and donors will be wearing ordinary clothing which represents their character. For example John will be wearing an army outfit with lots of badges and medals on it, Sarah will be wearing baggy unfeminine clothing which is very worn out and ripped. All the humans will be made to look dirty with the use of smeared makeup. This, with the apocalyptic scene, will present the setting and will show the audience that the world is in danger. The aliens will not be distinguished from the humans in any way using colour, and the typical “blue-red” colours for good and evil will not be used. This will add to the mystery of the film, and will create a dangerous mise-en-scene as the audience cannot tell who is good and who is bad. The fire element will be use to symbolise danger, chaos and the rushed atmosphere that the characters are in.

Setting:
The film is set in the future, in a post-apocalyptic Earth, set predominantly in America. However the audience are not told when or where exactly the film is set, in order to create a mysterious mise-en-scene and a tense atmosphere for the audience. The characters will travel through a lot of America, and the film will include scenes of New York and Washington in their destroyed state. The predominant colours in the settings will be red, blacks and greys. This will hopefully create a “dangerous” setting, which will look chaotic and apocalyptic. This will make the genre of action-adventure clearer to the audience. Another setting will be the alien base, which will be much cleaner, lighter and not destroyed at all. By using this binary opposite of Earth and the alien base, the extinction of the human race will be made more dramatic. Most of the scenes will be set outdoors on streets, which are completely destroyed and left in carnage.

USP:
A mother must fight for the world and for her family against all the odds. My film is unique as the hero is an old mother who saves the world, which isn’t a convention of most action adventure movies where the main characters and heroes are usually young men.

Audience:
my film will target men and women aged 18-40. I plan to target an older generation using and older selection of actors renowned for their work in action adventure films. Also, the violent action, apocalyptic theme and use of CGI and lots of special effects would appeal to a younger audience and the male audience. Fans of the actors would also be attracted to watching the film, as my film would have a lot of famous actors in it. Women may be attracted to watching the film as the hero and some other main characters will be female, and gender equality will be a strong theme in my film, as the female characters will be shown to be equally strong (mentally and physically) as the men.

Characters:

Hero - Talia Blackford - played by Uma Thurman
 Talia is a mother of two children, and a wife to a husband who has gone to fight against the aliens. She is fairly old, however she is still strong, confident, heroic and courageous. These are all typical characteristics of a male hero, however she also has the characteristics that a female is stereotypically given, such as compassion, caring and intelligent. She has to save her husband...and the world, and must face a lot of challenges throughout the film, which she overcomes with these characteristics.

Princess - Ben Blackford - played by Brad Pitt

Ben is the male princess, and is captured by the aliens and needs rescuing by Talia. He has the typical characteristics of a male characters, however is still the princess. Once he gets captured, he is still able to help get rescued by Talia, as he uses his inteligence and resources to kill many of the aliens and help his rescue his fellow captured humans.

 Helpers - John Doeman - played by Bruce Willis

He is the older, very patriotich, "less agile" war veteran, who is determined to save America and prove that even old men can fight. He has stereotypes the female characters, Talia and particularly Sarah, as useless due to their sex. However he is proved wrong as he needs to be saved several times by both Talia and Sarah. He has got a personal hatred against the aliens, as they killed his wife, and this is shown in the film as he is very angry and violent, and wants to kill everyone one of the aliens.

Sarah Brown - played by Hayden Panettiere
She is the un-stereotypical female character, who only has very masculine traits, and is the "alpha-female", however still looks like a woman. She wants to help Talia as she simply wants to end the end of the human race. She builds a friendly battle between the sexes with John Doeman, and they are constantly trying to prove that their gender is better. Panettiere played Claire in the series "Heroes", where she also played a very strong female character who was determined to help others. The characteristics of her character Claire will be similar to those of Sarah Brown.


 
Donor - Herfred Wood - played by Shia Labeouf
He is the youngest person on Talia's team, and was not allowed to help because he was a lot younger than the other characters. After a lot of pleading,  he was allowed to help as he knows how to infiltrate into the alien base. He possesses a lot of intelligence, and is the "geek" of the team, and isnt strong at all.

Inspiration:

Apocalyptic film about the end of human race due to aliens taking over the world.
The dark, destroyed and chaotic landscape is what i would use in my film, as it is also set in a post apocalyptic setting





This films uses a female hero, who has many stereotypical male characteristics, such as courage, anger, strength and the ability to kill thousands of people without dying. Talia will have similar characteristics, however the fact that she is a female character will be focused on to create a change in the representation of women in action adventure films

This films also uses an apocalyptic narrative, which i would incorporate into my film. The use of CGI and special effects is also very inspiration in this film, as it creates a tense and dangerous atmosphere very effectively.

Homework - AA film proposal

A-A film – Extinction  (work in progress)
Narrative –
Equilibrium – not much equilibrium as the characters start off in a post apocalyptic setting, where humans are in hiding from the aliens which have taken over. A family is living underground with several other families in hiding. Talia, the wife and mother, is an ex-soldier, who has retired to look after her children whilst her husband is called to defend the border. They are living as peacefully as they can in their community of many families who help each other.
Disruption – Talia receives a message about her husband, saying that he has been captured and taken by the aliens. She then decides to go after her husband in order to find him. She leaves her children in the care of her best friend, and sets off. However the best friend’s husband insists that he goes along with her to help, as his sister has also been taken.
Resolution – the world army ask Talia and her other people who she has met along the way to help them infiltrate the aliens main base, as she has shown absolute courage and strength. She agrees as her husband may be in the slave camps there. She destroys the enemy base, and the entire alien operation is also destroyed. Most of the aliens are killed, and the alien king who leads the operation was murdered by her. Her husband is found, and returned to her, however the best friend’s husband’s sister is not, and it is expected that she died.
Restoration – The family is re-united, and they are happy again. However Earth is still in its apocalyptic state and the aliens will be back, as not all of them are dead. A sequel is suggested by a shot of the aliens regrouping underground, and a new alien crowned the king.
Possible Actors/Actresses –
Talia – Uma Thurman
Best friend’s Husband – Matt Damon
Talia’s Husband – Brad Pitt
Other members of Talia’s team would include Bruce Willis (the older, very patriotic, yet surprisingly active ex soldier, fighting for USA) and Uma Thurman (the violent, unrelenting woman who wants to prove that females are just as capable as men). Conflict between Uma Thurman and Bruce Willis will be present, as Willis will be more traditional, believing that women should remain at home whilst men fight, whereas Thurman will try to prove him wrong. Eventually, Thurman saves Willis’ life.
Inspiration –
War of the Worlds – the idea of an apocalyptic scene and aliens taking over interested me because it is quite disturbing in terms of it could happen to us
Alien – one of the first films with a female hero/protagonist
Kill Bill – again with a female hero, however she is much more violent and has masculine traits which I plan to incorporate into the female hero Talia.
Cloverfield – lots of CGI to create the look of the aliens, which I would make my aliens look like, but much more scary and monstrous.

BLK comments

Both excellent homeworks Bhavin - very thorough analysis work, well done