Social realist film: Marketing campaign

Social realist films are likely to have a smaller marketing campaign, due to the institutions lower budget. The usual amount of money spent on a marketing campaign for a social realist film is £0.2 million, which is significantly lower than the £1.3 million that is spent on bigger, studio backed films, and even more that is spent marketing blockbuster films. Larger, well-known film franchises are able to use advertising techniques such as viral marketing campaigns, big premiers and convergence in order to ensure that their film gains a large demographic, which social realist films aren’t able to do due to a lack of budget and a lack of well-known stars. This highlights how social realist films have to use other methods in order to attract an audience for their film and to gain a profit.

Budgets of the films I looked at:This is England - £1.5millionTrainspotting - £1.5millionNEDS - £3.5millionPride – N/A

UK Lottery/BFI Film Funding Many UK social realist films use techniques such as Lottery or BFI funding in order to

create a bigger marketing campaign, or to use the institution as a way to gain a larger demographic. The BFI invest over £26m of Lottery funds to support film development, production and distribution activity in the UK and the budget is set to rise to £30m by 2017. They also support independent UK distributers to ensure that films are seen by a range of audiences, and to help the film gain a bigger profit.

This is England used the Film4 Lottery fund in order to help them to create a better marketing campaign and to ensure that the distribution of the film was successful. Overall, the film was rewarded £668,000 as it was a film which was produced in Britain, and was also rewarded £90,000 by New Line Cinema, again to ensure that the film was successful despite having a low budget.

Pride used the BFI Lottery funding scheme in order to ensure that its marketing campaign was successful, and was rewarded £50,000 to help it gain a wide demographic. This would have helped the film to create a big marketing campaign, especially as the films themes aren’t what is usually seen within mainstream cinema which means that it could potentially have a smaller audience and it wouldn’t gain as much of a profit.

NEDS also had some help with funding and budgeting by Film 4, the UK Film Council, Scottish Screen and Wild Bunch who are also handling international sales. This meant that the film was able to be quite successful, despite having un-known actors and a relatively un-known director at the time. These institutions are well-known for helping to produce and distribute social realist films, which meant that they were ideal for a film like NEDS.

Trainspotting didn’t use UK Lottery/BFI funding to help to market their film, however they did have funding from their production company Channel4 Films in order to help to create a successful marketing campaign which helped as they didn’t have any big stars in the film and the genre was still niche at the time that it was filmed (1996).

Film festivals Trainspotting won many awards due to its well-known director and niche themes, and

many of these included film festival awards which will have helped within the marketing campaign for the film as it would have been shown at these film festivals before its release. Some of the awards that the film won included Best Film and Best Director at the Seattle International Film festival, as well as Danny Boyle winning the ‘Audience award’ at the Warsaw International Film Festival.

This is England also won many awards at film festivals which would have helped within the marketing campaign because, as with Trainspotting, the film would have had to be shown at the film festival before its release. The awards that the film won include Best Film at the Bangkok International Film Festival, Young Audience award at the Gijón International Film Festival and UK Film Talent Award at the London Film Festival, as well as many more.

Similar to these two films, Pride also used nominations and awards at film festivals to gain publicity and help to encourage a profit for the film. Pride had a higher budget than the other films that I looked at due to it having a star-filled cast, which meant that it didn’t have to rely as much on the film festivals for an audience. Pride won the Audience Award at the Ghent International Film Festival, and was nominated for the Art Cinema Award at the Hamburg Film Festival.

Viral Marketing Campaigns Many social realist films have to find low budget alternatives to a large marketing campaign,

and these often include viral marketing campaigns using free social media sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. These allow the film to gain recognition without spending a large amount of the budget which could be used towards more important elements of the films production and distribution.

This is England took advantage of using a website in order to let people know about the film and its content, as well as showing the website on their posters and trailers in order to encourage an active audience. Although the website (http://www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk/) is no longer active due to the film being relatively old, there are still Twitter and Facebook accounts linked to the film, which continue to bring in fan responses and information about upcoming TV programme and film releases.

Trainspotting also created a large marketing campaign, using a sophisticated layout on posters and billboards in order to attract a wider demographic, as well as targeting the younger generation directly by placing the advertisements outside nightclubs and rave venues. The film also used an interactive website where audience members can watch clips from the film and learn more about the cast members (http://www.miramax.com/movie/trainspotting/) as well as many other social media sites, including Facebook.

Although both NEDS and Pride did use large marketing campaigns, NEDS had a lower budget and more of a niche audience than the other films that I have looked at, thus meaning that their marketing campaign consisted solely with the film being shown at different social realist film festivals, and relying on the directors existing audience. Pride used more mainstream ways of marketing, including television adverts for the film and social media sites, as well as traditional methods such as posters and billboards. Pride was able to do this as it had a much bigger budget than the other films I looked at, hence why they were also able to use ‘use of the star’ (Richard Dyer) within their marketing campaign.

Creating a marketing campaign for my trailer (Social realist) I am able to use some of the techniques which I have seen within the social realist films that I

have studied within my own trailer marketing campaign in order to draw in an audience for my film as it will have a niche audience and a low budget.

One of the main marketing techniques that I will consider when making my own trailer is creating a viral marketing campaign using social media sites in order to encourage a younger demographic for my film, as well as not using much of the films low budget. I can use sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in order to target the films main audience, as well as making the campaign viral and encouraging quite a big audience for it. I can also use the social media sites within my trailer, poster and magazine front cover in order to create a consistent marketing campaign and make sure that it is successful.

I could also use a promotion at a film festival within the magazine and poster in order to encourage a positive reputation for the film and ensure that people are more likely to want to watch it as the film festival will be well-known within the film industry. I could also state that the film has positive reviews both within the poster and the magazine, as well as at the end of the trailer in order to again encourage a positive reputation for the film.

I can advertise that the film has used funding by institutions such as BFI to create a bigger audience for the film as they will be reassured that the film will be made using good quality cameras and a reputable production company. This will also benefit the institutions such as the BFI as they will able to add another film to their list of films that they have helped to fund/create.