Half term media convergence work

How is Media Convergence important for audiences and Institutions?
Although film forms a media industry on its own, it would be very difficult for a film to be a successful without media convergence. The film industry relies on media convergence when doing such things as marketing, distributing and exhibiting a film but especially more recently, making an audience aware of what is happening at the production stage of film is becoming more popular and this can only be done through media convergence. An example of the audience knowing what’s going on throughout the production process is a Upisode which was a sequel of episodes which built up excitement and hype about the film up.
Whilst the production of Attack the Block was happening media convergence was vital at the very start of the marketing process. Such as creating online blogs where video clips and teaser trailers were posted. Also behind the scenes footage of the main actors and actresses in the film were posted online to keep the projected audience enthralled and anxious for the film to be released, but it also worked as a deterrent for the film due to the fact that people were not becoming bored waiting for the long awaited film to be released. The blog was setup to maintain interest from the audience in the film itself so the blog kind of acted as a publicity generator in some ways. Also as the release of the film was nearing it ensured that the projected audience knew exactly when the film was going to be released in the cinemas worldwide. NickFrost also had a pre-existing fan base, due to previous Working Title successes such as ‘Hot Fuzz’, and it would be members of this fan base that video blogs would have appealed to primarily. This creates a lot more hype about the film as people already know how good of an actor Nick frost is, this should then be likely to encourage people to watch the film.
The production blogs and video clips can also help in the DVD sale area of things as the content that was on the blogs was emerged onto the DVD meaning that there is more content for the audience to view and enjoy. This often boosts sales dramatically as people feel they are getting more for their money.
Although not many of the cast are well known, several of the people involved in the production of the film personally promoted it without a mass intention. For example posting pictures and clips of the production process on social networking sites such as facebook, instagram and twitter. Social networking sites are a great way to promote a film due to the fact that there are many users of the sites, which in turn means millions of people see the promotion and feel encouraged to go and see it. Also it is very easy to update sites like this and keep the audiences up to date.
In contrast to the above Project X only had little pictures and videos on the films website during the production stage and it didn’t use social networking until the film was being advertised in its lead up this may have been due to the fact that the budget of the film wasn’t very high at all which meant that they needed to keep marketing and promotion costs down to a minimum in order to maintain a stable amount of money in which to produce the film. The film wanted to take on a more word of mouth system in terms of advertisement due to the fact that this comes a lesser expense than other ways or promoting the film.
Mid-production marketing is happening more and more thanks to the advances in media technology and the ways in which people can connect; technology manages to keep fans of the film interested throughout its production through to its exhibition, thus increasing potential sales.
YouTube is also used to market film as interviews are uploaded and the trailers are uploaded for all films now. The use of film web pages are used, for example Project X which shows the awards that have been won for it, this markets the film because it shows their success and it promotes the film as it has been very successful and would encourage the target market to buy the DVD.
A very clever way of advertising was used by project X as they released the soundtrack for the movie earlier than the actual film. This generated a lot of talk surrounding the film and also this aided towards the advertising and promotion of the film.
 Synergy marketing is used within the film industry to promote a product, for example ‘Up’ and Mcdonalds happy meals. This is important because it means the film becomes substantially more well-known and the audience becomes more aware of the film it also means that the company’s market each other. When marketing ‘UP’ Mcdonalds  would have been an obvious choice because of its international name and brand;‘UP’ would be promoted on an international level in places were you would least expect it. Harry Potter was also synergy marketed with Harry Potter Lego, this would immediately engage the young quadrant of the audience in the film before release.
On the other hand for films such as Project X which have such a low budget synergising the film can become increasingly very difficult as it often needs a large sum of money to go through the process of synergising the film with another product for example.
As discussed, another example of marketing is using social networks which will promote the film very well and efficiently. An example of this is ‘ The attack the block’ Facebook group. This creates almost an aftermath affect where people can visit the page and see updates of what is happening with the film or if they are planning to bring out another one. Often competitions are ran on these kind of pages to entice the audience to come back and view the page every so often.
Films choose where they market there films in terms of who there target audience is for example it would have been an outrageous decision to promote and advertise the film adulthood on kids television. This would not generate any interest as none of the kids would want to go and see it instead a very good place to market the film would be maybe on a side of a bus where the target audience will be constantly reminded that it is coming out this will then mean that the target audience the film is trying to appeal to is reached. Another example is if a film produced by Disney is advertised late at night on TV, again the target audience will be hard to reach as the audience that the film is trying to appeal to is not present. They are better off advertising it throughout the daytime when children are likely to be watching tv.