Pre Production: Branding and Marketing of book and Film

The Idea 

My aim for this pre production book is to imitate the sketchbook that my character Isaiah draws in throughout the story. As it is described as being filled with delicate sketches and art, I want to include this within my package.  I want to further enhance the reality of my story and allow the reader/audience to feel like they are also a part of it in a way, as if they are reading the journal of Isaiah. But this requires great preparation as I want it to be believable. Since my character is a young 17 year old boy, I want his art work to be contemporary and have a fresh feel to it, I initially want the book to be sophisticated in a way that the ideas put forward will be taken seriously but also relatable and eye catching to the target audience.  

Branding: Audience
My first step to ensure I create accessible content as part of  a successful brand, is understanding the importance about knowing who my target audience is. By knowing this, I will be able to get a better understanding about their viewing activities and also get to know what platforms they use. This allows me to accurately distribute and promote my short film effectively.   

Hideaway focuses on one main character who is a 17 year old boy, However, it illustrates a serious topic that effects people of all ages. Therefore I have  to ensure there is a right balance of elements allowing the accessiblity to both the age that portrayed within the film but also relatable to an older audience.  Hideaway will be aimed at 15 - 24 years olds but the general bigger message within the film is applicable to all ages. 

"In 2015, 15-24 year olds made up the largest proportion of the UK cinema audience, at 29%. " - BFI.Org.uk

Knowing that 15 to 24 year olds are the largest age group to engage in cinema activities gives me confidence in the fact that there is a better chance my film would reach the right audience. Below is a statistic that illustrates how Laptops and Computers are the third highest medium for which films are watched, thus meaning there is a good chance that once marketed properly, my targeted audience will be able to access this film better. 

Hideaway will be classified as "15". The reasoning for this is because it features some swear words such as "f**K" and "shit" and contains scenes of suggested drug use and suicide. However, it is not written in a way that is full frontal or instructional, therefore it does not need to be classified as "18". This is good because if it was over 18, it would miss the mark for the intended audience and would therefore not be as accessible to them. 

According to the BBF ( British Board of Film Classification), this is what a '15' should / should not have; 

Hideaway fits well with this classification and I am therefore confident that it will reach the intended audience when distributed on the relevant platforms. 


Branding: Output  platform / Distribution

Branding: Visuals
So when considering branding, I wanted to make sure I would get it right the first time so I went online to get tips on how to create a good visual brand.

The first helpful website I came across was 'Miles Herndon' 

This site was helpful because it laid out the most important things to consider when creating a visual brand. Although this post relates more to corporate business owners, it is still helpful to me.

The main points I will be taking out from this is the idea of; A colour palette - Fonts - Texture - Photography

I continued to look on the internet to see what I could include within these branding options and whether there would be anything else that I could use to enhance the branding of this book. I found another really helpful website that went through all the elements and helped me gain a better understanding of all the things I need to consider. 

In this blog post they laid out key things that makes a good brand identity; 

• Distinct - it should stand out and catch the audience's attention
• Memorable - It should make visual impact, think about apple and how they don't need to put their name on products, the logo pretty much speaks for itself.
• Scalable and Flexible - The ability to grow and evolve
• Cohesive - each piece compliments the brand's identity
• Easy to Apply - intuitive and clear for designers

I will keep these key points and apply it to the decision making when thinking about my branding.

A simple Colour palette: 
Considering all the elements my short  film has as well as the target audience. I want it to have an urban, yet sophisticated feel to it. I want to convey the seriousness but also maintain a pop of colour. 

I often find myself coming back to this colourwheel as I find it easy to navigate and understand. From these clear and concise points about colour and what it means, I have based my package around some of these points.

To experiment with the colour, I made use of sketchbook pro - An iPad pro app that acts as an art tool and lets me have a myriad of brushes and paints to choose from. Not to mention the full colour spectrum. I was fully equipped to find some colours that would suit my brand.  

The simple colour palette I have chosen mainly focuses on Greys, Blacks, and White as it is quite sophisticated but with the tools I have, I believe I can make it look urban and therefore more aesthetically pleasing for the target audience. 

When the art work is added, there will be a variety of minimal pops of colour, for example; 

As you can see here the theme of grey is used through out but with different variations. This was made consistent as I made note of the colour codes and ensured I incorporated it throughout. These designs were drawn by hand on the app. But before I finalised my design style with the art work, I wanted to experiment with text. 



Handwriting and Text styles: 
The next step in branding visually was thinking about the text styles. Since I was confident in the colour scheme, I was ready to move onto the text, and see how I can create an aesthetically pleasing brand.  This is one of the most important parts because throughout my pre production package I want it to be consistent and coherent with the storyline. I also needed something that would be able to be used within the short film too. I continued to experiment with sketchbook pro, since the storyline is about art, I thought it would be a good idea to hand draw a lot of the elements that would be used within the book. This included title pages and headings. Below is the first example of experimenting with the text.

This was the first experimentation with the text and I used my own handwriting to create a real feeling book. I wanted to convey the art theme and therefore continued to create titles with the cursive style of lettering. However, I came to a standstill where the book started to look almost like a recipe book with all the light, feathery colours. I knew I had to find a way to make the brand much more hard hitting and fitting with the serious theme. 

I made a creative decision to start writing in capitals as this would eliminate the over delicate style I had going on. 

I maintained this through out and the end result was better than expected. By following the tips from the previous articles about making designs and graphics that can be easily applicable to a range of things. I realised I could further expand on the art narrative as well as my character's turmoil. Thus leading me to practicing the inside front cover. I thought it would be a good idea to see how I could illustrate Isaiah's themes on a poster. 

I scribbled negative, irrational thoughts in order to convey the message of art but also Isaiah's mentality. This is just a mock up but it was interesting to see how my branding colours work together to create an urban yet sophisticated vibe.

Marketing:

Social media platforms ranked by effectiveness for content marketing in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2015 to 2016

https://www.statista.com/statistics/290966/social-media-platforms-ranked-by-effectivness-for-content-marketing-uk/

This chart shows which sites are good for marketing content, thus meaning it is a platform which allows companies to reach a wide range of their targeted audience. Twitter seems to be the one platform that has grown the most from 2015 to 2016. I will make sure I create a twitter account for my film and distribute/ advertise through there.

This chart shows the age range of twitter users. 

18- 29 year olds come out on top so this shows me that if I advertise properly, there is a real opportunity for me to get my film seen by my target audience. 

Having my target audience in mind, I wanted to make sure this film would be distributed on the relevant platforms. It is important for me to understand the viewing activity for certain outputs in order for Hideaway to reach it's target audience better. 

The outputs I have selected is; 

Youtube: 
This platform is huge as over 400 hours of video gets uploaded ever minute (statista.com) This means there will always be viewers from all over the world since over 80% of Youtube views are from outside of the US. (youtube.com)  More content means more users, which can also mean more viewers once marketed correctly. This is important for me as I want to get the message out to as many people as possible. I want it to be readily available also, hence why I will be placing it on Youtube.

Vimeo.
Vimeo is a well renowned online platform which specialises in the distribution of high quality, independent motion picture content. Unlike Youtube, this platform is niche and therefore attracts likeminded audiences who may  interested in specialised short films and creative visual content. They have specialised "Pro" accounts where film festivals repost films onto Vimeo's timeline. Vimeo also has a "Staff Pick" profile where they choose a new short film to repost. By following the staff pick profile, viewers are able to know they will be kept in the loop with the most recent and creative content. It is almost like a mini film festival in itself as many people who upload onto Vimeo hope to be selected by the Staff Pick profile as this allows them to gain exposure and networking.


Film Festivals:


BUFF Film Festival

Which stands for British Urban Film Festival - It is Officially, the leading film festival for diversity in the world (Metro.co.uk, May 2016) With its urban content directed at the younger,  18-24 year old audience, it is no doubt that this film fits this festival's target audience and theme. It is up and coming as well as and it is London based which is local for me. Although it isn't free to enter, I am confident that my film fits the brief and will therefore look into applying in the future. Sadly I will miss the application deadline as the show is in March but I will happily wait until next year.

East End Film Festival

the East End Film Festival is one of the UK’s largest film festivals. An annual multi-platform festival held in London, the EEFF presents a rich and diverse programme of international premieres, industry masterclasses, free pop-up screenings and immersive live events. It's focus is first and second time directors and they really try to push the newcomers. This is why I think this festival would be great to apply to, as a first time director of short film, a festival like this would give me all the right tools to network and get my film recognised. Sadly I will also miss this deadline but I will happily wait until next year. 


Charities

I aim to get in touch with Mind.Org as I want to direct the audience to their site as they do great charity work and dedicate their time to educating people about mental health. Getting their feedback on this project would be great. 

 Please visit Mind.org.uk in order to find out more about mental health!