3rd Quarter Submission: New Recruit

Creative Critical Reflection: #1

While our film may stand out in certain ways, there are still many conventions of action, super hero movies that our film project conforms to.

When studying techniques of the genre, I noticed a common theme (in movies like Iron Man) that the title card was shown after a short introduction. It was bold, impactful, and normally accompanied by either a musical sting or abrupt stop in tension building music. This grabs the audience's attention, leaves an impression, and creates an effect of power and intensity. We wanted to replicate this with our own project, so we placed the title card at the end on the introduction with suspenseful music coming to an echoing stop. Upon showing our test audience, some expressed the concern that it made the intro feel more like a completed short film. In order to emphasize a cliffhanger aspect of an intro, we added a line of dialogue to imply that there was in fact a (hypothetical) full length movie after it. When the Agent character says, "I have a job for you." the screen cuts to black. During the black screen and absence of music, the protagonist can be heard saying, "I'm listening." After this, the title card fades in. We believe this helps express that it is not the end of the story.

Another convention of this type of film is that the introductions begin with a calm, slow pace. No one is in a rush, there is no danger. Slowly tension builds, and then a climax to the conflict. In Captain America the First Avenger, a group of men are in multiple long takes as they exchange causal dialogue, until the music changes and the camera pans to a massive ship that had been preserved in ice. In Iron Man, there are long shots of military vehicles, casual conversation, and then the sudden sound of gunfire and explosives. We wanted this effect of building tension in our film, beginning the scene with establishing shots and long takes of cars driving by and people walking by. Then the characters are shown walking lazily, window shopping. Slowly the tension builds to the Robber taking the purse, and the tension repeatedly rises and falls as the protagonist defeats the robber twice and is then cornered by the Agent.

When the Agent corners the protagonist, we follow a convention of all adventurer and hero stories. The Agent introduces the "call to action" portion of the story, the "job" they offer. 

Unlike many other super hero franchises, however, we skip past the "origin story" portion of a hero's journey. When the audience meets the protagonist, she has already gotten the hang of her powers and has had them for a while. When she recognizes the Agent is watching her, she realizes she is being followed. This implies that she has had to deal with this before, running and hiding her super powers. When she fakes being injured, she remembers she has to act like she does not have super strength. This sort of head start is not normal to many hero movies. 

Our hero also lacks a special code name or costume. Unlike "Bat Man" or "The Wasp", she has no famous second identity. She also lacks an elaborate suit or mask, as is characteristic of most crime fighting heroes.

A more obvious deviation from convention is the fact that our super hero lead is a woman. Nearly all super hero movies are led by male heroes, with rare exceptions such as "Cat Woman" or the recent "Wonder Woman".

Our film represents multiple woman in its cast, of different body types and personalities. So our film's primary social group is woman. By doing so the film is tackling the issue of  a lack of relatable role models for younger girls. Our film would follow the lead of the recent "Wonder Woman" film, providing positive examples of strong woman and promoting diversity in film.

Revision 3: Title Card

One of the revisions we decided to make was to rename the excerpt. We mean the original title of Fox Hunt to represent how the movie is about finding the protagonist and characters with cunning like a fox. However, this was not very clear to our test audience.
We thought of making the logo/mascot of the agency the Agent character worked at a fox, to make a more clear connection. However, it was difficult to fit into the script we already had, so instead we renamed it to "New Recruit", which still fits out excerpt.
In editing, I also made the title card look more sleek and gave the text a gradient effect to look more professional.

Thor Ragnarok Distribution Model Research

Thor Ragnarok has taken advantage of traditional distribution methods as well as more modern. experimental ones.
For example, Thor Ragnarok ran in theaters and has DVDs and Blu Ray disks available for purchase. These methods are common and have been used for years, and are proven to be profitable.
However, as a way to alter this tried and true method, Marvel had a special promotion DVD set with the Target chain of stores. The set held a DVD, a Blu Ray Disk, a code to redeem a digital copy of the movie (for mobile devices or computers), and extra features like a behind-the-scenes book.

Thor Ragnarok is available for streaming on Amazon, and while it is not currently on Netflix it is planned to be released there sometime this summer.

A more experimental streaming service Ragnarok is using, however, is YouTube. You can purchase the movie for rent or to own on the site, a fairly new way to stream movies. Larger film studios have only started to use this function on the massively popular video streaming service.

This is a screenshot I took myself. Movies are now even easier to access for streaming on YouTube.

Revision 2: Fixing the Lighting Inconsistency of our Intro

One of the elements we wanted to fix in our original draft was the fact the sun had set in the middle of filming. making the lighting inconsistent. It was too out of place and made no sense, as shots meant to be one after another get progressively darker. In these screenshots of the original draft, you can see the how quickly and abruptly it becomes dark in about 30 seconds.

We realized to fix this lighting inconsistency we would have to refilm portions of our intro, but after recasting actors it became impossible to reshoot only segments of our project. So we had to refilm the sequence altogether. In our revised 3rd quarter draft, we made sure to start filming much earlier in the day. This gave us around 6 hours of sunlight instead of 1. The following screenshots show that throughout the excerpt the daylight creates a much more consistent lighting and does not cause distraction or break immersion.

Spider Man Homecoming Advertising Campaign

Sony claims they have "evolved" their advertising campaigns to surpass a simple 30 second commercial slot.
Spider Man Homecoming has not only has TV and online commercials, but partnerships and co-beneficial product placements.
The movie had an exclusive, custom ad for the NBA Finals.
The movie had a duel ad with the computer company Dell, the car company Audi, and even Pizza hut.
Pizza Hut boasted special edition sporting the comic book hero's likeness, along with a promotional food item called "Cheesey Bites".

 

Sony had both a partnership with Audi and a product placement within the film itself. Audi produced a comical short, with the protagonist Peter Parker taking his driver's license test. This provided hype for the movie while also giving fans extra content. There were also publicity stunts, like a costumed Spider Man posing with crowded fans on the hood of a detailed Audi car.

A scene from the film where Spider Man commandeers another student's car.

Audi's promotional short.

Spider Man posing with excited fans on top of a custom Audi for a publicity stunt.

Wonder Woman Distribution Model Research

Wonder Woman was released in theaters internationally as a tentpole film.
It followed the traditional form of distribution within movie theaters, but after leaving theaters they continue to run the movie in other formats.
They are also releasing conventional Blu Ray Disks and DVDs of Wonder Woman for viewers at home.
The movie streams occasionally on the HBO TV Channel, which carries over onto HBO's app, HBO Go. This covers both TV and streaming services, as many movie franchises are branching out to now.
Warner Bros. has been working closely with Amazon as well, so Wonder Woman is available for both DVD/Blu Ray and for streaming on Amazon.
Something Wonder Woman's team has decided to do that is less conventional is that Wonder Woman will not be streaming on the very popular Netflix Service.