a)  1. viable          A. self-promotion

2. open up        B. your heart

3. beam              C. point

4. relentless      D. market

5. total              E. craze

6. make             F. new avenues

7. put                G. onto a hard drive

8. spec              H. sales

9. current           I. of the screen

10. gathering       J. a transition

11. pop off           K. script

                                               b)    1. here               A. than done

2. abide              B.  multiple platforms

3. whole             C. a plan

4. make              D. sense

5.  creature         E.  and there

6.  easier said     F. possibilities

7. by                   G. standards

8. implement      H. knows

9. who                 I. of habit

10. endless            J. new

11. offer                K. all means       

                                                  READING AND

                                         WRITING

Exercise 43. a) Read the article below and define all the steps in the history of Internet movie promotion. What innovations in the marketing campaign did each step bring?

   Movie promotion on the Internet. Historical approach.

In the summer of 1995, media and advertising executives announced that the Internet had become the "new frontier" in film promotion. Marketing “Batman Forever” (1995), Warner Bros. was the first to promote a major feature film using a Website as the campaign’s center-piece. The Web address (or URL) was included on posters, print and television advertisements, and radio spots, and the “Batman Forever” logo appeared with the URL without elaboration at bus and train stations. The film’s Website offered a hypertextual narrative that linked to plot twists and hidden pages for users to discover by correctly answering a series of concealed questions posed by the Riddler, one of the film’s main characters. The “Batman Forever” Website also cross-promoted ancillary products from its sister companies, including the soundtrack recording and music videos.

In June 1995 Universal Pictures partnered with leading Internet service providers American Online and CompuServe to present the first live interactive multisystem simulcast to promote a film on the Web with “Apollo 13” star Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard before the premiere. The Website later included special Internet video greetings from some of the film’s stars and digital still pictures from the film’s Los Angeles premiere.

In late 1996, the “Star Trek: First Contact” Website received over 30 million hits during its first week of release, at that point the largest traffic ever for a film Website, and by the end of 1996, movie trailers, digitized stills, actor and filmmaker profiles, and computer screensavers were available online for almost every major film released. Web addresses were also commonly included in theatrical trailers, TV commercials, print advertisements, and posters. In 1997 studios were spending approximately $10,000 to produce an independent film’s Website and at least $250,000 for blockbuster studio films.

In 1999 studios began to coordinate Website tie-ins with pay-per-view orders, allowing viewers to “play along” at home through synchronized Web content. For the DVD release of “The Matrix” (1999), Warner Bros. scheduled a synchronized screening and Internet chat session with the film’s directors.

“The Blair Witch Project” (1999) was one of the most profitable films in history when measured  by its return on the initial investment. Made for approximately $50,000 and grossing over $100  million in US theatrical box-office alone, this financial victory of a low-budget independent film ,over the major studio blockbusters spread panic among Hollywood executives, due in large part to the important role of the Internet in the film’s commercial success. For “The Blair Witch Project”, however, the Web became the central medium beginning more than a year before the film’s major theatrical distribution. In this sense, the Web functioned in the 1990s for “The Blair Witch Project” in the same way that newspapers and magazines did in relation to the earliest commercial cinema in the 1890s. In addition to the official “Blair Witch Project” Website, unofficial Websites and fan pages elaborated the film’s mythology and offered original narratives. Hundreds of “Blair Witch Project” video parodies were distributed through the Web.

The failure or success of a Web campaign depends in large part upon the target audience and the film’s genre. Indeed, many of the examples included here are from genres that appeal to boys and young men, a demographic that comprises a large portion of overall Internet users. To offer another example from the fantasy genre, in 2001 the Wall Street Journal maintained that the Website for “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings” was the most elaborate and visited to date, offering audio and video clips in ten languages, an interactive map of Middle Earth, chat rooms, screensavers, interviews with members of the cast and crew, and links to some of the thousands of existing fan sites.

In 2004, the narrative for the “Matrix” trilogy was extended beyond the final filmic installment, in the form of “The Matrix Online”, a video game that also uses the Internet to allow thousands of “Matrix” fans to role-play within and to develop the film’s fictional world.

Films also live on beyond their official narratives through creative fan communities, such as the thousands of pages of online fiction that continue the storyline of “Titanic” (see http://www.titanicstories.com ) and hundreds of other films (see http://fanfiction.net ), or the active online culture surrounding the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” films that includes online writings, artwork, games, and fan films or videos.

By the end of the summer of 2005, industry analysts and mainstream news outlets were announcing the "death of the movie theater" as industry figures and independent film companies began to question and challenge traditional film release windows. It remains to be seen whether or not the major studios will welcome these new methods of exhibition and release windows for distribution.

b) Write a summary of the article in your own words.

                                   READING, VOCABULARY

                          AND COMMUNICATION

Exercise 44. a) Is this true about you?

b) In pairs. Find out if you have been doing the same things on the Net over the last week.

Exercise 45. a) What are the best ways to successfully promote your film in the digital age?

                      Before reading the article brainstorm ideas on the possible promotion strategies.

 b) Scan the article below to find information about the following aspects:

§ the aim of a theatrical trailer;

§ the way the press junket is organized;

§ the idea of a publicity blitz;

§ the nature of publicity stunt;

§ the information a movie website should have;

§ the aim of keeping a process journal about the film;

§ the mistakes of social networking;

§ the average attention span of an online viewer;

§ the site that has the largest listings for festivals all over the world.

              c) Read the article and write out ideas you failed to mention while brainstorming.

          10 Ways to Successfully Promote Your Short Film

Congratulations! You’ve made your short film and you’re now ready to show it to the world.

You could always hire someone to do it for you. The more money you can pay, the more time they can put into creating a marketing strategy for your film.

If you have a lot of money

The theatrical trailer is often the first chance to promote a movie to its target audience. Starting up to a year before the release of a major studio movie, distributors run movie trailers that are meticulously edited and audience-tested. The idea is to give moviegoers a taste of the laughs, special effects and plot twists of the studio’s upcoming releases, while leaving them wanting more. It’s an art form that’s usually handled by special trailer production houses.

About the same time that the first trailers hit the theaters, the movie studio will unveil an official Web site for the film. Typical movie Web sites allow visitors to view multiple versions of the trailer, watch behind-the-scenes interviews and mini-documentaries, read plot synopses, download cell-phone ringtones and desktop wallpaper, play games, chat in forums and even pre-order tickets. The official movie Web site is only the beginning of a much larger Internet marketing campaign.

As the release date of the film draws closer, movie marketers try to get early favorable press coverage in newspapers, magazines and on entertainment TV shows. The main movie publicity tactic is something called a press junket. At a press junket, journalists, entertainment reporters and movie critics are flown out to a special location for a day or weekend of interviews with the stars and creators of the film. The actors, directors and screenwriters sit in separate rooms and the reporters are brought in one by one to ask their questions.

Weeks before the movie opens nationwide, the promotions department starts an all-out publicity blitz. The idea is to bombard the public with so many images and promos for the movie that it becomes a "can’t miss" event. Movie marketers will plaster the sides of buses with huge ads, place billboards all around the city, run tons of teaser trailers on TV, place full-page ads in major newspapers and magazines, and the movie’s stars will show up on all of the major talk shows.

The Internet is proving to be a prime spot for these publicity blitzes. Promoters can place rich, interactive ads on the Web sites most trafficked by their target audience. They can also release behind-the-scenes clips, bloopers and other viral videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube. Or they can release different media clips and let the fans create their own trailers.

Another popular strategy is to use highly visible product tie-ins. The final movie marketing strategy is the publicity stunt, an orchestrated media event where someone does something incredibly silly, dangerous or spectacular to draw further attention to the opening of the movie.

If you are short of money

… well… don’t expect much more than what you could do yourself. Of course, you need to do it yourself! There is absolutely no one else that will have more passion for your film than you. Your idea, blood, sweat, and tears went into this baby.

Apply these 10 ideas into your promotional plan and you will have 10,000+ views in no time.