Audiences and Institutions: The woman in black (Watkins 2012)
1. The Primary audience of the film 'The Woman in Black' is mainly a teen audience, the presence of Daniel Radcliffe in this film can ensure and secure the audience of many teens globally due to his large fanbase acquired through the global phenomenon that is the 'Harry Potter' franchise. A secondary target audience for the film could have been a huge variety of film fanatics, cinema goers and ordinary people, Hammer tried to secure a broader audience for their film by having a very large marketing campaign and advertising the blockbuster across a range of different media formats and texts such as countless newspapers, magazines and television channels.
2. The Woman in black invested a large sum of money in a huge global marketing campaign. It started with the release of a teaser campaign consisting of things such as a teaser trailer, teaser posters and competitions. There was then a main campaign starting a few months before the films global release to acquire a large 'hype' about the film and so as many people, primary or secondary audience would be aware of the films upcoming release, the film was advertised on TV channels such as; E4, Channel 4, Sky 1, ITV, FX, The Horror Channel and many more. The film was also advertised widely over a range of websites and primarily social media sites such as facebook and twitter etc. Hammer used Daniel Radcliffe as an anchor in their marketing campaign getting the global star involved with many interviews, promotions, articles, competitions and more, this supports very strongly part of Richard Dyer's star theory in that in this instance the star is very much a commodity.
3. I believe the marketing materials used in the campaign for 'The Woman in Black' were appropriate and used very efficiently, it is easy to see they advertised in many places that would deliberately attract their primary target audience as well as many other places to grab the attention of a secondary audience and as a result the film was a huge success due to the heavy wad of cash invested in the marketing campaign and the use of stardom and fandom to secure places in cinemas being filled, and as this happens, the best way for a film to become successful is through word of mouth, and this spread like wildfire aiding the marketing campaign and the public being bombarded with youtube adverts, television adverts, bus stop posters and billboards all over the country. I think in order for 'Hammer Horror' to return back onto the scene with a big impression they needed to ensure their comeback film with a strong marketing campaign and I believe that this was done very appropriately.
4. The opening of 'The Woman in black' was on a very large scale in the U.S. making $20,874,072 on it's opening weekend and was shown in 2855 screens nationally. It's opening in the UK was slightly smaller (making £3,153,020 on its opening weekend and showing on 412 screens) It's huge success in both the U.S. and the UK was undoubtedly due to all of the 'hype' created by the films huge marketing campaign.
5. 'The Woman in Black' had an estimated budget of $17 million (about £10.5 million) and had a large impact on the industry as it saw Hammer Horror make a globally recognised and high status return to the big screen in the form of Daniel Radcliffe's spooky endeavour. It also broke a few key conventions and kept the audience very interested right up until the bitter end where conventions were challenged with a final plot twist where it is difficult to identify whether the ending is a happy ending or a sad ending. This recent release in my opinion did many things to revive the excitement of the horror genre.
6. I believe that this film was so successful for two main reasons. The first being that a very big star was used for the main character and once this was known to the public, target audience and potential punters, they became very interested as the globally adored 'Harry Potter' actor was cast into the role, many people will have loved seeing him in the Harry Potter franchise and been already existing fans whereas others may have wanted to see how he adapted to the role, either way a vast amount have people will have flocked to the cinema to see him. The second reason I believe this film was so successful is that Hammer had a very solid and strong marketing campaign, the various teaser trailers, posters, billboards, trailers and more spread over a range of TV channels, websites, magazines, radio stations and more amongst events like competitions and interviews made it near impossible for anyone to have not heard of 'The Woman in Black' at it's time of release. I'd say Hammer hit the nail right on the head with that one.
3. I believe the marketing materials used in the campaign for 'The Woman in Black' were appropriate and used very efficiently, it is easy to see they advertised in many places that would deliberately attract their primary target audience as well as many other places to grab the attention of a secondary audience and as a result the film was a huge success due to the heavy wad of cash invested in the marketing campaign and the use of stardom and fandom to secure places in cinemas being filled, and as this happens, the best way for a film to become successful is through word of mouth, and this spread like wildfire aiding the marketing campaign and the public being bombarded with youtube adverts, television adverts, bus stop posters and billboards all over the country. I think in order for 'Hammer Horror' to return back onto the scene with a big impression they needed to ensure their comeback film with a strong marketing campaign and I believe that this was done very appropriately.
4. The opening of 'The Woman in black' was on a very large scale in the U.S. making $20,874,072 on it's opening weekend and was shown in 2855 screens nationally. It's opening in the UK was slightly smaller (making £3,153,020 on its opening weekend and showing on 412 screens) It's huge success in both the U.S. and the UK was undoubtedly due to all of the 'hype' created by the films huge marketing campaign.
5. 'The Woman in Black' had an estimated budget of $17 million (about £10.5 million) and had a large impact on the industry as it saw Hammer Horror make a globally recognised and high status return to the big screen in the form of Daniel Radcliffe's spooky endeavour. It also broke a few key conventions and kept the audience very interested right up until the bitter end where conventions were challenged with a final plot twist where it is difficult to identify whether the ending is a happy ending or a sad ending. This recent release in my opinion did many things to revive the excitement of the horror genre.
6. I believe that this film was so successful for two main reasons. The first being that a very big star was used for the main character and once this was known to the public, target audience and potential punters, they became very interested as the globally adored 'Harry Potter' actor was cast into the role, many people will have loved seeing him in the Harry Potter franchise and been already existing fans whereas others may have wanted to see how he adapted to the role, either way a vast amount have people will have flocked to the cinema to see him. The second reason I believe this film was so successful is that Hammer had a very solid and strong marketing campaign, the various teaser trailers, posters, billboards, trailers and more spread over a range of TV channels, websites, magazines, radio stations and more amongst events like competitions and interviews made it near impossible for anyone to have not heard of 'The Woman in Black' at it's time of release. I'd say Hammer hit the nail right on the head with that one.
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