P2: Lego Movie

 Monday 14th September 2020

The Lego Movie:

Industry Research

Lo: To research the process, companies and regulations behind the film industry.

Questions and Answers:

1) Find out the process behind how a film is produced, distributed, marketed and exhibited. Who does what in what order?

The first stage in any film production is the making of the film. The project producer selects a story, which can be from a book, another film, a true story, myth, ect. The producer then writes the general story, or synopsis, and how different scenes will be portrayed.

Next the screenwriter writes a screenplay of the overall film.The screenwriter may rewrite it several times to improve dramatisation, clarity, structure, characters, dialogue, and overall style. However in some cases, the producers, themselves, will do that job. In the early stages of making the film, a film distributor will be called to work out the round about market ,cost and profit of the film, before its made. 

2) What is a CONGLOMERATE? 

A multi-industry company.

3) Who are the 'big 6' Hollywood film studios?

20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Walt Disney Studios

4) Who Regulates films in the UK?

The British Board Of Film Classification.

5) Which two main companies produces the Lego movie (2014)?

Warner Animation Group. Lin Pictures.

6) Who was the producer of The lego movie?

Dan lin, Roy Lee

7) who directed the lego movie?

chris miller and phil lord

Monday 28th September 2020

Make note of any of the following:

• Any warner bros, characters products or film
• Any lego products

plaster

superglue

batman

indirect reference to Starbucks

friends

matrix

nail polish

• write a summary of story 
• what are main themes/messages?
• create a list of the main characters and the celebrities/actors who voice them

Main characters:

emmet

wild style

bat man

Vitruvius

president business

Monday 5th October 2020

Intertextuality

LO: to explore the intertextuality of the Lego Movie

     Postmodernism    

"Postmodernism questions what  is real and what is absolute" Palmer 2014

Challenges genre conventions, mixture of genres, challenges typical character roles.

Monday 12th October 2020

The Lego Movie: Narrative Theory

Lo: To apply narrative theory to the Lego Movie

Toderov: Narrative theory

A films narrative theory is the story of a film and is broken down into 5 key stages by theorist Tzvetan Toderov.

1- Equilibrium- the normal life of the story

2- Disruption- where something happens that changes normal life

3- Recognition of disruption- realises whats happening and why

4- Attempt to solve- tries to solve the problem or does solve it

5- New equilibrium- new normal life made and goes to a different way of life.

The lego movie has a linear narrative.

1) Everything is awesome. People (Emmet) live their lives following the instructions (The boy isn't allowed to touch his dads lego)

2) President Business plans to 'fix' everything in place and emmet discovers the 'piece of resistance' 

3) Emmet meets Wildstyle and Vitruvius, learns about the 'special one' and the discover president business's plans (The dad threatens to glue it all in place) 

4) Emmet and the hero team attempt to stop President Business (The boy explains the story to his dad and shows him what he's made)

5) Creativity and team-work is encouraged, President Business is forgiven. (The boy is allowed to play with his dads lego).

Monday 19th October 2020

Propp's Spheres of action

the hero- Generally leads the the narrative; has a quest or has to solve something, wants to succeed; can be any gender

the villain- struggles against hero; seen as morally bad; attempts to stop hero from achieving goal.

the donor- gives the hero something special (power/weapon/wisdom); enables hero to compete quest.

the helper- supports hero (sidekick);  appears at critical moments; their limitations help define the hero.

the princess- can take two forms; the object sort by the hero or the reward.

the dispatcher- sends hero on a mission (can be combined with another role)

the princess's father- gives task to hero; authority figure, protective over princess (doesn't have to be her biological father)

the false hero- appears to act heroically and often mistaken for the real hero; gets credit for the work; gains respect from the father.

the hero- Emmet- main character and most of the film is from his point of view. Saves the say and all that.

the villain- president business- evil plan, wants it to be his way. controlling

the donor- Vitruvius- has vision, tells emmet about the special one, keeps him motivate.  

the helper- Wildstyle- always with hero. helps him out.

the princess- Wildstyle- at the end, emmet gets with her.  main female figure.

the dispatcher- the boy- makes up the story of emmet so dad wont glue it together.

the princess's father- Vitruvius- close to Wildstyle, protective over her, raised her

the false hero- batman- acts like he's superior and always messes up or does something stupid.

Intertextuality

Lo:To explore the similarities between The Matrix and The Lego Movie

Intertextuality- the relationship between texts.

Make note of any similarities between this movie and the lego movie:

-location

-characters

-themes/message

-narrative 

Monday 2nd November 2020

Lego movie: Target Audience

Lo: to identify the target audience using demographics and psychographics.

Demographics-is the study of a population based on factors such as age, race, and sex.

Psychographics-is a qualitative methodology used to describe traits of humans on psychological attributes

- the movie targets a family audience.

- that could be split into the following 3 groups:

• Young kids who play with lego
• parents who played with it when they were young too
• young adult cinema-goers.

"Explain how the lego movie appeals to each part of the target audience"

The lego movie appeals to young children through the use of typical everyday toys that young children would enjoy playing with. Having a simple storyline means its easy for children to follow.

It also appeals to parents of young children because it would bring back memorises of when they were younger. Also due to the fact that young children don't usually go alone to the cinema, the parents would also go with them. 

Lastly, teenagers or young adults would go due to the fact that it has major stars in it such as Chris Pratt and Will Ferrell who they'd remember from shows they use to watch when they were younger. Meaning they'd find it funny and watch it fir fun.

Lego movie cast

Batman - Will Arnett

Emmet - Chris Pratt

Lucy - Elizabeth Banks

Unikitty - Alison Brie

Metalbeard - Nick Offerman

President Business - Will Ferrel

Vitruvius - Morgan Freeman

Good Cop/Bad Cop - Liam Neeson

Demographics

Psychographics

target audience;

Monday 9th November 2020

The Lego Movie: marketing

Lo: to explore marketing and promotions of the Lego Movie; to link the methods to the target audience.

What is a Tent-Pole production?

tentpole movie (plural tentpole movies) A major motion picture which is expensive to produce but expected to generate significant revenue for its studio and investors.

Why was The Lego Movie one?

The Lego Movie was a Tent-Pole production because it was the most successful / highest earning movie of 2014, and because the Lego movie sold lots of movie-Lego related merchandise.

What are the benefits of that for Wanner Bros.?

Supports the financial performance of the studio.

How to promote films.

on the side of a buss, interviews, the news, adverts, teaser trailer, trailers to meet characters, social media.

Synergy

It is the simultaneous release of different products to boost both.

they can be used most often by bigger companies as the different elements them work together                to promote linked products across different media.

1. 17 lego worlds sets

2. 16 collectable mini figures

3. the lego movie video game

4. range of school supplies

5. sticker and activity book

Monday 16th November 2020

Marketing Part 2

Vertical integration

The parent company owns multiple companies. This means they have multiple companies covering different sections of the film and are able to advertise it more. Lower risk because they're just small companies.  However they also have to pay each company meaning it would be harder to make a profit.

Horizontal Integration

Whats the name of a company that owns lots of smaller companies?

A parent company.

Whats the benefit of being one of these?

More options for distribution

Why is synergy a good thing?

They support each other giving bigger success

What is it called when a single company controls both the production and distribution stage of a media product?

Vertical integration. 

Whats the advantages of doing this?

Increased competitiveness.

What is a tent-pole production?

A major motion movie which is fairly expensive to run.

Monday 23rd November 2020

The Lego Movie: TV Advertising

Lo:To evaluate the methods used to market the lego movie; to link the methods to the target audience.  

• what do TV adverts normally show?

Prices, Trailers, dates, characters, actors.

• How are they different to the theatrical trailers?

Adverts on tv (30 seconds) are much shorter than theatrical trailers (3-5 mins) and don't cost as much. 

• when would you show the lego movie adverts? 

After school, early evenings and afternoons on weekends, put it on itv, kids programs,  BBC.

Almost 6million people watched the lego ad break on Saturday night after Dancing On Ice. Soon after an additional 1.1 million went onto youtube to watch the Full ad break which was 3mins 20seconds long. This seen as an achievement due to the fact that people are usually known to avoid adverts when seen. 

Doing these adds also attracted the eyes of the press and about 60 different consumer and trade ads were written about the ad break. this then made a domino effect and the #thelegomovie was spread around twitter extremely fast. 

The movie then went on to become No1 in the UK box office and also became No1 performing movie of any kind, not just for kids.

• How did this attract the target audience?

it was something unusual and attracted the audience by mocking the original adverts.

• How did it break boundaries?

Each of the promoted companies payed for each of there adverts instead of the lego movie productions paying for each of them itself. It also took over an entire ad break which was seen as unusual due to there being several different ad breaks each other time.

• How did the TV ad market the movie?

In-between each advert it had a snippet of the main 5 characters appearing with the Lego Movie logo, promoting the movie. By doing this it promoted the lego movie and also made more people interested. 

• How did the remade ads help advertise the movie?

just answered it.

Monday 7th December 2020

Trailer

Lo: To evaluate the methods used to market the lego movie; to link the methods to the target audience.

Why did Warner Bros choose to have they're logos made of lego?

To exaggerate and express the lego effect and that the whole film is about lego. 

Equilibrium- emmet watching his president on Tv making a speech. All happy and problem free

Disruption- president Business says "or you'll be put to sleep" making emmet question his words.

Recognition of disruption- Emmet finds out about the prophecy and goes with Wild style.

Attempt to solve problem- is seen fighting with Wildstyle and Vitruvius even if is seen as somewhat reluctant.

New equilibrium- isn't shown to give more suspense. 

Warner Bros use a short equilibrium and disruption to be able to get into the action part of the film quicker to be able to keep the attention of the younger target audience, knows the have a short attention span.

Diegetic- sounds that the characters would hear

Non-diegetic- sounds only the audience would hear.

Intertitle- the texts used between shots in a trailer.

colour pallet- the range of colours used in a media text.

The final scene shows a low angle shot of Wildstyle and Vitruvius. Why?

Superiority

What impact do diegetic sounds such as explosions and gunshots have?

Action.

Slow motion is used at various points. Why? What effect does this give?

To give suspense

How would you describe the colour palette of the trailer? How might this help to target an audience? 

Bright colours to attract the younger audience. 

Monday 14th December 2020

Video Game

Lo: to explain how vertical integration benefits companies; to analyse using Uses and Gratification Theory. 

Who is the game developer?

TT games, Traveller's Tales, TT games publishing Ltd, TT fusion.

Who is the game publisher?

Warner Bros

When was it released?

7 february 2014

What genre game is it?

Action adventure game.

What platform was it released for?

Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, and on 16 October 2014 for Mac OS X

Marvels spiderman

sonic the hedgehog

profit maximised- increases potential audience

familiarity- brand, plot and characters known

extends pleasure of the film- chance to be a part of the film world; can have extended narratives.

Cross-promotion- efficient use of marketing both products to promote the other.

-Blumler and Katz researched how and why people select certain media products over others

-They came up with 4 main reasons: 

  PIES:

• Personal identity- helps us consider who we are; what ideas and values we identify with. You can relate to multiple characters
• Information- new information we want to know or take pleasure in knowing. Not related to Lego movie
• Entertainment- offers distraction from the world. Its funny and its all in lego, distracts from real life.
• Social interaction- we find things we can share and discus with others. Multi player video game and funny to talk about to friends.

The two main uses of Gratification that is used in the lego movie video game. The first one is social interaction. By having three players of both mixed race and gender showed its for all kids to play, and its also something fun kids can do with their mates. By having it in the living room makes it seem like its a lightened mood (the heart of most households). Another main use is the use of Personal identity. It is said that you can play as 90 different characters, this means you can play as someone everyone knows, like batman, or be your own character that can either look a lot like the player or how they want to look. This can also be seen through the entertainment side of the Gratification theory. It means the player/s can escape their everyday lives and be any character they want, do what they want in the video game and act as they wish without the worry or thought of being judged by most kids during this generation.

Exam prep                                                            Monday 23rd May 2022

Q2; 4 mark question

its likely to be a 'give a reason why' question which shows knowledge and understanding of film promotion or video games.

You may be asked to refer to the lego movie, so 2 marks will be for an explanation and 2 marks are for detailed examples. Its most likely to be on media industry but could be on any area. 

Q3; 10 marks

this is a short essay question about the video-game clip.

Q4; movie trailer clip

media language. 

mid shot/close up to show disruption to narrative. shows realisation.