Unit 26: Film Studies - Task 3

“The 50th Anniversary of The Bond”

Audience Research - Audience research is a procedure that takes place with most big budget films. Often what big corporations do is find information through secondary sources like IMDB where they can see reviews and what critics think of it. When researching, the corporation might like to find their own primary research by asking the public to fill out random surveys. The big blockbuster James Bond film Skyfall had two films before it which had the same director and actor. The producer could check the reviews from the previous ones and know what to improve on for the upcoming film featuring Daniel Craig.

Producer Response To Research - Generally the producer is main body that is incharge of the production of a film or a tv show, by this I mean the producer will be overseeing all the script changes, actor changes and filming so if he or she wanted to change something for the benefit of the audience found from research he could. In the movie Skyfall there were 2 producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli which would mean they would have more people managing what goes on. Due to the success in the previous films there might not be much to change but in terms of narrative they will know what to keep similar and get a similar if not better reaction from the audience.

Audience Targeting - There were many different ways in which Skyfall appealed to their target audience. Considering it was the 50th Anniversary of the Bond franchise that meant all the die hard fans would go watch it along with the people who would go for the prestige and established franchise. The film aimed at the mainstream public where most of the people who are into popular films will see it on trailers and billboards. The character of James Bond is known for his flashy clothing and accessories, the film sponsors many different companies such as Aston Martin, Omega and Heineken which would allow them to attract more and more people who like class cars, smart watches and beer. The use of the male gaze is very popular in the films and could mean that it would attract the male audience not only because of the woman but because of the thrilling action displayed in the film. The Film also featured a song written by Adele which was deliberately made for the movie, this would cause fans of Adele’s music to want to watch the movie because of the advertisement.

Distribution - The trailer of the film involved so much detail about the film, such as the plot and short snippets of the film where stunts or other engaging parts of the movie are shown. The film was produced by one of the major corporations known as Sony that produce such films at a high standard, due to the logo being shown at the start of the trailer and film people will believe it is a film with a large budget ($150-$200 Million) and it should involve some entertaining parts.

Publicity and Marketing - The publicity of the film was very large as the film was successful before and the fact that there was so much advertising involved through public experiments and advertisements with companies that are synergising with them. For example, a coke advert where they randomly selected several individuals to carry out tasks that related to the film. Because of the large amount of advertising that caused the world renowned film to be even more well known it meant that the film would have spent most of its budget on advertising but so many companies attempted to have the products appear in the film that they didn’t run out of money. The film focused heavily on the 50th anniversary part which meant that because of the image the franchise had it was going to have to live up to its name.

https://www.slideshare.net/ellesullivan310/skyfall-production-distribution-exhibition-audience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyfall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kw1UVovByw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMLSMxi99xk