Linking Texts: Film Marketing and Synergy

All three products created as part of the A2 course must link together effectively. All three products (the Film Trailer, Poster and Magazine Front Cover) need to be related and create 'synergy'. Other forms of Synergy may include novelisations, OST's (Soundtracks), websites, tie-in games, and if it is for a children's film, figurines and models, as well as other memorabillia. Film promotions may also include 'viral marketing', using social media and other techniques to create brand awareness of products such as films.

Examples of this can be found for 'The Simpsons Movie' where '7-11' stores were changed into Resident stores 'Kwik-E-Mart's' and users could 'Simpsonize' themselves online, creating an avatar of themselves (or not) if they were part of the Simpsons. The marketers also held a competition between various 'Springfields' the fictional home of the Simpsons, to hold the premiere. This enabled Fox to keep the film in people's minds, and by having interactive elements to the campaign made the film more of an experience.

The Dark Knight held several viral events, all of which were later posted on a website, with mocked up Gotham newspapers. http://whysoserious.com/ These include, Harvey Dent campaign posters, a rollercoaster at Six Flags, a scavenger hunt at 'Comic-Con' and the reveal of the Joker, where fans emails revealed pixels. The prologue was shown before 'I Am Legend' in IMAX theatres. A similar campaign has started on the sequel 'The Dark Knight Rises' where tweeting #TheFireRises reveals the first image of antagonist Bane. The prologue for this film is scheduled to be released in IMAX before showings of 'Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. A manuscript from part of the prologue of the Dark Knight Rises was leaked to film website EMPIRE and technology site Wired.com, with parts cut out, making it look more official and secretive. These elements for both the Dark Knight and its sequel, allow fan's to create a 'hype' surrounding the film.


One of the most extensive examples of synergy in the last few years corresponds to the release of 'Scott Pilgrim Vs the World'. In the months before release there was:

• The final volume of the source material, Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour was released by Oni Press.
• All 6 volumes of the graphic novel were released as digital versions through an iTunes app, costing slightly less and featuring bonus' for completing riddles (tap the screen corresponding to the clue). The film itself is based upon all 6 graphic novels, but uses the second volumes title.
• 3 soundtracks were released:
  Two scores and an 'Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' which features songs from within the film, many inspiring Bryan Lee O'Malley when writing the graphic novel (Plumtree's Scott Pilgrim for instance) and those sung by Pilgrims band 'Sex Bob-Omb', written by Beck, and one of their rival bands, Crash and the Boys, written by Broken Social Scene. This album also features 8-bit versions of the 'Sex Bob-Omb' song Threshold and Beck singing some of the songs, rather than Sex Bob-Omb. A deluxe version of the album features more Sex Bob-Omb tracks sung by Beck and if downloaded online a video copy of 'The Clash At Demonhead' singing 'Black Sheep' (the album features the original Metric version). Soundtracks are often a popular piece of merchandising and many films will either have an Orchestral score or an original soundtrack, which shows the importance music has to the film
• A downloadable game by Ubisoft, released on the Playstation Network and later, the X-Box Live Arcade. It is played in the style of an NES brawler (the graphic novel has several hints at retro video games), and features many easter eggs for fans of the comic and the film (The '1-Up' is used in the film and the game, and resembles the comic version of Scott). The game, much like the film, received a positive response and has a 77 on 'Metacritic', a website which rounds up review scores to produce an average. Many reviewers praised the retro feel and called it 'the best film tie in for some time'. When released on DVD and Blu-Ray, an add-on pack was released, which allowed gamers to get more use out of the game. While many video-game adaptations of films add in new villains or events, this is faithful to the original source material and so is similar to the author's original vision.
• T-shirts, either inspired by what is worn by characters within the film or by illustrations in the graphic novel.
• An animation produced by Adult Swim, which is the prologue found in the second volume of the graphic novel, and features the voices of the lead actors. This also introduced a 'new' character who isn't in the film, although it could be argued that dropping subplots was a good thing for this film. It also gave the audience who hadn't read the graphic novels more background into Scott's life before the film, which is vaguely touched upon.
• An EMPIRE magazine cover, which had exclusive behind the scenes access. The magazine later gave the film 5*'s. The cover is covered in more depth in an earlier blog post.
• Merchandise including key rings, figurines and bags.
• Around the home release, a box-set of Edgar Wright films was released on DVD and Blu-Ray, including Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim. Many of the extra's on the three are quite similar, from a 'trivia track' to 'edited TV scenes' where the swearing is replaced by less offensive words. Shaun of the Dead's 'Funky Pete' version has since become a viral video.