Media Convergence Essay

FILMS: Attack the Bock, Kick-Ass & The Avengers

How is Media Convergence important for audiences and institutions?

Films are a massive part of media. But without media convergence films would never be as successful as they are as they would not be able to get there message of the film across the world so easily. With media convergence films can be marketed, distributed and exhibited using a variety of companies and methods. By marketing and distributing cleverly films can boost their audiences immensely by media convergence.

Kick-Ass was built up heavily on blogs and websites by fans of the comic book. This help the films overall success because it helped the film produce wider audiences of the comics and encouraged them to want to see the film. Before the comic series was released, a video was posted on YouTube showing the character ‘Kick-Ass’ preforming a heroic act in front of a supermarket, this increased people’s interest in the whole series as they wanted to find out more about the character. During the marketing of Kick-Ass different trailers were released. I found that these trailers were very memorable as they showed very good parts of the film in short 3-minute trailers. This helped improve the hype around the film was people may have told their peers and different people around them about the trailer, making the others want to see it too. The trailers may have been posted on social networking sites such as twitter or Facebook. This would have increased the views on the trailer, which interests people to watch it on YouTube. 

Kick-Ass (Music from the motion picture) was released before the film was released. The soundtrack features very popular Musician’s work, this may have encouraged people to buy it because it has Musicians they like featured on it. 

A series of posters were released alongside the promotion of the film Kick-Ass, these posters were very eye-catching and were placed in cinemas, magazines and other places with plenty of people passing by them. This was important as it reminded people who have heard of the film that it is being released of increased the audience even more.

The cast did many TV interviews before the release of the film. Many of the interviews were only published on movie websites. The cast talked very positively about the production and release of the film and hoped that fans would go and see it as they think they would enjoy it.

During the Premiere of the film the cast were interviewed many times whilst walking down the red carpet. The coverage of the Premiere helped spread the word of the film and increase the audience.

Whereas, Attack the Block did not have much interest on social networking sites or websites. But, It may have been reviewed on Blogs after the release of the film. As the cast were quite unknown any tweets or sharing they would have published, would not have been seen by as many people as they did not have many fans yet. Attack the Block was not a comic or a book before it was released so it had no existing fan base; this disadvantaged the film in comparison to Kick-Ass or The Avengers. 

There were trailers released to promote the film, but as the budget was quite small the trailers were not on TV as often as other films. The trailers would catch the viewer’s interest as they were unlike other films that were being released at that time. The thumbnail of the trailer is Nick Frosts’ character looking out a widow. If the viewer knows and likes Nick Frosts’ work, it would encourage them to watch it, as they are interested in his work. Below the YouTube official trailer, it is mentioned that it is from the producers of popular films like Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This may have increased the viewers interest if the liked those films. 

Attack the Block: Official Soundtrack was released before the film to promote the film, but because the composers were not very well known, it may have stopped some fans from buying it. After the film was released if the audience liked the songs in the background they may buy it after they have seen the film and heard the songs. 

Attack the Block released some posters for the film, yet they were not marketed as widely as Kick-Ass or The Avengers. Again this may have put the film at a disadvantage, as some people won’t see the poster and the audience will not grow.

Most of the cast interviews about Attack the Block were only from independent internet blogs or Magazines. Joe Cornish did a small TV interview, but as the film did not have enough interest from the media before release, the film did not have much coverage from the media.

The Premiere of Attack the block was covered by many website-based interviews. This includes the popular SBTV, which helped increase the audience as the viewers of SBTV could find out about the film.

The Avengers had a huge fan base before it was released as a film, as the comic books were immensely popular. There were many blogs, Facebook/twitter accounts about the comic series originally, which may have turned into accounts about the film as well. Marvel and Paramount produced a very impressive website dedicated to the film.

 Also the very successful release of other character films such as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America helped massively to increase this films audience.  

The cast of The Avengers was very well known; this improved the films popularity as it included a cast they already know and trust. 

As the film had a large budget, The Avengers released a series of trailers, which were shown on daytime TV. This helped the film get a wider audience, as not just the comic book fans are aware and want to see the film. After seeing the trailer fans may show other friends or family making the film have a wider audience. The Actors may have tweeted pictures or tweets about the film as they were making the film. This helped keep the actors personal fans in touch with what film they were working on which help keep the audiences’ interest in the film.

Marvel released a Book of the Film during the release of the film which helped build up the films interest and it’s overall gross. 

The sound track for the film was released before the film was. This gave the audience a taste of what’s to come in the film. The popular American rock band Soundgarden released the official song of the film. This helped the films success as the fans of the band would buy the song and want to see the film and increase the films income.

The cast of the Avengers did many interviews before the film was released. Scarlett Johansson did an interview on popular morning TV. Because the cast was made of well-known actors TV shows were more interested about doing interviews because more people would be watching.

YouTube and TV channels covered the premiere of The Avengers. Sky movies did a special on the Avengers premiere, which featured interviews with the cast and clips from the film.