CRITICALLY ANALYSING PROMOTIONAL WEBSITES (RESEARCH)
Promotional websites are important as they are used to gain traffic about the film and to gain interest, widening your viewing audience and overall interest. To understand how they gain this traffic I will be analysing other websites that promote the film and trailer to the audience. This will help me determine the audience that is interested in the genre of this short film and to gather their attention, allowing them to gain hype and share this page to promote the film to their friends and family. With this it allows traffic towards the short film and to gain more interest than those of just the target audience, managing to branch out to secondary audiences that may enjoy your film.
With the new Avengers: Infinity War film being released, I decided that I would analyse a popular and well beloved series to see how they decided to promote their film to the audience. They have centered the main image of the characters and put the text to the side, the colours and contrasts in the image and of the characters automatically gaining the audience's attention. Right beside it is the logo and name of the film, this being the second thing people see to help them understand the universe the characters are from and the film name. This placement is well planned, being easily noticeable from the well contrasted colours that attract the human eye as soon as they appear, this allowing the audience to understand the attraction and want to learn more.
Along the side of the website they have different tabs, the first being a trailer which can be used to promote to the audience. Putting this as the first tab is cleverly planned as people will start from the top, allowing them to see the trailer and to bring more traffic to the website so others can also watch the trailer for this film. The next two are galleries and posters, allowing the audience to continue analysing the characters and the story line before getting to the story tab where they can understand the main basis of the film. This allows the audience to gain interest in the audience before they even understand the story line, managing to make the audience like the characters from visuals of them. They have put the tickets in yellow, managing to attract the audience's eyes again and allows them to see where they can buy tickets to see the movie in the theaters.
Another website I wanted to analyse was one of a similar story line or theory behind it, myself deciding to look at the Inception website for the film. Unlike the Avengers website this one is only one page with the trailer, title of the film and the small print text underneath it. They kept the film and the story line more secret than the Avengers but then it was the first version of the film where as the Avengers is a part of a series. They wanted to allow the audience to gain traction through the trailer but also to keep it more secret as it was the first version of this film, this allowing the website to gain more traction as the audience want to share it to understand more about the story line. They kept the design of their website simple and easy by keeping it to one page but also gave just enough information to attract the audience to the website; a clever tactic.
An upcoming release is another movie of Jurassic World that has a wide audience and large attraction like Avengers: Infinity War. Their website is a lot less visually aesthetic in comparison to the other two websites but provides a lot more information to the audience and links to all of their other synergy. They have a trailer accessible to the audience and also has a timer to the new release of the film, this bringing traction as the audience will keep revisiting the website to look at the timer for the release of the film. Everything is there for the audience to gain information about the franchise and the story line of the new film. This website is made to promote the franchise and to give all the information to the audience, this gaining more traction to the website as people will keep coming back to get the information needed.
'Website promotion is a collection of tactics, actions and techniques that serve to drive traffic (visitors) to your website.' -The Balance (2018)
From analysing other websites I am able to understand the differentiation of how much information the audience gets par to the visuals of the website. This allows me to take inspiration from different websites to create my own professional version that I believe promotes my film well and keeps the audience guessing about the story line of the short film. By looking at different websites and their styles I can compare them and choose the best of each to include in my own. I also designed a trailer website for this short film to promote it even further, this allowing people to watch the trailer beforehand. Unlike the Facebook page which gives updates on the project and hints to the story, this website is made to create hype to the audience about the short film. This allows them to find the website and watch the trailer before the short film is released.
References
Avengers: Infinity War. (2018). Avengers: Infinity War. [online] Available at: http://www.marvel.com/avengers [Accessed 8 May 2018].
Inception - Official UK Movie Site. (2018). Inception. [online] Available at: http://wwws.warnerbros.co.uk/inception/mainsite/ [Accessed 8 May 2018].
Jurassic World. (2018). Jurassic World | Official website for Jurassic World, with trailers, movie details and cast bios. The Jurassic World sequel is coming to cinemas June 6.. [online] Available at: http://www.jurassicworld.com/ [Accessed 8 May 2018].
The Balance. (2018). What is Website Promotion? Here's info and tips!. [online] Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-website-promotion-1794442 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2018].
transfer. (2018). Transfer. [online] Available at: https://kerriejack1.wixsite.com/transfer [Accessed 8 May 2018].
