Producers and Their Audience's

Producers and Their Audiences

This post will be discussing the way in which a specific film was produced and the marketing strategy that was used to help promote the film. I will be discussing the entire film series of ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ rather than just one film, as I think they all play off each other quite well.

Identifying the Audience

Identifying the audience for these films was a hard task as they are irate films, and they are few and far between these days. The first film, ‘Curse of the Black Pearl’, was based on a ride at multiple Disney Land parks. Obviously this is not a good way to judge if an audience would like a film to be based on it just because it was a popular ride. Disney had to look at other films before making this one, to see how much people actually like these kinds of films. One thing to note about the release of the first film is that it will have already had a sort of fan base, in the people that did enjoy the ride, however small that fan base may be. In my opinion, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ was aimed at a wide audience of young children of around 8-13 and young adults of around 15-20, because while it contains humour and childish fun, it also has a lot of action to keep the older people engaged. This can be seen in each of the trailers, which feature both humour and fighting, showing what the film is about. It does well at keeping the violence realistic but also fictional, as is the case for many films aimed at this kind of age group. Instead of cutting of people’s heads, they will be fighting skeletons that can’t be shown to bleed or die, because they are undead, or cut open a monster person and have fish spill out instead of guts. On older person will get that this is what’s implied, but a younger person will just see fish or skeletons, so they won’t see it as being as violent. Another way the producers could identify the audience of future films is by simply looking at the audiences for previous films, by doing this they guarantee themselves an already existing fan base as well as a guaranteed source of income for when the film’s release, it is also easy to look at where they need to market their trailers and posters if they know who will be looking for them.

Details of the Film Series

The film series is centred on Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, a notorious pirate who is always getting into trouble with dangerous and scary enemies, such as undead pirates, Davy Jones and his monster crew, and the East India Trading Company. On his many adventures he encounters memorable characters and friends who he manages to bring into his service, such as Joshamee Gibbs, played by Kevin McNally, William Turner, played by Orlando Bloom, and Elizabeth Swan, played by Keira Knightly. The films can be seen to follow these characters as much as they follow the villains, as in each film they are as much the main character as the ‘good guys’. Each film in the series sees Jack being harangued by some kind of evil at sea. The first film has Jack and co fighting skeletal undead pirates, the second has him fighting Davy Jones and his crew of monsters and his pet Kraken, the third has the same villain but with the addition of The East India Trading Company, the fourth film has Jack go up against Blackbeard and the fifth film sees him being hunted by a crew of ghost pirate hunters and their captain. All of the films serve the same purpose story wise, they each set up the villain as and evil entity and make the viewer get behind Jack and his friends, when in fact they too are villains, because they are pirates, but the films do a good job of having forget this in favour of being on their side and wanting them to win. This is helped by the way the posters and trailers make the heroes look heroic by having them standing in specific poses or doing specific things, such as swinging from ropes to rescue people or fighting the main villain.

Captain Barbossa, Davy Jones and Captain Salazar

How the Film was Distributed, Marketed and Publicised

Posters from the first film

Posters from the fifth film

The entire ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise has been distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. This section will discuss the second film in the series, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest’. The film had a number of trailers released before the film came out to increase the hype and anticipation for the film. These trailers showed off the dark side of Davy Jones, his Flying Dutchman and crew, while also showing the lighter, funny side of the ‘good-guy’ pirates, Jack, Will and Elizabeth. They worked to showcase the action as well as the monster and enemies the cast would face throughout the film. The trailers ended by saying that ‘Jack is back’, implying to fans that Jack Sparrow would return for another adventure. Upon its initial release, ‘The Guardian´ gave the film a 3/5, stating that the film took too long to get going, but once it did, it was just as good, if not better than the first. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an average score of 6/10, giving it only 54% out of 100, stating that the film lost its originality and humour that it had in the first film. Most of the reviews on IMDb are of high scores, 8 or 9/10. Most of the cast have appeared on talk shows to promote the film. Johnny Depp appeared in one on one interviews to discuss how the film was made and how certain scenes were done, which wold make it into magazines and newspapers, further spreading the word of the film. There were many product tie-ins for the film before it came out that continued afterwards. Things like nail polish and Halloween costumes were sold to help promote the new themes in the film.Producers will often look at websites like the BFI and Pearl and Dean for information about facts and figures surrounding their films, such as which age group are going to see them the most or what class they fall in to and what their gender is. The Pirates of the Caribbean series is a strange one to look at this way, and producers would be able to see this, as it has almost 50/50 split for gender on each film. They also have a generous split for age groups, with each group having an almost equal share in the films viewings, with the highest being 15-24 and 45+. This will have affected the way the fifth film was marketed in that it would have given the producers an eye into who wants to see the film and what class they fall into. Before the fifth film came out the producers will have looked at sites like this to get a better understanding of how to market the film. these sites help to discover what merchandising they should make, such as what toys or games to sell in the wake of the film coming out.

Success of the Marketing Strategy

I would say that the marketing strategy used for these films is quite successful, as all the films have made double their budget, making it the ninth highest grossing film series of all time, and the first to have multiple films make a billion dollars. You can also see the success of the marketing due to the creation of the many different posters for each film. There were 5 made for the first film, featuring Jack, Barbosa, Will and Elizabeth, as well as the main poster used for the main bulk of the marketing. They continue this trend throughout the whole series, making a poster for each main character, the villain and the main poster used on DVD’s and in cinemas. This allows the producers to plaster more advertising in more places because they have more to show, making it a kind of excuse for more people to see the ads. There were also many trailers made for each film. Each trailer that came out added to the last, showing and revealing more and more information each time. There were certain trailers made for certain reasons, some were made short to be shown at the Super Bowl, while some were made to shown on TV before the water shed so will be less violent. This all makes for a very successful use of the marketing and advertising for the series, evidenced by the massive amount of money the series has made. It can also be seen by the fact that the second film won an Academy Award for best Visual Effects, and the whole series has been nominated a number of times for different awards. The marketing strategy can also be seen as a success in terms of merchandising, according to LIMA (Licensing Industry Merchandiser Association), Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Men Tell No Tales is estimated to gross around 65 million dollars from merchandising alone, and some even say that may be too small an estimate.