Y12 Cambridge
Technical – Unit 1 Case Study
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
Link to critic reviews:
Blumhouse Productions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumhouse_Productions
who are an INDEPENDENT film and TV company who sell their
product to the big studios. At the moment, Universal Studios have a 10 year
first look deal with Blumhouse, meaning they get the first chance to buy and
distribute their product.
This allows them a certain amount of creative flexibility
and enables them to take risks and try new things. This has paid off for them
in films like Paranormal Activity and Insidious which were low budget and high
box office return. They also helped to revitalise the genre, which you could
say is linked to them operating as an independent.
They also work with new talent regularly.
They are a genre based production company focusing on
horror, which gives them a level of expertise and respect in the industry and
with fans.
They do rely on bigger companies for distribution and
marketing, although they have conducted their own marketing with new media such
as YouTube.
Can you find any financial figures to show their success?
Get Out – Things to
consider
Production details:
A clear focus is the representation of race and ethnicity,
both of black and white characters. The film is a satire of middle class racism,
poking fun at so-called progressive and inclusive middle class people who
pretend not to be racist, but ultimately are.
As a consequence, the film showcases a number of characters
and situations that create horror and a certain type of black humour around
race relations.
This is appealing to black and white audiences as it is an
under-represented subject. It is interesting for black audiences to see a
clever, interesting and challenging film be successful. It is interesting for
white audiences as it may make them reflect on the true nature of their
attitude toward race.
It is a film that has a BBFC 15 rating due to horror,
language and some gore. It’s subject matter also requires a certain maturity to
understand. It is not really marketed at a youth audience, but there are pop
culture references. It appeals equally to both genders, although you could
argue that the female characters are not brilliant.
Sample scene:
Chris is introduced to the upper middle class friends and
family of his new, white girlfriend. The whole scene is uncomfortable through
use of music, framing, sound effects, editing and mise-en-scene.
The white characters are also deliberately odd and there is
a sense of Chris being paraded around in front of them for appraisal, which
makes sense over the course of the whole film.
The tension and fear is brought to a head when Chris, trying
to relate in a natural manner to another black character, Logan, who behaves in
a strange (arguably white) manner. When Chris tries to take a subtle picture of
Logan, the loud noise of the phone camera and the flash give him away, causing
tension for the audience.
The blood that comes from Logan’s nose indicates the start
of the culmination of the scene, which uses sound and editing to emphasise the
distress and strangeness of this part of the narrative. It is the first point
in the film when we definitely know something is wrong.
The scene is shot partly with a handheld, shakey camera
communicating the uneasy chaos and it finishes with a track towards Chris
focusing on his confusion as the sound of Logan screaming for him to get out
carries on in the background.
Overall, Chris is our hero protagonist and we as an audience
are led to hope he gets away and ‘wins’.
Research tasks:
The film leans heavily into generic codes and conventions and it is worth thinking about which common features of horror are used and what the impact of these is. You should also consider where it subverts the codes and conventions of mainstream horror in things like heroes, villains and victims.
Consider the whole film in terms of Todorov’s narrative
structure, Propp’s character types, Strauss’ binary oppositions.
Consider the film in terms of effects theories – how could
it be read in a hypodermic way (all white folk are racist, perhaps?), Blumler
and Katz uses and gratifications etc.
Explore the use of stereotypes in the film – there are
obvious and not so obvious uses – what is the filmmakers aim?
Marketing:
Blumhouse made it, Universal have a first-look deal
Universal’s marketing campaign
for “Get Out” pressed all the usual
buttons for a low-budget R-rated horror film, with creative that emphasizes
scares and media buying focused on genre devotees. But that base alone didn’t
carry the movie to its No. 1 ranking with $33.4 million in domestic box office
for its opening weekend in late February.The studio mounted a parallel campaign punching up “Get Out’s” serious cultural commentary with a different messaging and placements outside of typical horror-film media.
“Clearly, [writer-director] Jordan Peele was rubbing against a nerve that the culture isn’t truly post-racial,” says Josh Goldstine, Universal’s president of worldwide marketing. “He exposed a truth that lies beneath the culture and did it in the form of a horror film.”
The movie centers on a young black man who becomes increasingly unnerved when visiting his white girlfriend’s family for the first time in an upscale neighborhood with a dark secret. The film received excellent reviews, so commercials presenting those critical kudos ran in TV programs viewed by mainstream moviegoing audiences, such as “24: Legacy” and “The Bachelor.”
In addition to running before such genre pictures as “Split” and “Ouija: Origin of Evil,” the “Get Out” trailer was paired with serious films, including “Fences.” This association with high-brow fare “reframed how people perceived” the movie, Goldstine says.
Amplifying the buzz that “Get Out” is a genre film to take seriously, the New York Times published a story headlined “Jordan Peele on a Truly Terrifying Monster: Racism.” It ran the week before the film’s debut and featured a lengthy interview with Peele.
Goldstine notes that Peele — already well known from his comedic turns — generated publicity in a serious vein in the mainstream press, which “is not something you ordinarily do with a horror film.”
“Get Out” was produced by Jason Blum’s horror filmmaking enterprise, Blumhouse Productions, giving the film its strongest brand association in the thriller genre.
“One of the many advantages of micro-budget filmmaking is that it gives the marketing department the ability to take risks,” says Blum. Universal “embraced everything that is unique and subversive about Jordan’s movie.”
Reports say the film cost under $5 million to make.
The “Get Out” trailer, which debuted in October, generated 66 million views, which Universal says is two to three times the norm for an original horror film. Its wide circulation is partly the result of users sharing it with friends.
“It created a conversation,” says Goldstine. “We saw that in the organic-share numbers and general play-numbers.”
Feeling that “Get Out” would be well received, Universal scheduled about 200 pre-release screenings to cultivate favorable word-of-mouth. Audiences were recruited online and at movie theaters. Chance the Rapper hosted one of them.
Once “Get Out” was in theaters, Universal fanned the flames of fan-generated content. Users posted videos on Twitter’s #GetOutChallenge that re-create a scene of a young man running menacingly toward the camera before he veers aside at the last moment. Among those posting: Golden State Warriors basketball star Steph Curry.
A satire video titled “Get Out of the White House” on the Funny or Die website soon piled up more than 3.7 million views.
Clearly, the cultural relevance for “Get Out” expanded its audience exponentially and gave it far more staying power at the box office. The movie passed $100 million domestic after just 16 days in release, achieving blockbuster status.
“We created a certain amount of heat going into it,”
Goldstine says. But “when you are part of the cultural conversation, that’s
when the audience thinks ‘I’ve got to see this.’
New media ‘accidental’ promotion:
Twitter:
Facebook:
Instagram:
@getoutmovie
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