Disney Cinderella 2015 UK Trailer

Whilst researching the Disney film set to come out, Cinderella, in 2015, we came across two trailers; one for the UK and one for the US. I have embedded the UK trailer which can be found on the Disney UK YouTube channel.

According to IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1661199/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_dt) the film is due to be released in UK cinemas on 27th March 2015. This film is a particularly interesting case study for us because, although it is an American film made by Disney, the filming locations are all in the UK and the actors are mostly British or Australian actors such as Helen Bonham - Carter (Harry Potter, The King's Speech), Cate Blanchett (The Hobbit) and Lily James (Downton Abbey) and Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) - all hits in the USA as well as the UK.

We're going to be spending the next few months looking at how Disney markets and advertises this film to a UK audience. Today we looked at Twitter to see what atmosphere has been created about this film. The use of #Cinderella2015 is very common.

The first thing we noticed was #FrozenFever, this is a short film which will be shown before Cinderella on its first showing in the cinema. This creates synergy for the Disney brand.

BBC Media Trip

Us, year 12 media students, created a video of pictures and clips of what exciting things we saw and learnt:



Some of us got invited to be in the audience for the 'One Show' which was very exciting and we even got shown on live TV!

Our Film Opening So Far

After our exciting trip to the BBC, we came back with the footage we wanted for our film opening. We filmed out the window of the train, people walking down the platform at the station, a sign saying 'Welcome to Marylebone' and we filmed people passing us on the escalator.

This is a rough version of what we have filmed already. It still needs editing properly and more needs to be filmed but we wanted to ask family and friends for their opinions on what we have filmed already:

More Filming on Trip to London

When we watched the footage we took from day 1 of filming we concluded we need to include clips of Samantha getting to the office to make it more like a normal day of work. Fortunately, year 12 and 13 media studies students are going to the BBC Broadcasting House for a tour in London on Thursday 20th November. We will be taking the train there so we can film some footage of the train and the train station and include it in our opening as if it was Samantha's commute.

How The First Half of Filming Went

On Sunday we completed filming the first half of our chick flick film opening. Filming went well, we managed to film everything we needed within the 2 hour and the filming location was even better than we expected.

As we had never visited our filming location before we found it difficult to plan what we wanted to film and where, but when we arrived we found out there was a spacious room with a glass table and chairs in, we decided this would be the main office room where most of the filming took place.

Many of the shots took multiple takes to get right and we took it in turn to film different ones. My job was to film the match on action shot of Samantha (the intern) opening the door and walking through and her walking down the corridor. Both took a while to get right and took many takes. When she opened the door it was particularly difficult to ensure I didn't cut her head off whilst walking behind her. Watching the footage back now, I feel the part where she comes round the other side of the door looks unprofessional so I may just use the clip where she opens the door and then cut to her walking down the corridor. When Samantha walked down the corridor, was the most difficult clip to film. The main difficulty was trying to walk at the same pace but a bit ahead of her and keep her head in shot all whilst walking backwards. But I am pleased with how it looks now after the many attempts.

Chaya's job was to film the wide shot of Samantha entering the room and sitting down, this also took many takes. The issue with this clip was also ensuring Samantha's head didn't get cut out of shot, which was proved to be very problematic when she sat down. We then realised we had to essentially 'lead' her with the camera and move it down before she has sat down. Chaya also featured in the opening as an extra who measures a big wall poster against the wall. The use of extras doing odd jobs made the office feel like there was more than 2 people working there and more true to life.

Georgia also made an appearance as the person who brought the clothes rail on and sorted the clothes.  She also had the responsibility of filming the over the shoulder shot of Samantha reading the confidential letter. This also took many attempts as we experimented with the camera, using the tripod to make the camera film higher and lower shots.

Overall, we had a very successful day and used our time well. We need to discuss when to film the next half of our opening.

Prop List for Our Chick Flick Film Opening

Here is the list of the things we will need to film on Sunday:

Equipment

• Microphone and lead
• Camera(s)
• Spare camera batteries
• Two tripods
• Storyboards

Props

• Clothes rail and clothes on hangers - coats, blouses, dresses etc
• Dressmaker's dummy
• Posters to hang on wall 
• Coffee cups
• Posh handbag
• Mobile Phone
• Flowers for decoration (?)
• Laptop
• Magazines (lots)
• Stands for pictures

Costumes

The Intern:

• Smart dress/ skirt and blouse
• Heels / smart shoes
• Handbag
• Smart blazer
• Fur coat (?)

The Boss:

• Smart monochrome clothing (blacks, whites, greys)
• Smart shoes
• Glasses (to look more sophisticated and professional) 

For Us (in case we need to be extras):

• Smart monochrome clothing (black and white)
• Smart shoes

Chick Flick Target Audience

We got together a focus group of girls aged 14-18 and asked them the following questions:

• What is your favourite TV programme?
• Who are you favourite celebrities?
• What are your hobbies?
• Where do you shop?
• What form(s) of social media do you use?
• What are/is your favourite film(s)?
• Favourite genre/type of music?

Asking them these questions allowed us to piece together our stereotypical audience member for our chick flick opening. We created a poster to show the most common feedback we received: