Website Front Page Research

Film Websites

I carried out this research fairly early on in the coursework process. I have recently found since checking the websites again that most of them have changed. 'District 9', '2012' and 'Saw VI' have been released in the cinemas since I did this research and so their websites have changed to focus on the DVD release. The Matrix website is for some unknown reason not available at this time. I have updated the links below to their current form but the content on the websites is in most cases different to that in my analysis below.

2012
The Dark Knight
The Matrix
District 9
Saw VI

I carried out a textual analysis on each of these websites' front pages and made some general conclusions on how best to format the front page for a thriller film which is the genre that my advanced production will work within.

My first observation is that more often than not the rule of thirds is adhered to when trying to display levels of power on the screen. As the title is the most important aspect of the merketing and branding of a film this will generally be
placed in the top third of the screen as was shown on the '2012', 'The Matrix' and 'Saw VI' websites. This was also backed up by my magazine research in which I found all of the film magazines I looked at had the title in the top third of the screen. It seems to be more important with the magazines however as some film websites e.g. 'The Dark Knight' placed the film title just below the centre of the screen. This method allows the title to be used as an origin about which the additional content can be based.

In terms of using the codes and conventions of the thriller genre all of the websites had used a pre-dominantly dark colour scheme. This is in order to play on the dominant ideologies that are associated with darkness such as fear and the unknown. Each front page also had a picture with either the main characters on or a particularly iconic scene from the film. This was again supported by my magazine research as the film magazines in particular also used pictures with either or both of these two features as the main focal points. The extent to which these pictures seemed to reveal the narrative of the film varied but it generally seemed to be the films with pre-established brands such as 'The Dark Knight' with Batman and 'Saw VI' with the previous 5 films already out that used pictures that did not reveal the narrative. New films such as 'District 9' and '2012' used pictures that had particularly iconic features which through the public's understanding of dominant ideologies revealed big portions of the narrative e.g. 'District 9' had a stereotypical representation of a UFO in the picture on the front page.

Only the 'Saw VI' front page included a tag line out of the five films. This suggests that either tag lines are not considered to be important features on the website front page or perhaps it was just that the other four films happened not to have a tag line that was considered important to the branding of the film. 'Saw VI' however happened to be the only website without any mention of the production or distribution companies, the main people involved or the legal blurb. For the other four films all of this information was placed at the bottom centre of the screen, when considering the rule of thirds this shows that this information is considered the least important to the marketing of the film.

'Saw VI' and 'District 9' have kept up with modern trends
and taken advantage of the new marketing power and below-the-line promotion made availale by web 2.0 social networking sites such as 'Facebook', 'Myspace' and 'Twitter' by promoting the film on their sites. They have placed links on their front pages that allow people to follow the film on these sites and receive extra information about the film which will probably lead to word of mouth promotion over these sites.

There are two main theories that i believe particularly applied to the construction of these websites. Louis Althusser's theory of interpellation could be applied to each of these film's website front pages in some way, as some of the previously mentioned promotional activities, branding methods and use of technical codes are all in place to try and 'recruit' the visitors of the websites as 'subjects' of the film. By displaying the website with the use of common codes and conventions associated with the genre of thriller and such a use of indexical signs which the viewer can subconciously relate to because of the dominant ideologies attached, the viewer feels that in some way the film was made for them. They can understand the representations and thus relate to the message of the film which in turn should lead to successful 'recruitment'. When considering the social networking links employed by 'Saw VI' and 'District 9' Pierre Bourdeiu's theory on cultural capital could also be applied. Becoming a fan of the film means that this fact will be displayed somewhere on their profile and thus could be used as a form of objectified cultural capital.

I believe that all of this information I have gained through the research will help when creating a website front page for my own film. I feel I understand the main concepts behind constructing a website for a thriller film and that I know how to use the technical codes to best promote the film. I also picked up some new concepts such as social networking links which although they may not apply to my coursework could nonetheless be valuable information for future projects.