Research into films promotional Material

Sadly , most filmmaking isn't free; so when films are completed it's required to make the money back in order to make more films. The primary source of money is from the theatre when the film is released, or when the film is released in shops on dvds, blu-ray or as internet downloads. People learn about these, and the film itself, through promotional materials.

Promotional materials vary depending on the media; these go from: paper advertisements (flyers, posters, billboards, newspaper adverts, film reviews, and bus posters), film advertisements (trailers of teasers), and digital advertisements (digital poster, internet ad, pop up, trailers on video sites, film reviews). 

Here's the list again in more detail on each specific type:

Paper Advertisements:

Flyers: Flyers are a rarer form of advertising for larger budget films, but for films being locally shown, its a great way to get the message out in bulk. The general format of a flyer is black and white low resolution printing on A5 coloured paper to maximise the amount they can get from a certain budget because colour ink is more expensive per sheet than coloured paper, and low resolution is quicker and cheaper than high resolution; maximising the potential profit. This also maximises viewers as flyers are normally either posted to every free public place that allows them,  or thrown into crowded places for crowds to grab at. 

Posters: A poster is like an evolved flyer. Measuring from A4 to A1 paper size, full colour glossy prints, and posted in shopping centres, cinemas, and bus stops. Posters do cost an incredible amount more, but the opportunity to have the full colour prints, and much more stunning definition images ensuring that every inch of the poster is fulfilling the potential to advertise the films. As they do cost more, it is rarer to see small productions using them so it is largely dominated by the bigger companis with the higher budgets.

Billboards: Exclusively reserved for the major companies, a billboard is a streetside poster that can measure from 3 meters across its longest side, to anything as big as 30 meters. Its essentially an incredibly widescreen poster; it shows the same information, and shows it all in colour and high definition. Its price does change however, depending on the size, length of display, and where its placed in relation to traffic, altering how many people it reaches.

Newspaper Adverts: These are simple, and tend to be pretty effective. Sadly, however they aren't very good value from face value; the pictures are low res, you pay a pretty big amount for a small space (or an extremely large amount for a single page), and its only show for a small amount of time (between a day or a week is average), and may or may not be full colour depending on the newspaper and their printing quality. The upsides are though that they are generally guaranteed to reach a bigger audience with popular papers, and the adverts will always be seen.

Film Reviews: A slightly more well known form of advertisement, although a very risky one, a film critic is a tried and trusted form of getting information about your film out there, as long as your film is good. Its completely free, unless you pay a critic to give you good reviews which generally detracts the film goers out of a sense of morals, and if  a well known critic give you a good review it can spread like wildfire and give you incredible publicity. However, many critics aren't very forgiving, and getting an honest and good review is very difficult, but if achieved can cause wonders for films profits.

Bus Posters: A very basic, well known form of advertising,  a bus poster is a T shaped poster that fits perfectly along the sides of buses. These are an extreme version of billboard because where billboards only get the traffic of a certain road, buses get the traffic of every where they travel through, spreading the range of viewers exponentially. Because of this amazing range, it is very expensive to get these posters, and they do have more variable range of times to stay up, but of course this costs  more, and depending on the buses routes it can be more  expensive.

Film Advertisements:

Trailers:  A trailer is a short piece of film (30 secs to 5 mins) that advertises the films and give the basic set up to the story and characters. Trailers are generally easy to make, preshot footage is used and cut together with special effects, which only requires an editor and maybe one visual effects artist, or graphic artist for text, this is generally a cheap process. But the cost to show them in cinemas or on tv is the main reason why only the big films can afford this. They can cost as much a few thousand to a couple 10 thousand per showing, this all depends on when it goes on, what shows or film it fills the gaps for; either way the cost for showing trailers will weed out any small budget film almost immediately; that is unless they choose to post it online where they can either host it for free or pay providers such as youtube to play the advert before a video begins,

Teasers: Teasers are slightly different to trailers. These are generally short scenes or sequences that are released to help keep interest in the film up. Normally these are only shown on TV film critic shows, or online as a gift to fans; so this normally keeps the cost down, again  you're taking pre recorded, edited film and just adding a bit of text or a title screen, but again its the cost of the showing that hurts. Unless its released online, a generally free experience but no records of money being exchanged between providers and creator have been found, however showing on TV does cost, but relatively cheaper than a trailer.

Digital Advertisements:

Digital Poster: A very new concept which has recently emerged from fan made posters online, basically its set up like a regular poster, but its animated by taking a short clip of the film and placing the text over it. Its extremely cheap to make as long as there is a graphic designer to design the text layout and it can be released anywhere with a screen which can cost, if shown in public, or be free if posted online.

Internet Ad: Always in the form of column ads or top bar ads, they are generally still images that link to a page to further advertise flim. They have gotten less popular as adblockers have become used more, but they are still one of the cheapest and most viewed ads around, the only have to pay the provider of the site to show the ad and can have it taken down whenever he wants.