presentaion

Advertising Placement And Effectiveness: My Favorite Film

Production: My Favorite Film

Content

"Chihiro and her parents are moving to a small Japanese town in the countryside, much to Chihiro's dismay. On the wsynopsis is supposed to give out a few spoilers ay to their new home, Chihiro's father makes a wrong turn and drives down a lonely one-lane road which dead-ends in front of a tunnel. Her parents decide to stop the car and explore the area. They go through the tunnel and find an abandoned amusement park on the other side, with its own little town. When her parents see a restaurant with great-smelling food but no staff, they decide to eat and pay later. However, Chihiro refuses to eat and decides to explore the theme park a bit more. She meets a boy named Haku who tells her that Chihiro and her parents are in danger, and they must leave immediately. She runs to the restaurant and finds that her parents have turned into pigs. In addition, the theme park turns out to be a town inhabited by demons, spirits, and evil gods. At the center of the town is a bathhouse where these creatures go to relax. The owner of the bathhouse is the evil witch Yubaba, who is intent on keeping all trespassers as captive workers, including Chihiro. Chihiro must rely on Haku to save her parents in hopes of returning to their world."

- Written by Zachary Harper

The reason why I would think this synopsis is very good at summarizing the plot is because it gives a long yet detailed explanation of what the film is about. The synopsis is supposed to give out a few spoilers on what the film is about, and this person does a very good job in not revealing too many details about the film. I also think that the synopsis is fairly lengthy but it is pretty good at explaining what the film is about.

"Ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents are moving to a new town, much to Chihiro's displeasure. While driving, they get lost and her father decides to take a shortcut down a mysterious forested pathway. After a short but bumpy drive, the family comes to a stop at what seems to be an abandoned theme park. Curious, the father leads his family through a tunnel and explores the park, finding a deserted town and a stall full of freshly-cooked food. The parents greedily help themselves while Chihiro refuses to eat. As Chihiro's parents are eating, she wanders off and meets a boy named Haku. Haku seems to be familiar with Chihiro and warns her to escape with her parents; she returns to find they have turned into pigs, and that the way back has become a deep river. Spirits appear and go about the park. Haku secretly takes Chihiro to a large bathhouse to avoid alerting the spirits to her presence. Haku then tells her that she must get a job from the boiler man, Kamajii until he can help her recover her parents and escape."

http://spiritedaway.wikia.com/wiki/Synopsis

This synopsis is very good because it shows a fair amount of detail when telling the story of spirited away. When it talks about the story of the film, it gives a fair amount of detail away while talking about the story in case someone may want to watch film afterwards and may want to enjoy it.

Resources

The equipment that studio Ghibli had used were mainly pencil and paper because their style is mainly hand drawn films and they do this to deliver amazing animation quality. Hand drawn animation is usually not used in this day of age because most studios have moved on to digital animations, which take less time to make but are often lacking in quality. They upload all of their drawings on their computers and edit and finalise all their drawings in a program called Opentoonz. The film that they exported the format in was a 35 MM (Kodak Vision 2383). They exported with this sort of technology because they wanted to deliver a high quality picture.

D-Cinema

Personnel

The director and the writer of Spirited Away is the world renowned director 'Hayao Miyazaki'. He had completely wrote the script and directed the movie. He had also helped animate some parts of the movie so he could get the smoothness of the film fitted in. Other movies he has worked on were My Neighbor 'Totoro', 'Ponyo' and 'Howls Moving Castle'. He was born on January 5th, 1941 an he grew up in Bunyo, Tokyo. He is a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, author, and manga artist and he is very talented at all of them.

The music composer for the film was Joe Hisaishi. He had wrote all the films music and had composed it. In my personal opinion, I think that he did a superb job in composing the music because it would take a long time to compose symphonies like the music he wrote. But I think that he wrote amazing and memorable songs that enhanced the viewing experience for me. He was born in December 6, 1950. He had attended the 'Kunitachi College of Music' after realising his passion for music and learning the violin at the age of 5. Other notable films he has composed are Howls moving castle, Ponyo and Princess Mononoke.

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Talent

Rumi Hiragi is a very talented voice actor who voices Chihiro (main character of the movie) has an array of voices to choose from. HIragi originally starred in commercials when she was younger but has worked her way up to voice acting. She was born in August 1st, 1987 in Toko. Not much is known abal Cityout her other then her TV debut. She has worked on other films like Ponyo and Detroit Metal City.  

Miyu Irino is a voice actor that plays Haku in the film as the silent protagonist and is shown along side Chihiro. He was born in February 19, 1988. He was raised in Tokyo. He has done other notable voices from other anime and games like Sora of Kingdom Hearts, Yu-gi-oh and One piece. He is not well known when compared to other voice actors.

Mari Natsuki is a Japanese singer, dancer and actor who voiced as guest a guest voice actor. She was born in 2nd May, 1952. She had started voice acting in 2007 and had begun her career in singing and acting. Other notable works that she has been part of was Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted 3 and Sakuran.

Finance

There was only one production company used to make "Spirited Away" and that was Studio Ghibli. In the US both "Disney Pictures" and "DreamWorks" helped sell/promote the movie around the world.  

Locations

Due to the fact that "Spirited Away" was an animated movie, there were no locations used for the filming of the actual movie,although there was a location that the setting of the movie was inspired by. "Spirited Away" has a setting that is based on "Jiufen" in "Taiwan", you notice that the setting for the whole movie is similar to "Jiufen"

Costs

"Spirited Away" had a budget of 1.9 billion Japanese yen, which is 17M dollars 

Placement:

"Spirited Away" was released in countries such as "Japan", "Argentina","Spain","Italy" and the "UK" and "US". The reason why the film was released in these certain countries is that they are countries where anime is very popular, and it would make sense for the makers of the film to release the movie in areas where they think it would be successful.

Competition & Competitor analysis: My Favorite Film

"Spirited Away" was released in America on the 20th of April 2002., which is a time where not many movies were made, but it still had some competition that same week, as 3 other films were released such as "Enigma", "The Scorpion King" and  "Murderous Maids".

ENIGMA

"Enigma" got $4,298,329 in box office while "Spirited Away" did better, since it got $10,049,886 in box office. The reason why "Spirited Away" did better than this movie is because mainly it was made by the famous Japanese voice actors/actresses such as "Rumi Hiiragi" who played "Chihiro", and they had "Miyu Irino",this movie was made by the iconic Japanese studio "Studio Ghibli" and was directed by "Hayao Miyazaki", these people are very famous in the anime culture, so fans of anime movies would be attracted to watch this movie. "Enigma" had cast members such as "Nikolaj Coster-Waldau" and "Donald Sumpter" who are not as well known as the cast members for "Spirited Away" so it would make sense for people to chose "Spirited Away" over "Enigma" if they mainly focus on the cast. Even though "Enigma" was made in America and "Spirited Away" wasn't somehow they still were not mot successful as them. Another reason why "Enigma" was not as successful as "Spirited Away", they had a lower budget for the movie, than "Spirited Away" had. "Spirited Away" had a budget of $17M, where "Enigma" had a budget of $14M, which is $3M less, so clearly "Spirited Away" had more money to look more professional, and a better movie to watch, so people would rather chose to watch that movie rather than "Enigma". The story behind Enigma is based on an actual event in WW2, which may seem interesting to some people. The film starts off with our main character "Jericho" as he returns to Bletchley after a month of recovering from his nervous breakdown from bis failed love affair with a character named "Claire", when he went to see her, he finds out that she is missing and she has been missing for a few days. He finds out that she has been murdered in a massacre in her own home. Years later he married a woman and had a child, and ends up mysteriously seeing "Claire" on the other side of the road. The movie has a lot of action and mystery in it, but does not have that certain edge, and mix of "cute and terrifying" that "Spirited Away" had, with its unique style and disturbing secret behind it, "Spirited Away" seemed like the more interesting movie to watch when it came to the story. When it came to reviews on the movie .rogerebert.com said for those who dont know much about history, the movie would be very confusing since it contained a lot of references and coding that related to WW2, and for a movie set in WW2. it does not give any reference to anything important that could of related to the movie, such as"Alan Turing" which made the movie not worth watching to some people. This showed that the movie could have been better if they included more things related to WW2, but they didn't. When it comes to box office, Enigma is winning in competition for movies that came out in the same week such as "Murderous Maids" which got $225,390, but it is losing in box office to movies such as "The Scorpion King" which got $90,580,000.

THE SCORPION KING 

"The Scorpion King" got $90,580,000 in box office which is $80,530,114 than what "Spirited Away" "Chuck Russell" They have a lot of people in their cast that would attract people to watch the movie by looking at who is in it, they would want to see their favorite actors in the movie. This movie was made in America, which is where the majority of the cast and crew are from, so people who also like the actors would be aware of this movie, and want to see it. The budget for "The Scorpion King" was $60M, which is $46M more than what "Spirited Away" had for their movie. By having a much larger budget, their movie would seem much more detailed and professional, this would lead to it being better to watch for the audience, which would make sense why people would chose to watch "The Scorpion King" instead of "Spirited Away". The story behind "The Scorpion King" is set in "the time before the pyramids" there was a horde coming from the East, and they invaded the ancient world that was led by "the ruthless Memnon" who by the law, is the king for being the greatest warrior, and no one seems to oppose him. "Mathayus", his half brother "Jesup" and his friend "Rama" are the only three true Akkadians left. They are hired by "King Pheron" of the last three tribes to kill "Memnon's" sorcerer for twenty blood rubies, there is many action packed and suspenseful moments in the movie that will leave people want to watch the movie over and over again. There has been many reviews on this movie, one of them made by "empireonline.com" said it was very risky for them to make a sequal to "The Mummy" with a minor character of that film, but said the film was very enjoyable and had an interesting beginning". By seeing that there was nothing wrong with the movie itself, people would be influenced into watching. expecting a good movie. When it comes to box office, it is winning in competition with movies that were released in the same week, such as "Enigma" got $4,298,329, and "Murderous Maids" which got $225,390, so people would rather want to see "The Scorpion King" due to the fact that it is winning in box office compared to others, they think it would be a good movie.
got $10,049,886 in box office which is $70,480,228 more than what "Spirited Away" got. The reason why "The Scorpion King" was more successful than "Spirited Away" would be that it had a lot of better sellable elements than "Spirited Away", such as it had much more well known actors/actresses in its cast, such as "Dwayne Johnson", and "Kelly Hu".It was also directed by the famous director

MURDEROUS MAIDS

"Murderous Maids" got $225,390 in box office, which is $9,824,496 less than what "Spirited Away" got which was $10,049,886, The reason why it was not as successful as "Spirited Away" is that it did not really have many people in the making of the movie that were well known, like"Sylvie Testud" and "Julie-Marie Parmentier", who are not as well known as the people in spirited away, such as "Rumi Hiiragi" and "Hayao Miyazaki" the cast and crew members in "Murderous Maids" were not as well known as the cast and crew members of "Spirited Away". When it comes to comparing the plot, "Spirited Away" had a better one, since "Murderous Maids" was about two woman named "Christine Papin" and "Lea Papin" who were sisters that had a troubled past. they worked as maids in France and ends up committing  gruesome crimes, such as gouging peoples eyes out. "Spirited Away" had a more unique story about  a girl who had her parents turned into pigs, and then went on an adventure to get t em back. it had a mixture of good plot/characters/detail so people would rather want to watch that. "Murderous Maids" got a couple of reviews, one of them by "metacritic.com" saying it was a troubling movie and had some scenes that were a bit much, and had some scenes where they tried too hard with the deaths. so there was not that much positive about the movie but some others said it had a couple of good scenes. The competition in box office was very tough for "Murderous Maids" since it did not do that well compared to others such as "The Scorpion King" which is a movie that got $90,580,000 in box office, and that is a movie that was released on the same day, so it had some competition.

Meet My Audience

Product Market Research: My Favorite Film

"Spirited Away" is an animated movie, which is in the anime genre, and was very popular in Japan. This movie was finally released in America in 2002 so it had a lot of competition with other movies, since 2002 is the same year movies such as "Ice Age", "Lilo and Stitch" and "Return to Never Land" were released in America.

ICE AGE 

"Ice Age" made $176,387,405 in box office, which is $166,337,519 more than what Spirited Away made, which was  $10,049,886. The reason why this movie was more successful than Spirited Away would be that it had
many sellable elements, such as their cast and crew. They have cast members such as "Ray Romano","Jack Black" and "Chris Wedge", who are all very well known famous voice actors, who would get people to want to watch the movie. They also have very well known people in their crew, again with "Chris Wedge" alongside "Carlos Saldanha" who directed the movie. This movies source material was America, which is a country that is very fond of "DreamWorks" movies, so it would make sense for this movie to do very well in America. The budget for "Ice Age" was much higher than the budget for "Spirited Away", since "Ice Age" had a budget of $80M, where "Spirited Away" had a budget of $17M, so it would make sense why people would rather want to see "Ice Age" due to the fact that it had a higher budget, it would look much more professional than "Spirited Away" .  The story behind "Ice Age" is about an adventure of a ground sloth,wholly mammoth, and a saboteur tooth tiger, named "Sid","Manny" and "Shira", trying to escape the ice age,to avoid freezing to death, while having a fun adventure. This movie has a very simple idea with less concept behind the idea of "Spirited Away", but it still seems like a movie that would seem interesting to people, which would make sense why people would watch it. On "rogerebert.com" they reviewed the movie, saying that the movie was a very nice thing to look at, and was a pleasing story, but said that the movie was not very realistic, since animals would not really save a human like that. Since being a cartoon, all things apart from the realism of the movie was positive which was a reason why people would consider watching the movie, expecting nothing but a positive outcome. "Ice Age" has $176,387,405 in box office, which is very good compared to other competition that was made in 2002 such as "Return To Never Land" which made $48,430,258, and "Lilo And Stitch", which made $145,794,338, so people might want to see it knowing it is more successful than other movies for a reason, and would think it is worth watching.

LILO AND STITCH 

"Lilo and Stitch" made $145,771,527 in box office which is $135,721,641 more than what "Spirited Away" made, which was $10,049,886. The reason why this movie was more successful than "Spirited Away" was that it had a cast that most people know, it had the very well known actors of  "Chris Sanders" who played "Stitch", and "Daveigh Chase" who played "Lilo". They also had some people in the cast that people would know, such as "Dean DeBlois", and again they had "Chris Sanders" who directed the movie. By having these people in the movie, it would attract people to watch it, which would make sense since more people know the cast of "Lilo and Stitch", than the cast of "Spirited Away". With "Lilo and Stitch"  being a "Disney" movie, it is extremely popular in America, which is the country it was made in, since there are millions of people their that are big fans of "Disney" movies, so it would make sense for it to be more successful. Having the same budget as the movie "Ice Age" it had a budget of $80M which is $63M more than what "Spirited Away" had for their budget which was $17M. They're might be some people that would watch a movie because of the budget, since it would be better made, so it would make sense why most people saw "Lilo and Stitch" rather than "Spirited Away" . People would consider "Lilo and Stitch" to have a better story than "Spirited Away". "Lilo and Stitch" is about "Dr Jumba Jookiba" made an experiment called "Experiment 626", also known as one of the main characters "Stitch" who went to earth to avoid the "Galactic Federation" and then tried to impersonate a dog on earth to fit in, he gets put in an animal shelter, and soon gets adopted by a girl named "Lilo" who ends up being our second main character in the movie. this girl ends up creating a bond with the creature, and ends up becoming friends with each other. With "Stitch" in the family life becomes more exciting for everyone and then there is a nice adventure in the film with the characters. This film has a lot more going on in it, and this makes it much more interesting to watch, and it makes you want to know how it ends, while at the same time wanting to witness the adventure with them, this story is very interesting and eye-catching for some people to make them watch it more. Websites such as "empireonline.com" said their thoughts on the movie. They said that they thought it was a very well done, educational movie that could teach children lessons in life. the themes blended smoothly in the film with a decent plot. Everything about this film had something positive about it, so it would make people think that it is a movie worth watching, which would make sense why it was so successful. Even though "Lilo and Stitch" had the same budget as "Ice Age" it did not do as well as them compared with the box office figures, since "Lilo and Stitch" got $145,794,338, where when one of their competition (Ice Age) got $176,387,405, which is a $305,930,67 difference, but still is doing very well in the box office.

RETURN TO NEVER LAND

"Return to Never Land" made $48,423,368 in box office which is $383,734,82 more than what "Spirited Away" made which was $10,049,886. The reason why this movie was more successful than "Spirited Away" was that this film contained some people that were more recognizable than the people who made "Spirited Away", they had very recognizable voice actors, such as "Frank Welker", "Blayne Weaver" and "Jeff Bennett", they also had "Robin Budd" as the director, who is very famous for this particular role, people would want to see this movie knowing who is in the making in it, due to the fact that they either know/like them. This film was made in America, and again with america being huge "Disney" fans, this movie did very well in that country, which got a lot of people to watch it. "Return to Never Land" had a similar budget to "Spirited Away", still more, but compared to others such as "Ice Age" and "Lilo and Stitch", it was very close with a budget of $20M, which is $3M more than what "Spirited Away" got. People would rather watch this movie rather than "Spirited Away" mainly because with a higher budget, this movie would be more detailed and will look better than a movie with a lower budget like "Spirited Away". The plot behind "Return to Never Land" is when it was during World War II in the London Blitz, "Peter Pan" finds out that his former playmate "Wendy Darling" grew up and ended up having two kids, one 12 year old daughter "Jane", and a 4 year old son "Danny", and Wendy tells her children stories about "Peter Pan". This film has a very simple story behind it, but telling us stories of "Peter Pan" that we have never heard of before, may seem very interesting and may seem like a must see to some people. Websites such as empireonline.com gave reviews, and said that it is an action packed movie, that is a very exciting experience to witness, but it lacked the "magic of Disney" like the other movies "Disney" had made. This movie as mentioned is an exciting experiance, this would be very good for children to watch, and probably wont even notice the lack of "magic of Disney". The movie got $48,430,258 which is very good compared to some, other movies, but there are some movies that came out the same year that managed to beat it, such as "Lilo and Stitch" and "Ice Age" which both managed to get more in box office, but when it came to "Spirited Away" it managed to get more since Spirited Away got $10,055,859.

Focus Group Analysis

What are your opinions on the film?

What my audience said about what they liked about the film was that the story and the characters were unique. One person said that the characters are unique and I would personally agree with that statement because these characters were made by Miyazaki who is notorious for making very unique characters. By asking this question, I got to understand what my audience really liked about my chosen film. But with this question, I wasn't able to find out what they disliked about the film which is why I had made the next question directly towards that. By looking at how my audience reacting enthusiastically towards the film I can tell that the film had a very successful run when it was released.

Judging by the trailer, if  this were you first time watching the trailer, what would be you initial thoughts?

Judging by what my audience had said about the trailer, they said that they would watch the film immediately because they thought that it looks like a fantasy type film and my audience have a strong connection with the fantasy genre. On person said that they would see it because it has magical themes incorporated with in and she felt that it appealed it towards her. Another person said that they would like to watch the film because of the underlying dark themes within the music video. Judging by this, I can tell that the music video has a mixed audience which really makes it stand out.

By looking at the poster, would you think this would be 

a children's film or aimed at a higher age range? and 

Why?

What my audience had said was a collection of mixed reactions. One person said that the poster wasn't very weird at all because it only displayed a girl in a dark background with lanterns in the background. However, another person pointed out a mysterious figure in the background indicating that the movie is probably rated a age like 15 onwards. What they didn't particularity like was that it may have scared children who may have looked at the time very scary looking; frightening the children. The poster contributes towards the films success because this drew a lot of people because of its mixed reactions and people judgements of the film.

What do you think of the art style and themes used in the film? 

My audience said that the artstyle used in Spirited away was very appealing and refreshing because they have their own style that is reminiscent of child like pictures being brought to life. When asking my focus group what they thought on it and they said that they thought it was a very good style of art that they use. One person said that the films art style is very refined for a children's film because they are usually very cartoony but with Ghiblis films they are a lot more refined and a lot more artistic.

Some people say the film should have ended better. How do you think the movie should have ended and why?

One person in my focus group said that the music video should've ended better because it seemed to have died towards the end with the main character leaving the area she was exploring. He said that it made it feel incomplete and that there should be a sequel so that they can have a final answer. Another person said that the film had ended beautifully because it creates a good kind on disconnect with the audience but it leaves a cliff hanger making the watcher want to know what happens to the main character and if the story will continue to go on.