Lego Movie

Wednesday 14th September 2022

L/O - To understand the narrative and characters in the lego movie.

• Batman
• Wonder Woman
• Superman
• Green Lantern
• Gandalf 
• Dumbledore 
• Robin Hood
• Chewbaka 
• Hansolo 

• Old West
• Cloud Cuckoo Land
• Old West
• Middle Zealand

Wednesday 28th September 2022

The Lego Movie:
Industry Research

L/O ~ To research the process, companies and regulators behind the film industry.

Regulation:

• Regulators are like industry bodies that do one of two things:

1. Classify Products (Normally by age rating)
2. Ensures content of product meets acceptable standards

 

I think they gave the movie a U rating because its a child friendly movie with no swear words but a couple of mild bad words

I think they gave the video game 7+

1) To protect young and vulnerable people.

5) So that it can reach a large portion of the world

Vertical Integration:

Vertical integration is a strategy that allows a company to streamline its operations by taking direct ownership of various stages of its production process rather than relying on external contractors or suppliers.

Exam Question - 

Two benefits of the ownership of warner brothers are they can increase amounts of money they get because they own a lot of things that are able to give them more profits cinemas, streaming companies etc. They also own many things that make production more efficient like their own film studio and marketing companies, merchandise etc!

Wednesday 5th October 2022

The Lego Movie

Narrative Theory:

L/O - To explore the narrative & apply narrative theory to the lego movie.

Postmodernism:

Postmodern films often contain the following characteristics 

• Challenges genre conventions: might be a mixture of many genres; challenge typical character roles etc.

• Pastiche: Imitates other texts, humorous take on society/culture.

• Hyper Reality: Makes the audience aware that they are watching a movie.

The Lego movie is a postmodernist film because of all the genres, there are many such as, Action-Adventure, Fantasy and Comedy. There are also humorous takes on society/culture such a, Lord Business looks a lot like Trump which could be a humorous take! There are a few scenes where we realise we are watching a movie 'The man upstairs' is actually a human man so this reminds us we are watching a movie due to the increase of real people near the end.

Wednesday 12th October 2022

              Target Audience

L/O - To Identify the target audience using demographics & psychographics.

The Lego Movie targets a family audience:

This can be split into 3 sections:

• Young Children who play with lego
• Parents who played with lego when they were young
• Young adults cinema-goers

How did the movie appeal to each part of the target audience?

Young kids - All the bright colours and lights can be very appealing to children. The lego! Children who play lego will be extremely intrigued. All the characters such as Wonder woman, Uni kitty Superman etc all very much appeal to young children.

Parents who played with lego - The fact its based of the Matrix (Something they probably watched when they were young), Benny a very 80's character will very much appeal to adults.

Teenagers/young adults - Lucy/Wyldstyle will very much appeal to teenagers because of her gothic style etc.

The Guardian - 

1) A common theme for a brand is that it will create useful or entertaining content targeted at consumers who will soon pay for the services/products.

2) It would have been super easy for lego to make a movie that was absolute nonsense but appeal to kids but they didn't instead they got together funny voice actors to create a genuinely funny movie.

3)The Lego Movie did an amazing job therefore laying out foundations for future success because if one movie does good chances are the rest of them will do good too.

Zesty - 

1) People go to the cinemas to watch films or to feel. The lego movie has an emotional storyline which explores the meaning of love, partnership and especially humanity.

2) The core theme of the movie is the difference between those who create and those who build, the difference between those who lead and follow, and the difference between those who choose to be themselves or a part of something bigger. As our own individual we can choose what we want to be seen as. The lego movie makes us not questioning the film but it lets us also question ourselves, The results get deep into our physique thats rarely visited for commercial content. 

3) Film critics loved this movies ability to be able to make it super wholesome.

What is a 'tent pole production'

In broadcast programming, a tent-pole is a program or it can be a film that supports the financial performance of a film studio or television network. 

How is the lego movie one?

The lego movie is a tent pole production because of its huge success 

What are the benefits of that for Warner Bro's?

They get quite a lot of money from it.

What other movies have Warner Brothers done?

• 1.1 The Lego Movie (2014)
• 1.2 The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
• 1.3 The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)
• 1.4 The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

The Lego Movie 3 is currently in production and does not have a release date.

Wednesday 19th October 2022

The Lego Movie 
Marketing:

L/O - To explore marketing & promotion of the lego movie; to link the methods used to the target audience

• Movie Posters 
• Trailers
• Websites 
• Social Media 
• Billboards
• On sides of busses 
• Magazines 
• Movie Premier 

Synergy:

➤ The promotion of linked products across different areas of the media.

• 16 collectable lego characters
• 17 different Lego sets, based on the different 'worlds' in the movie (City, Wildest, Space and one named 'Wyldstyle Chase').
• Lego movie video game
• School supplies
• Sticker books

• Had a tie-in with Happy meals (McDonald's)
• Each week in January a new character poster was released
• Lego stores scheduled linked events
• Free accessory packs were available in stores after building creative models in store
• Video game released on 4th February 
• On the 7th February, McDonald's released collectable 3D cups with happy meals
• A website enabled fans to make versions of themselves 

In Dancing on Ice at 7:27PM on Sunday 9th February 2014 five days before the movie was launched - ITV Broadcast a world first, an ad break made entirely out of lego

British heart foundation,confused.com,BT and premier Inn

They made 4 adverts in lego which is very unusual as this had never been done before.

It was ridiculously successful and ended up having over a million people watch it on youtube. 

After the advert the movie then became the best selling movie which is also unusual for a children's movie. But that advert changed everything for the lego movie.

They did it so they could have an opportunity to promote their movie for the last time.

It was successful because of the dedication and how long it must have taken. 

They put it on ITV because that is mainly a family channel they also did it on a Sunday because people mainly chill out with their family Sunday evening. 

They put it onto youtube at the same time so people who missed it could quickly watch it.

Wednesday 2nd November 2022

Trailer:

L/O - To evaluate the methods used to market The Lego Movie; to link the methods to the target audience.

• Warner Brothers chose to make the logo out of lego because its a lego world that the movie is based on
  
  
  
  

• They would want the logo shown before the trailer so people who are watching it know who it is made by to make it seem more appealing to people who have seen warner brother movies before and liked them.

Equilibrium - The beginning of the trailer with president business on TV and Emmet drinking his drink

Disruption - President business tries to ruin the world with the 'kraggle' 

Recognition of disruption - Emmet, Wyldstyle and Vitruvius all notice the disruption and go on there way to get help.

Attempt to solve disruption - All of the action, fighting and comedy scenes. 

1) They need to be shown quickly to make time to show all of the interesting bits and so its not too long.

2) Because the children's attention span is shorter

Camerawork:

1) Close ups of key characters to introduce you to the them.

2) It creates the effect that there are lots of cool places the characters explore

3) To show they are 2 very important characters 

Sound:

1) To tell us the story if it had no dialogue we would have no idea what was going on

2) To make it seem more exciting and appealing to the older audience (teenagers etc)

3) It creates tension and atmosphere appropriate to the scene 

Editing:

1) When it goes quicker and doesn't show us all the scene it makes us curious and builds tension 

2) The half term part could appeal to children to get their parents to go and watch it because its February break

3) Creates tension and makes it more dramatic

Mise-en-scene

1) There are lots of different worlds which could show its a fantasy type of movie

2) Its very colourful which appeals greatly to children and younger people

3) We can tell who batman is via his costume and that Emmet is a construction worker because of his costume.

Wednesday 9th November 2022

Task:

Explain how the Lego Movie Trailer uses

TWO elements of media language to

target different audiences.

--> One element used in the Lego Movie Trailer is Sound. For example throughout the trailer there are lots of unique sounds like diegetic explosions etc, to create tension and create an atmosphere appropriate to the scene. This would appeal to Teenagers because most teenagers enjoy watching and listening to loud noises and music. Children may also enjoy this as well as it will probably excite them very much. 

--> Another element used in the Lego Movie Trailer is camerawork; For example throughout the trailer we get quite a few establishing shots of different places where the characters will explore such as cloud coo coo land and more. This would appeal to children greatly to get them excited about all the places the characters would explore. We also get a few Mid Shots of a few characters like Emmet on the motorbike and Lord Business in his tower.

Video Game:

L/O - To explain how vertical integration 

benefits companies; to analyse using 

uses & gratification theory. 

1) TT Games, TT fusion, Travellers tales

2) Warner Bros

3) 7th February 2014

4) Action-Adventure game

5)  Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation®3, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®Vita, Wii U™, 3DS™ and PC.

6) It can be played single player or multi player.

Find 5 examples of recent film/video game releases tie-in video games:

• Sonic
• Iron Man 
• Uncharted 

Simultaneous releases:

Profit maximised - increases potential audiences. 

Familiarity - Brand plot and characters known. 

Extends pleasure of the film - chance to be a part of the film world; can have extended narratives.

Cross-Promotion - Efficient use of marketing of both products to promote the other.  

Uses and Gratification:

Blumler and Katz researched how and why people select certain media products over others.

They came up with 4 main uses.

1) Personal identity -  Helps us consider who we are; what ideas and values we identify on 

2) Information - New information we want to know or take pleasure in knowing

3) Entertainment - Offers distraction from the world 

4) Social interaction - We find things we can share and discuss with others.

Which apply?

1) You can identify with the characters 

2) We can take in information that we didn't get during the movie 

3) We can get a break from reality for a while

4) What level we got to on the video game how many characters we unlocked etc.

Task:

Explain what two uses and

gratifications audiences might get

from the video game according to the trailer.

--> They will be more social and talk to each other about the video game

--> They will be entertained  and be distracted from the world

Wednesday 16th November 2022

Poster Campaign:

L/O - To explain the effectiveness of the 

campaign; to analyse the

representations on the poster campaign.

Denotation - Denotation is what we see.

Connotation - Connotation is what the image means to an audience what you interpret. 

Denotations:

• I can see a broken building in the background
• A fiery bat symbol
• A mysterious dark figure 
• Dark clouds with planes flying into buildings
• A bright light shining on the mysterious character

Connotations:

• The symbol is in the shape of a bat which could represent batman.
• The mysterious figures suit could also represent batman. 
• The broken building could represent fighting and aggression
• The text 'welcome to a world without rules' could represent crime and such because rules tend to keep people from committing crimes but a world without rules means more people are able to commit crime.
• The bright light on the mysterious figure could connote that he is the main character
• The word knight could connote the mysterious figure is a good guy.
• The word dark could add a sense of mystery.

Exam Question:

The lego movie video game is aimed at both genders aged between 7 and 14 however boys may be more likely to play it because of how many male characters it includes.   It also includes batman which could be more appealing to boys because he is a well known superhero to boys more than girls. The colour palette is super bright which appeals to young children because children love colours and bright things. The font used for the title looks cool which could appeal to children as it looks as if its made out of lego bricks. 

You can see Lord Business in the background looking angrily over all the people which could connote he is the bad guy and perhaps the boss you could fight at the end of the video game. Emmet is at the very front of the cover which could connote that Emmet is the main character. Wyldstyle is right behind him which most boys and girls could assume she is his girlfriend. The men on horseback look like villains as they have pistols/some sort of weapon children could probably assume that those people are the bad guys little minions.

The video game was released a week prior to the movie so the video game we could say was used as a type of bribe to get children to ask their parents to watch the movie and buy the video game. The video game was a big hit which probably encouraged all of the movie ticket sales to see the actual movie. Most children enjoy seeing something they can actually play rather than something that they have to sit down and watch. Children probably get the idea its about lego and about a bad guy with one main good guy. 

Wednesday 23rd November 2022

Poster Campaign:

EXPLAIN how the Lego Movie 
theatrical poster is constructed
to appeal to its target audience:

In the Lego Movie Poster there is an image of Unikitty slightly further down then the rest of the characters. This will probably appeal to the younger female generation as Unikitty is adorable and pink. For boys the explosions could probably excite them as they tend to love watching action movies/shows. 

For the teenager generation Batman and other superheroes could really appeal to them because they probably would recognise batman from comic books or from movies their parents show them. Batman is a pretty recognisable superhero with the suit and things so teenagers are able to easily recognise him!

With the adult generation, we can see superman flying up high which could probably appeal to parents because Superman is quite an old superhero. Same with batman, he is able to appeal mainly to teenagers but sometimes adults too. Superman being up high could connote that he is an important character or he is just there to appeal to the adults so they will feel excited that an old superhero is in a modern film and they will want to go and see the movie to see one of their childhood superheroes.   

Wednesday 30th November 2022

DIRT:

1) Use accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar.

2) Explain WHY certain elements of Media Language appeal to the TA 

3) Use the PEEL chain to structure your analysis 

4) Use CONNOTATIONS to explain the appeal

Representation:

L/O - To analyse the representations throughout The Lego Movie promotional campaign.

Wyldstyle representation:

1) Wyldstyle can be pretty stereotypical we see on her character poster that she has long hair in a ponytail and has lipstick and she has long eyelashes. She is also styled very femininely.

2) Wyldstyle definitely anti-stereotypical for women as she is shown as brave in the actual poster and in the trailer. She is dressed in black which is unusual for females.

Wednesday 7th December 2022

Representation:

L/O - To analyse the representations throughout The Lego Movie promotional campaign.

Character one:

• White
• Long Blonde hair
• Blue-eyed
• Name is Charlotte 
• Straight
• Dating a popular boy
• Part of the cheerleading team
• Female
• She/her pronouns

Character two:

• Black
• Long Dark brown hair
• Dark brown eyes
• Name is Kai
• Nerd
• Wears glasses
• Is bisexual
• Is a demi-boy
• He/they pronouns

Character three:

• White 
• Short Ginger hair
• Green eyes
• Name is Oscar
• Has ADHD
• Is gay
• A trans male (female to male)
• He/Him pronouns

Character four:

• Tanned skin tone
• Long black hair
• Blue eyes 
• Name is Pixie
• Has OCD and PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder)
• Is Lesbian
• Is Genderfluid
• Pronouns vary but mainly they/them.

Character five:

• Is Asian
• Long Black hair
• Dark eyes
• Name is Miya 
• Has anorexia (eating disorder)
• Is straight
• Female
• Pronouns are she/her

Age is represented very well via The Lego Movie poster campaign. We can see that Vitruvius is an old wise man shown through his white hair, long beard and his eye bags. Lord Business is shown as also old, however not as old as Vitruvius. We can see he is old by the wrinkles on his face. Emmet and Wyldstyle are both apart of the younger generation we know this because of how their faces look, they have no wrinkles, white hair etc.

Wednesday 18th January 2023

DIRT:

L/O - To review and reflect on the unit assessment and set personal targets.

For question six I need to - Revise my terminology and factual information. 

Vertical Integration:

Where a single company controls both the production and distribution of a product.

   For question seven I need to learn the difference between Vertical and Horizontal Integration. 

For question eight - I have to read the question properly.

For question nine - I have to add more information to my points. 

Question Eight DIRT:

The Lego Movie production team wanted to promote their movie to a range of audiences. They used many ways to do this. For example they promoted their movie by producing posters not long before the movie, these posters would probably get teenagers excited as they usually go on social media, therefore they have better access to the posters. 

The Lego Movie was made mainly for young children between the ages of 7-11. They promoted the movie to them by releasing the 'The Lego Movie Video game' Just a week before the film was released. The release of the video game then got children excited for the actual movie therefore went to go and see it. 

    

There was also a TV ad break made entirely out of lego, made by warner bros for the upcoming release of the movie. They turned 3 adverts into lego to excite people for the new release of the movie. The advert worked incredibly well and was reposted all over the internet! 

Monday 4th December 2023

Do Now:

1) BBFC

2) Ofcom

3) ASA

4) Ipso & Impress

5) Video Standards Council

Revision:

Target Audience:

Young kids who play with lego

Parents of those kids who play with lego

Young cinema goers (15-25)

Uses & Gratifications - Audience - PIES

Personal Identity - 

Information - Children can see that individuals can make a difference to the world

Entertainment - Enjoyment of escaping the real world and watching the movie/playing the video game. 

Social interaction - Video game can be played across different platforms, families can watch the film together.

Intertextuality = Batman - referencing another media text

Stereotypes:

Wyldstyle - is actually the hero, wears makeup, wears tracksuit, dyed hair.

Emmet - Is supposed to be the hero, construction worker, scared

Video Game:

 

Personal identity - 

Information - 

Entertainment - 

Social interaction - Play with friends/family. 

Ad Break:

British Heart Foundation

Confused.com

BT Broadband

Premier Inn

In between each ad new characters.

Monday 22nd January 2024

November PPE

Question 7:

TT Fusion & Warner Bros

Question 8:

- Build up hype

- Profit

- Awards - only nominated if in cinema for release

Question 9:

- Learn more about the characters

- Released video game first, audiences interested and know the characters

- More to play - Numerous/several/multiple/a lot

- Extends the life of the characters of the film

- Extends the story

Question 10:

Genre Convention:

- Trailer - 2-3 minutes - promotes the movie

- intro to characters

- Voiceover

- inter-titles

- release dates

- convention action - explosion