The first machine patented in the United States that showed animated pictures or movies was a device called the "wheel of life" or "zoopraxiscope".

However, this was a far cry from motion pictures as we know them today. Modern motion picture making began with the invention of the motion picture camera. The Frenchman Louis Lumiere is often credited as inventing the first motion picture camera in 1895. What Lumiere invented was a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector called the Cinematographe, three functions covered in one invention. In 1895, Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more that one person.

Motherhood

• 'Online Young Mothers' (a well defined market with dedicated channels) - they used this website to target their audience by creating innovative engaging online activity to interact with them.
• One of the concepts for this was trialling ‘house parties’ as a word-ofmouth dynamic for this market.
• Metrodome worked closely with Mumsnet (www.mumsnet.com), the biggest parenting website in the UK. They were the distributor’s official online media partner, and in return Metrodome gave them presence on their website and also inserted a voucher offer in the DVD for their new book

In the five weeks leading up to release Mumsnet provided the following 

coverage:

• Stickering throughout the site offering people the chance to attend 

a special preview screening. This screening was well received and 

people posted comments on the site afterwards

• An advertorial on their home page for two weeks and then another 

advertorial in their chat section for a further two weeks

• Online advertising on their homepage the week before release. 

100,000 guaranteed page impressions.

• A Motherhood competition which gave the film coverage on their 

homepage as well as one month’s placement on their competition 

page

• Two newsletter insertions which went out to 75,000 people.

A free voucher pack was given out with every purchase of the dvd and if signed on to the website:

Metrodome set up fan pages on Facebook and Twitter in order to engage with their audience, enlist their support and promote the voucher 

pack. The Facebook page was focused around building an environment 

where mums could interact with fun content, and post their own comments and opinions about their personal experiences, thus building a 

community. 

In order to increase the fan base on Facebook, Metrodome took out an 

ASU ad which appeared on a users profile page. This ad was targeted 

towards married women aged 25-45. This helped to grow the fan base 

significantly from 100 fans to 1,372.

Metrodome set up a Motherhood competition on a separate Facebook 

page where they encouraged mums to post their funniest kids videos. 

The funniest video won a Stokke stroller worth £729. This competition 

was seeded out through another Facebook fan page and also ran in an 

advertisement on Netmums to drive traffic to the competition page.  

However, Metrodome found it hard to engage mums with this competition: the fact that there was some effort to be made proved an obstacle 

for them

THE KING'S SPEECH FILM EDUCATION

The UK Film Council

1. From 1 April 2011, the British Film Institute (BFI) will be the UK Government’s lead strategic body for film.  
2. The BFI will be taking a partnership approach for promoting British film internationally, working with BBC Worldwide, BAFTA, Film London and, over time, others.
3. The UK Film Council is due to cease trading at the latest by the end of March 2012 – however many of its core functions and activities will already have transferred and, from 1 April 2011, it will have ceased to be the National Lottery distributor for film, with this responsibility having passed to the BFI. 
4. After 31st March 2012, it will be for the BFI, in consultation with the Government, the film sector and other stakeholders, to decide on future film policy and funding priorities.
5. The Film Fund for film development and production is currently £15 million a year, excluding recoupment (all of which, as is currently the case, will top up the Film Fund’s annual budget and will be reinvested into making more British films).
   The BFI has indicated its intention to increase that by 20% to £18 million in 2011/12.

The King's Speech

• Momentum Pictures distributed The King's Speech
• Slumdog Millionaire was a MASSIVE film in the British Film Industry - opening gross of £1.83m
• Slumdog grossed £32m total in Britain
• The King's Speech opening gross £3.52m (SHOWS IT WAS HUGGGGGGE)
• Odeon Leicester Square took £106,000 in one day
• Top regional site was Odeon Guildford, with £28,000 (Guildford - middle class british, target audience)
• UK Film Council backed The King's Speech
• Now, UK Film Council has been AXED 
• GET FILM TO BE SUCCESSFUL?? Strong critical support, bold positioning by distributor, marathon publicity effort 
• This column has often had cause to quote the "10% rule", which suggests that the UK gross of a film in sterling will usually be around a 10th of the US figure in dollars

ARTICLES ABOUT THE KING'S SPEECH

•  Was funded by 6 independent production companies

Five new key facts about The King's Speech

• The production costs of The King's Speech were £9m
• Proved to be the best performing 'independently financed' 
• The UK Film Industry provided £1m worth of lottery money for the film's production budget
• Aegis Film Fund – whose cash comes from wealthy private individuals "not all of whom are footballers" according to Smith – provided a further £6m.
• WHY WAS IT SUCCESSFUL? (MORE INPUT) four-quadrant targeting, awards corridor positioning, brilliant marketing by Momentum, the British distributors, and smart string-pulling by their counterparts in America, the Weinstein brothers.

Issues in the British Film Industry

Marketing for Avatar
US conglomerates can use their size and reach to create massives synergies to awaken desire in audiences to see their films.

With all the talk of the "Twitter effect" and social media making or breaking Hollywood releases, Fox took a decidedly big-picture approach to go to market with the most expensive film ever made.

The studio teamed with Coke Zero and McDonald's for extensive promotions that gave fans access to the virtual augmented-reality world of Pandora. Consumers could download an AR application from AVTR.com and scan their Coke Zero can or 12-pack to take a virtual ride in the Samson helicopter featured in the film. McDonald's took a similar approach with its Happy Meal and Big Mac tie-ins, creating a virtual "Avatar" space called McWorld, where fans could interact with other aspects of the Pandora environment. Both marketers had large-scale media buys to promote the tie-ins, including general-market TV buys from Coke and multicultural TV, print and radio ads from McDonald's. LG and Panasonic pitched in for global tie-ins to cross-promote products with similar 3-D innovations, while Mattel partnered on the toy merchandising front.

In early November on Fox's World Series and National Football League coverage, with multiple 30-second spots in the same commercial break, followed by the full trailer airing during pod breaks for "Glee" and "House."

Just how mass was the marketing? Fox didn't even have a sponsored Twitter account to speak of, so the studio can't even take credit for the film's daily appearance as a trending topic on the microblogging site after its theatrical debut -- a surge of organic word-of-mouth that certainly didn't hurt.