Star Wars Sky Movies Promo

In order to get you ready for Star Wars Episode VII, Sky Movies is screening all six Star Wars movies, which you can watch back-to-back. To promote this, MPC Advertising have produced a stunning 30 second promo, which takes viewers on a whistle-stop tour through a the complete saga. With a combination of footage from the movies, and animated stills, the promo is a series of vignettes which represent each of the Star Wars Episodes, each of which is rich in detail. But for me it is the transitions between these moments which are the most compelling, and make the promo hold up for repeat viewings.

Directed by Steven Hoare, with Lee Parker as Creative Director and VFX from MPC, this promo is well worth a watch

The Force is with us this December with the return of #SkyMoviesStarWars, including all six movies and more. https://t.co/9Ctgs5ylDG

— Sky Movies (@skymovies) November 25, 2015

Formulaic Movie Marketing

A lot has been said about how big movies are becoming formulaic and similar, but any similarities in the actual movies are as nothing when compared to the formulaic patterns we see in the marketing. Movie posters have been reduced to a series of patterns and formulas, a plug-and-play solution for all your genre film needs. Action movie? Show the moodily lit back of a hero, probably holding a weapon. Horror? Jump to the close up of a big eye. Sexy comedy? Time for the classic through the legs shot.

The formulaic nature of movie marketing extends to trailers as well, particularly action movies, which consistently use the same tropes - opening shot of a city, action montage, dramatic cut to silence, comedy beat before end, and of course, the ubiquitous BRAAAMs sound that we have been treated to ever since the Inception trailer hit our screens. (Side note, there is quite some debate over who is responsible for this iconic sound.)  This supercut of action movie trailers from Red Letter Media nicely sums up the way these tropes keep reappearing.

I understand why this happens. With shortening deadlines and increasing pressure, designers and editors are given less and less time create promotional material. Its understandable that they would reach for imagery and patterns which they know will work, rather than lose time experimenting on things their clients might not recognize. At the same time, ever increasing production budgets make the costs of a movie failing all the more disastrous, and this makes studio executives all the more cautious about deviating from proven marketing strategies. But what makes this all the more frustrating is that there is so much creativity being demonstrated in the fan-made movie posters which surface on the internet. The images below demonstrate some really imaginative and different approaches to marketing these movies, which capture the essence of the film and would have certainly stood out against the tide of more formulaic posters. I'm particularly taken with alex4everdn's Captain America poster, which would have piqued my interest had it been used in the marketing campaign for the film.

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by xombiedirge

by alex4everdn

By Kirk Dunne

In conclusion, the reality is that this state of affairs is unlikely to change any time soon. As long as films marketed using these formulas continue to be successful, which seems to be the case, studios are not incentivised to change their strategies. I think the big loser in this is the consumer, for whom it is increasingly difficult to differentiate between the different films being released, and this is a shame.

As a final note, I'll finish with what I consider to be the most egregious example of movie marketing being standardized. Legendary designer and godfather of motion graphics Saul Bass designed some classic movie posters in the 50s and 60s, but when these films have been rereleased on DVD, the cover art has rejected Bass's iconic imagery in favor of much more generic cover art. Its a real shame.

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON 
Original design by Saul Bass (1957)

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON 
DVD, Warner Home Video (2002)

ANATOMY OF A MURDER 
Original design by Saul Bass (1959)

ANATOMY OF A MURDER 
DVD, Sony Pictures (2000)

Making of Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider, sequel to the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, was announced at the E3 Expo last year, to some confusion and no small amount of controversy, as an Xbox One exclusive, at least initially. But I'm much more interested in the PC release, expected some time in 2016, for which I'm hoping that developers Crystal Dynamics will up the already beautiful looking graphics. In this video from E3 2015, Art Director Brenoch Adams and Lead Character Artist Kam Yu discuss how they brought Lara Croft to the screen, and frankly the results are stunning. This is one of the best real-time human characters that I have ever seen, and the level of detail they have delivered in striking. I particularly appreciate that the scars Lara acquired in the previous game have been carried over to the new model.
Of course, all we have seen so far are promos and tech demos. The real test will be how well does that asset hold up in actual game play. But things are looking good so far, and I have high hopes for what we will see come the Xbox release in December.

Star Wars Battlefront

Electronic Arts has debuted the first 5 minutes of actual gameplay footage from their upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront at the E3 video game expo this week, and frankly it looks amazing. I have never played the original Battlefront games, but I'm extremely excited at the prospect of playing what promises to be the most authentic Star Wars video game experience to date. Developers EA DICE (makers of the Battlefield series and Mirror's Edge) reportedly went back to the Lucasfilm archives to capture models, props and sound effects used in the original trilogy, so the game should look and sound as close as its possible to get to the original Star Wars that we grew up with. But what excites me the most is the chance to get involved in some of the classic action sequences. It looks like they have captured all the key moments of the battle for Hoth in the trailer above, and gone to great lengths to make it feel like you are part of the event.

This is the first gameplay trailer that we have seen, following on from the previous trailer released a back in April (below), which got us excited about characters such as Darth Vader and Boba Fett, but was game engine rather than gameplay, making it hard to judge what the final game would be like. This new trailer assuages our concerns, or mine at least. It looks amazing and I can't wait to see more.

Star Wars: Battlefront will be released November 17th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.