m,appeal

Movie Marketing

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:20:16 +0200

Oh bummer I’m an old woman.

In a recent issue of the New Yorker, an essay uncovers the how’s and why’s of modern day, big budget Hollywood film marketers. Here’s a snippet on how they think about demographics:

The collective wisdom is that young males like explosions, blood, cars flying through the air, pratfalls, poop jokes, “you’re so gay” banter, and sex—but not romance. Young women like friendship, pop music, fashion, sarcasm, sensitive boys who think with their hearts, and romance—but not sex (though they like to hear the naughty girl telling her friends about it). They go to horror films as much as young men, but they hate gore; you lure them by having the ingénue take her time walking down the dark hall.

Older women like feel-good films and Nicholas Sparks-style weepies: they are the core audience for stories of doomed love and triumphs of the human spirit. They enjoy seeing an older woman having her pick of men; they hate seeing a child in danger. Particularly once they reach thirty, these women are the most “review-sensitive”: a chorus of critical praise for a movie aimed at older women can increase the opening weekend’s gross by five million dollars. In other words, older women are discriminating, which is why so few films are made for them. Older men like darker films, classic genres such as Westerns and war movies, men protecting their homes, and men behaving like idiots.

Older men are easy to please, particularly if a film stars Clint Eastwood and is about guys just like them, but they’re hard to motivate. “Guys only get off their couches twice a year, to go to ‘Wild Hogs’ or ‘3:10 to Yuma,’ ” the marketing consultant Terry Press says. “If all you have is older males, it’s time to take a pill.”

Note that the desires of the young movie-watching male was summed up in a single sentence. Read the full article at the New Yorker.

"In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire history of mankind through..."

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:10:51 +0200

“In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire history of mankind through 2008.”

- Andreas Weigend discusses the implications of the social data revolution. (via davidkaneda)

Dreaming of Nonsense: The Evolutionary Enigma of Dream Content: Scientific American

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:54:25 +0200

Dreaming of Nonsense: The Evolutionary Enigma of Dream Content: Scientific American

Unfinished Clock - Better Living Through Design

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:38:34 +0200

Unfinished Clock - Better Living Through Design

"Wikipedia kid: n. A student who has poor research skills and lacks the ability to think critically."

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:23:00 +0200

“Wikipedia kid:
n. A student who has poor research skills and lacks the ability to think critically.”

- Word Spy - Wikipedia kid

The maid's tale: Kathryn Stockett examines slavery and racism in America's Deep South - Telegraph

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:22:07 +0200

The maid's tale: Kathryn Stockett examines slavery and racism in America's Deep South - Telegraph:

filed under things to amazon.

It’s a risky thing to do – being white and well off – to write in a black voice, especially writing in the vernacular. The dialect Stockett employs is like another language; it is a clever act of ventriloquism, which draws you completely into a world of okra and fried chicken and peach cobbler, but a world with menacing undertones. It is history on the cusp of change, and Stockett has captured the unique complexities of the relationships between white women who will entrust the upbringing of their babies to someone with whom they will not share a bathroom.

Sometimes I forget The Sartorialist is also one hell of a...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:07:36 +0200

Sometimes I forget The Sartorialist is also one hell of a photographer. Comes with the eye.

Digibarn: Xerox Star 8010 Interfaces, high quality polaroids...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:29:46 +0200

Digibarn: Xerox Star 8010 Interfaces, high quality polaroids (1981)

Why does Rice play Texas ?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:02:54 +0200

Why does Rice play Texas ?

"Smugass n. a better description than “smartass” for most people everywhere. To be a smartass, one..."

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:45:00 +0200

“Smugass n. a better description than “smartass” for most people everywhere. To be a smartass, one would have to be intelligent, and most people are merely smug about possessing a semblance of wit.”

- Congratulations, there’s a new word. @clusterflock

The ink is absorbed slowly, and the numbers in the calendar are...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:21:24 +0200

The ink is absorbed slowly, and the numbers in the calendar are “printed” daily. One a day, they are filled with ink until the end of the month. A calendar self-updated, which enhances the perception of time passing and not only signaling it.

Ink Calendar : clusterflock

This transistor radio is considered to be one of the first...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:09:36 +0200

This transistor radio is considered to be one of the first contributions of functionalist Ulm Design School (HfG Ulm), Germany, to Braun, although the actual designers are never mentioned.

Braun Exporter Radio, 1956 (via galessa’s plastics)

Remembering Apollo 11 - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:57:30 +0200

Remembering Apollo 11 - The Big Picture - Boston.com

This is insane. New York Nearest Subway Augmented Reality App...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:55:27 +0200

This is insane.
New York Nearest Subway Augmented Reality App for iPhone 3GS from acrossair (via acrossair)

Well, dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians. The...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:52:38 +0200

Well, dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians. The 1200-1700mm zoom lens from Nikon better come with a mule.

Weighing 16kg and measuring 880mm

MF Zoom-Nikkor 1200-1700mm f/5.6~8.0s P ED IF

swissmiss | SOUR ‘日々の音色 (Hibi no neiro)’

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:13:40 +0200

swissmiss | SOUR ‘日々の音色 (Hibi no neiro)’

Google Maps Markers Are Making Real World Appearances

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:03:51 +0200

Google Maps Markers Are Making Real World Appearances

Kaneda, music from Akira, Yamashiro Shoji Remember how this...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:00:14 +0200

Kaneda, music from Akira, Yamashiro Shoji

Remember how this sounds like nothing else ?

chrisbowler: davidkaneda: Slouching towards Bethlehem is a...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:54:02 +0200

chrisbowler:

davidkaneda:

Slouching towards Bethlehem is a photo essay by Martin Miller on The Manhattan Project — J. Robert Oppenheimer’s program to develop the first nuclear weapon.

"[Grant Morrison] is explaining to me how time works in comics. He explains to me his discovery that..."

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:52:00 +0200

“[Grant Morrison] is explaining to me how time works in comics. He explains to me his discovery that any comic is in fact its own continuum, an infinitely malleable miniature universe from Big Bang to heat death, and that in reading it you can make time go backwards, skip entire eons, strobe time itself, re-run geologic-scale periods in loops… reading a comic is in fact controlling time from a godlike perspective.
He was, of course, very full of hallucinogens at the time. This is why people were warned about the brown acid at Woodstock.”

- Warren Ellis » Comics And Time: Dundee, 28 June 2009