Audiences and institutions: The Woman in Black (Watkins, 2012)

Who do you think the primary and secondary audience is for The Woman in Black and why?

Based on the film age rating being a 12A in the UK, the primary audience for the film would be teenagers.  By being a 12A the film is available to the younger viewers of Harry Potter as a result of Daniel Radcliffe playing the main character and indicates that while it’s a horror movie anyone who is a teenager can buy/see this film.   The film itself being a horror movie makes teenagers – especially younger teenagers – more inclined to see the film.  The secondary audience would be young adults, so students and people under the age of 25 as it is proven that people in this age range are more likely to go to the cinema in their free time and again many of the viewers were the older generation of Harry Potter fans.

How was The Woman in Black marketed?

A large part of the marketing campaign was down to the exploitation of Daniel Radcliffe, he himself helped the campaign to go forward by having interviews, posting on social media and the largest addition was that he guided the Harry Potter fan base to the film.  Social media itself was a massive contribution towards the films success, as part of the marketing there were competitions to win merchandise, tickets to the west end show, film and the London Premiere.  The franchise had a very large campaign and a large success largely because of these factors.

Do you think the marketing materials for the film were appropriate and why?

The franchise’s marketing scheme was very large, the teaser trailers and the posters portrayed the film to be the horror sub-genre of paranormal. The teaser poster questions ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ reinforcing the paranormal sub-genre, the poster also shows a ghostly face behind the text.  On this poster it seems that Daniel Radcliffe is the main focus as an extreme close up shot of him covers half of the poster and this further markets the film to Teenagers and Harry Potter fans.  The official movie poster has very dark colours and the only real colour in the poster is a very icy blue, Daniel Radcliffe is once again present as the main focus of the poster again but you can now see his clothing as it’s a mid-shot and this helps to set the time of the movie if you haven’t seen the trailer.  The poster has many different conventions and helps to set the scene by showing certain tings such as the ‘Eel-marsh House’ where most of the movie is set in the background, a large Cross gravestone with a literal woman in black next to it are in the distance, reinforcing the supernatural horror.  The house is also shown to be in a very rural area with a lot of fog, most likely marsh land. This helps to give the audience understanding and therefore effectively making the marketing very appropriate for the film and the target audience. 

The teaser trailer concentrates more on Daniel Radcliffe but gets the plot forward very quickly.  Most shots used in the teaser trailer are establishing shots and characters from a distance.  The teaser trailer helps to establish when and where the film is set in about one minute and 10 seconds, this helps the audience to recognise the advert and gain common knowledge of the film.  The official trailer uses establishing shots, close ups of creepy looking toys and full length shots of many different children which tells us when, where and the plot. The trailer still concentrates on Daniel Radcliffe at the end as it displays his name and no other actors/actresses so people were bound to read it and consider it more.  The movie’s marketing materials were definitely at the best they could’ve been and were appropriate because the portrayal was impeccable for what the movie was.  Some think the use of Daniel Radcliffe was overused but the scheme worked to help this movie become what it is, so overall it was marketed really well.

What kind of release did the film have?

The film has a very large release with a premiere in London; the film was released in February 2012 and on the opening weekend it made $20,874,072 in the USA then had a total gross of $54,322, 273 in the USA (April, 2012). This makes it the largest opening for a Hammer film in the US in history.  It had such a large release that it was the highest-grossing British horror film in 20 years.  The estimated budget for the film was 17million and quite obviously it surpassed it by a long run.

Why do you think the film was so successful?

I think the film was successful mainly because of Daniel Radcliffe’s advertising, his A-list appearance and the Harry Potter franchise that came with him.  Although, social media did have a large part to play in the advertisement and the competitions and merchandise did help to get a large target audience.  The last reason is that the movie had many typical horror movie conventions in the film, it was traditional in many ways and the way the marketing was pursued really helped to establish the horror in the movie and its intentions.