Candidate Authentication

I confirm that the attached assessment is all my own work and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself and sources have been appropriately referenced.

Finlay Mander

PART 1:

The Mad Max franchise is available in nearly every form of media. The Mad Max brand has made sure that it follows a specific color theme in its artwork. Whilst its main merchandise (the toys) is produced through high quality, already established brands, both Hot Wheels and Funk Pops are multi million dollar toy makers with both companies having collectible items ranging between $2500 – $10,000. Clearly the brand puts emphasis on putting its hundred million movie productions appear the other aspect of the franchise.

One of the reasons why Mad Max films were so successful was due to how it portrayed the scenes and environments in the movie, especially in Mad Max Fury Road, the most recent film.

Mad Max 1979 Environment VS Mad Max 2015 Environment

The original Mad Max poster in 1979 uses hand drawn design to incorporate the colours together. It comes across like a cel shaded game, for example the borderlands series. The Borderlands franchise is known for having its game appear hand drawn or “cartoonish”.

The original Mad Max film was released during 1979 on a smaller budget than the most recent installment but I find the evolution between the two environments interesting as it shows it could be seen as the circumstances of the universe worsening. For instance the mountains seen here.

Could be the same mountains in the photo from Mad Max Fury Road just after the severity of drought and an increased strain on resources.

The cars are also quite similar, just now the one in Fury Road has been weathered down and has evidence of botched repair efforts.

I would be interested in creating an environment highlighting the change between the Mad Max Universe in the beginning and by the earliest release (Fury Road).

In essence, the basic design approach for the Mad Max poster from the 1970s is portrayed in the Borderlands promotional art and game play, with the only difference being the difference in the technology itself. For example, now the development process for producing the image on the right is a lot easier than when the original image would’ve been hand drawn and printed.

The change in the environments got me intrigued into seeing abandoned buildings or how environments can change overtime. I’ve created some mood boards highlighting this kind of environmental change.

Proposal

My proposal is to create an environment for an upcoming game using the inspiration from scenes and promotional art from all of the Mad Max films. However, I dont want to limit myself to just taking ideas from the films since I have already mentioned that its a very established brand, there is a lot of inspiration opportunity.

Once I’ve created the environment I can use the images to promote an upcoming game, animation etc.

PART 2:

When analyzing the audience for my chosen production, I firstly needed to look into the target audience for Mad Max films as this will directly correlate to who will see my poster, appeal to it and look out for it.

Using the skills learned in the audience identification task (task 2). I broke down the target audience for Mad Max and turned it into a bubble graph.

The films in question grossed $375 million worldwide against its $150–185 million budget. So it only barely just doubled its cost in profit, having such big actors present.

Audience profile report:

The film Mad Max Fury Road is 4th installment in the franchise. Fury Road appeals to both men and women (above the age of 15.) However, because the films theme is based in an apocalyptic society placed in a desert landscape where humanity is broken down and everyone has broken out into fighting for the need to survive. Because of this it was naturally harder for the film to initially appeal to women in today society. Yet George Miller, the director made sure that film goes deeper than just your average Hollywood apocalyptic action film. The film explores aspects of modern feminism. In the film there are five women who have sought the aid of the main female protagonist to escape warlord Immortan Joe. Throughout the movie the female prisoners develop as characters since they are no longer held captive by their captor. As they get further away from Immortan Joe they begin to fend for themselves, appearing as if they could take the lead of main character at any point in the film. With the themes of the movie in mind someones political view could make them to decide whether or not they will watch the film due to what the director chose to explore with the female characters. Since the film chooses to explore these certain themes a viewers geographical location could effect if they can or would choose to watch it. For instance, both Saudi Arabia and Egypt are countries where women are forced to rely on male guardianship, without it they cannot travel, marry or access higher education. So with a movie where women escape a man and eventually earn their freedom, isn’t likely to be too popular in a country where this isn’t prohibited by the law. A persons interests could entice them to watch the film, for instance a study done in Australia looked if the films audience members would like a car similar to those seen in the film and if they are interested in cars. In conclusion, Mad Max Fury Road can be appealing to a lot of different audience members, so its surprising to find out that with its $150-185 million budget, it only managed to gross only $375 million total world wide.

sources used : https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/worst-places-woman-yemen-congo-saudi-arabia/ / https://collider.com/mad-max-fury-road-feminism-furiosa/ / https://www.dcm2.co.uk/uploads/documents/Mad_Max_Fury_Road.pdf / http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6420-automotive-attitudes-of-mad-max-fury-road-cinema-goers-june-2015-201508252344