The film questions commence...

This week, I began to interview students about their film choices. I asked them why they choose to watch the movies they do and what helps them make those decisions. There are a few things that I've observed as common answers between the people I've interviewed. A big reason that people chose the films they do is based on advertising. If a film has a good and engaging trailer it draws attention and more people choose to see the full film. However, if a film is over-advertised, the film becomes almost nagging and annoying. Another big factor in choosing to see one movie over the other is who the cast includes. Everyone has their favorite actors and actresses and no matter what the movie may be about, people see these films because they love the actors in them. For example, the recent film Public Enemies has not received the best comments from viewers; however, people continued to see it because Johnny Depp is a big name actor. Many of my college friends saw the movie because a lot of the scenes were filmed in Wisconsin, where we are from. A lot of students seem to be very familiar with the Internet Movie Database, which is a website that people can use to peer review films. So far only a few of the students I have talked to read reviews, however many of the students will check IMDB to see a quick, general consesus of the film and if it was liked or not. Thus far, very few students seem to care about the production company and personnel it takes to make the film possible, like I do. As a film major, I hope that people will slowly begin to recognize all of the people that make the film possible.