Anti-Piracy - The Last Cinema - analysis of campaign

      

Commissioned by the Film Distributors' Association, created by the National Film and Television School, this has been one of the most effective anti-piracy campaigns yet. This campaign was first aired in 2012.

The advert starts with a shot of an abandoned, derelict cinema, we are then shown a chained up door with 'RIP last cinema on earth' written in the dust on the window. At this point the viewer already will have some understanding of what the campaign is about. The next scene consists of the camera panning around the foye of a disused bar - one that is quite common to see in some cinemas. The whole room is covered with cobwebs and dust so it's pretty clear to see that the cinema is not in use.
The next scene is quite a ghostly one - there is a close up of a young woman's face - and she is not moving/breathing and is covered in dust. The camera then pans over the whole audience sitting on the traditional red seats used in cinemas as the narrator says ' a moment of cinematic joy..an experience shared' - at this point the couples sitting in the seats start to fade away - this is partnered with ghostly sound effects. The narrator then says 'all gone...imagine.'. The last scene is one of the flip up chairs flipping back into place - as if the person sitting there had got up. The end slate of the campaign says 'Love Cinema...Hate Piracy' and all of the logos of the companies involved in the campaign are listed. 

I'm not entirely sure about the specific target audience for this campaign - as there are lots of people of all different ages featured in it - and cinema is not just targeted at one specific audience. What I do think though is that this could be targeted at around 15-21 year olds based only on the fact that this is the main age that contributes to piracy. The language isn't exactly complex.. but the fonts used at the end are quite harsh and formal - almost eery and this links to the theme of the campaign - for this reason the target audience could be older.

I don't believe there are any other media products for this particular campaign - but I'm not sure how effective these would be anyway, given the style of the campaign.

This campaign used a shock factor, but instead of using threats to deter people from piracy, they showed the viewers what will happen if they do continue. The campaign shows that the act of piracy - even once can contribute to the closure of cinemas, and new films will not be made. I, personally as a lover of film find this particularly effective, as the apocalyptic scenes of the advert are really quite shocking and it does bring things into perspective.

This campaign is still running in certain cinemas.