The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing.

Small subsidiary independent film companies have smaller budgets, and usually if they spend too much money on the marketing process pre-production they won't have enough money by the end to make the film. Because of this, companies use below the line marketing techniques.

Universal films produced a film in 2014 called "Dumb and Dumber To" which was a follow up of the first film in 1995 "Dumb and Dumber". To market the second film, they created spoof posters of the two main characters in the film which were inspired from a film poster named "Lucy" which had come out earlier that year. "Lucy" is about a woman who can use 100% of her brain, which is a huge contrast compared to the characters in "Dumb and Dumber To" as they name suggests. On the "Lucy" poster it has an image of the character with her name in big black letters at the bottom of the page. Underneath that reads "Imagine what she could do with 100% of her brain." In the "Dumb and Dumber To" posters, there were images of the two main characters and a subtitle saying "Imagine what he could do with 1%." These posters were uploaded on the main actor's Twitter acounts, and they also created a hashtag "Dumbanddumberto" to create a buzz and to get people involved.

The "Avengers" was the third highest grossing film of all time with a budget of $200 million. They created action figures for children of the different characters in the film, ie. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America etc. This was a good way to market children without them even noticing, hence bringing awareness to their parents.

Another form of marketing is by creating a buzz from a viral video. A prank named "Evil Baby" became a huge Internet sensation across social media such as Facebook. This prank was to market the film "Devil's Due" (2014) from "Think Modo" who create special effects. This gets audiences excited and involved with seeing the film as they think that the prank was effective.

Another example is a prank of a woman in a cafe. An actor pours his tea over her lap (no one in the Cafe knew this was set up) and she controls him with her arms sticking out, eg. pushing him against the wall up and down, or moving the tables. They did this by using magnets. This film was to advertise "Carrie" (2014) which was a successful book. These viral videos raise awareness as they show the film name at the end of the clip, bringing thoughts to the audience about finding more.

"Street Dance 2" (2012)  was a follow up of the first film "Streetdance" which was very popular. They had a Synergy opportunity with "Frubes" for the characters from "Streetdance" to be shown on the yoghurt packaging. There were also competitions to enter where they could meet the Streetdance crew and have dance lessons. This is another way of marketing for children to pass on information to their parents without them knowing.