Understanding the Creative Media Sector (Task 3)

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Whilst making our animation we have to think about different legal and ethical considerations of our sector (film - animation). They range from:

• Social Issues
• Representation of gender
• Representation of religious beliefs
• Linguistic usages
• Accessibility
• Professional body codes of practice
• Worldwide Web Consortium
• Broadcasting Act 1990
• Official Secrets Act 1989
• Obscene Publications Act 1959
• Films Act 1985
• Video Recordings Act 1984
• Race Relations Act 1976
• Human Rights Act 1998
• Licensing Act 2003
• Privacy Law
• Copyright
• Libel Law

Social Issues is how issues relate to peoples personal lives and interactions, such as; crime, education, law, suicide, bullying, gun rights, alcohol laws and so on. Representation of gender is about essential elements of our identity, and the identities we assume other people to have, like stereotypes. A typical male is stereotyped as tough, hard and sweaty. A typical female is stereotyped as fragile, soft and fragrant. Mainstream media is our only source of news regarding anything to do with religion, representation of religion. Linguistic uses are the study of languages, focusing on the system of human communication. Some of the questions ask are what is language? Where is language stored in the brain? How is it learnt? Accessibility is a term to describe a product/device/service which is available to as many people as possible. Professional body codes of practice known as professional ethics is the personal and corporate standards of behaviour expected of professionals. The World Wide Web Consortium is an international community where member organizations, the public and the staff work together to develop web standards. The Broadcasting Act 1990 is an act to make new provision with respect of regulation of independent television and sound programme services. Official Secrets Act 1989 is an act to replace section 2 of the official secrets act 1911; it protects more limited classes of official information. Obscene Publications Act 1959 is an act to amend the law relation to the publication of obscene matter; to provide for the protection of literature as well as strengthening the law concerning pornography. Films Act 1985 is an act to repeal the films act 1960 to 1980, making further provision with respect to the financing of films. Video Recordings Act 1984 is to make provision for regulating the distribution of video recordings for connected purposes. Race Relations Act 1976 is to make provision with respect to discrimination on racial grounds and relations between people of different racial groups. Human Rights Act 1998 gives legal effect in the UK to the fundamental rights and freedoms contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. The rights impact matters such as life & death and rights in your everyday life. Licensing Act 2003 is an act to make provision about the regulation of the sale and supply of alcohol. Privacy Law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments. Copyright is a legal concept; it gives the creator of an original work exclusive the rights to it. The definition of Libel law is defamation, also known as slander.

The main ones I have highlighted that relate to our group animation are Social Issues, Representation of Gender, Accessibility and Copyright. Our animation shows several Social Issues throughout the growing up of both characters: sex, alcoholic drinks, travelling, marriage and then pregnancy. Representation of gender is used because of how we stereotypical show our characters. The male silhouette is a typical figure, and the female has a typical feminine hair cut which is recognisable by the viewers. As well as this, on the world map we show two dots for where each character is in the world, the female dot being pink and the male dot being blue, a typical colour stereotype to represent each gender. The accessibility of our video will be in the social networking sector, YouTube and either Twitter/Facebook if we wanted to promote it even more. This is because this would be the most successful way for our target audience (aged 16-30) to view it. 

Many different film makers have broken rules resulting in them being banned. A recent ban being The Human Centipede 2, the movie was heavily criticised for showing no attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be degraded, brutalised and mutilated for amusement of the main character. The BBFC decided to ban this and describe it as 'unacceptable material' and will not be sold anywhere in the UK legally.

This Bugs Bunny episode was banned because of racist content on Cartoon Network, ABC and WB! Bugs Bunny impersonates a black slave to get past the character Yosemite Sam. Bugs cover is blown when he starts to play ‘Yankee Doodle’ on his guitar, followed by him begging Sam not to beat him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8D93Awa434

 

This Betty Boop advert was banned as well because of drug usage. Although laughing gas is legal, way back it was considered a bad drug as it resulted in unnatural actions. Betty Boop tries to remove the other characters tooth but it doesn’t budge, so she resorts to laughing gas and it is left on so starts spreading out the window and into the street where it affects the public.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Tb4TMibk0

Bibliography
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/42
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/6
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66
http://www.terramedia.co.uk/reference/law/UK_media_law/FilmsAct1985.htm
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/39
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17

Task 2

Case Study

The sector I will be exploring is Film. For our final major project we have planned to create an Animation, both genres work alongside each other. An animation film is made up of a series of individual images, more commonly known as frames. When the images are displayed more rapidly, the viewer has the illusion that the motion is occurring. I will specifically be looking into the structure, public and private ownership, production and distribution, and lastly the impact on marketing.

The major studios main role is distribution, not necessarily production. The main studios are primarily positioned in the United States; they also have international distribution markets. They are known in the mass entertainment business, looking for the widest possible audience to their product. To successfully do this the film has to be distributed widely enough for the cinema going audience so that the greatest number of people sees it. The film Jaws (1975) opened with just 200 prints, but now 30 years forward, a major picture would open with around 3000 screens. The marketing spend on print and advertising averages as $50 million, 80% spent in the three weeks leading up to the opening date, as well as the first week of the release. The six big Hollywood studios are, Walt Disney, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, 20^th Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. The development starts from a script to package, taking up to three years. The type of movies that the big studio tend to produce target their audience at 12-24 year olds, starring major stars or use an A-list director. The storyline will then usually be an adaptation of a best seller, re-work of an old film, sequel, copy-cat films and foreign re-makes. This is because they want to minimize the financial risk of losing loads of money. They then move onto pre-production, this involves storyboards, production boards, schedules, getting permits, budgets, finding a costume designer, renting sound stages, rehearsals, and so on. This is followed by the shooting phase, then the post-production. This is when they try to fix holes in the script, edit, sound, foley, special effects, music, colour, title, make trailers, etc. Getting the budget right is extremely important, this involves salaries, vehicles, stunt men & women, transportation for the stars, insurance, special effects, explosives, make up, hair, costumes, crowd control, parking permits, shooting permits and so on.

Independent films are movies that have been made without any help from the major Hollywood studios to distribute it. A successful independent film maker is Harvey Weinstein, him and his brother wanted to push the vision away from Hollywood and not involve Paramount and all the other big companies. The film ‘Half Nelson has proved to be a very successful independent film; Ryan Gosling became a well-known actor after this. It started off as a short film, and then developed at the Sundance to a feature film. Ryan Gosling also received an Academy Award nomination. Independent films are made all over the word, the easiest place where your cast and crew can meet together as cheaply as possible. For an independent film maker, nothing can be wasted. Time, money and resources are carefully used. Compared to Hollywood movies, Independent also have to make sacrifices such as using extras from the neighbourhood to play certain parts, even if they aren’t trained actors. Some producers will work with Warp films, Film 4 or the BBC to secure extra funding and to help with distribution. Orin Peli, who made Paranormal Activity for $ 15,000, needed Paramount to help distribute his film, in the end he made over $190 million. Our animation for the final major project is an independent film, we have chosen a room at college to shoot, this is for easy access to all meet and it’s a lot cheaper than travelling around. We will be borrowing equipment and we have made all of our own sets and characters for the animation, at an extremely low budget.

The five major distributors that dominate Media Ownership in the United Kingdom are United International pictures, Warner Bros, Buena Vista, 20^th Century Fox and Sony. The main exhibitors will still prioritise the Hollywood films over the UK, due to the higher budgets. Hollywood films are distributed through a method called ‘blanket release’, this means that it is more likely for an independent film to be able to make it to the larger exhibitors but would have to compete with the major box office films. A major downfall which is having an effect on the film industry is piracy; it’s available to anyone with internet access and can be downloading almost instantly after a released film. Websites such as ‘Love Film’ are trying to stop piracy by offering a subscription service to download films. These types of websites target the main audience who are more likely to be downloading illegally. 

Who Owns What?
Disney

·         Film companies such as Touchstone, Walt Disney, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films

·         Financial Partner with Sid R

·         They own ABC.com, Oscar.com, ESPN.com, NBA.com, etc.

·         Interactive games and music – Hollywood Records, Mammoth Records, Walt Disney Records.

·         Theme Parks

Time Warner Inc.

·         Owns Warner bros, WB television network, Warner Home video, Warner Bros Theatres, Cartoon Network, New Line Cinema, etc.

·         Time Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, etc.

·         Atlantic Records, Elektra, & 49 other music production companies

·         Amazon, Quack.com

Viacom

·         Owns Paramount Pictures

·         Blockbuster

·         UPN 18 Television stations

News Corp

·         20^TH Century Fox studios, Fox Searchlight pictures, Fox television studios

·         One paper in the USA, 5 Newspapers in the UK, 20 in Australia.

There are two types of companies who deal in movies, traditional distribution companies and film marketing services. Film marketing services shop the film around to film distributors for a price. Marketing companies may have contacts within distribution companies which will make it easier to get the film into distribution. Unlike a film marketing company, a distribution company does all the work to bring your movie to the market, either to the movie theatre or straight to DVD. For an independent film, the distributor will expect at least 30%-70% of everything the movie makes. The UK Film council has aimed to get wider distribution in UK cinemas. The development fund is the biggest of its kind in Europe with £15 million available over the next three years, currently there are 100 films in development. A number of initiatives have now developed for non-mainstream film in the distribution and exhibition sector; a capital fund for the creation of a ‘digital screen network’ using higher-specification digital equipment, specialised prints and advertising to support winder release, a fund for digital equipment, etc.

This chart is taken from boxofficemojo.com. It shows the number 1 movie from each year, in the past 10 years. The Avengers was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, Harry Potter is Warner Bros, Toy Story 3 is Walt Disney Pictures, Avatar is 20^th Century Fox, The Dark Knight is Warner Bros, Spider-Man 3 is Columbia Pictures, Dead Man’s Chest is Walt Disney Pictures, Revenge of the Sith is 20^th Century Fox, Shrek 2 is DreamWorks Pictures, Return of the King is New Line Cinema, and lastly Spider-Man is Columbia Pictures. This shows that the number one movie for each year tends to be one of the big six. Another factor I have noticed is as the average price of a ticket goes up; the number of tickets sold slowly goes down. The reasoning for Cinema tickets being sky high is making a film and distributing is a lot more expensive than it used to be, the cost to run a theatre also adds to this.

The social media way of marketing indie films involves social networking, blogging and video sharing. Social networking is a great way to market a film for absolutely free. A fan page helps keeps discussions in one place; it should include the trailer, description of the film, related events, link to a website and a release date. One the basics are there, the film needs to be publicised by posting teasers, interviews, contests, etc. Twitter is also good to spread the word around quickly; using hash tags has the same effect as a fan page by keeping it all in one place. Blogs are effective if posts are updated regularly, production logs and shooting updates will give an insight to what’s going on. Video sharing has the same effect as social networking sites; this will get the film viewed and an audience. Slumdog Millionaire is a British made film, gaining the most money and awards a British film has ever gained. Film4 gave the film a funding of £10,000,000. They also took the film to Celador Films who gave them £8,000,000 for the production of the film. Celador also have many rights to the television programme, ‘who wants to be a millionaire?’, and Slumdog Millionaire includes that TV show in the film. The owner of Celador then sold the rights to two distributors, Warner International, which allowed distribution in America, resulting in a large American audience. As well as Pathé, allowing distribution to the European. Pathé focused on digital marketing to build awareness of the film with the public, they appointed digital media agency Tug to work with them, and they also targeted niche audiences such as Indian movie goers. Tug launched targeted banners across the Google content network; they also worked with Google to play trailer ads. The overall result from the marketing resulted in them smashing UK box office records, and winning 7 Bafta awards and 8 Oscars. 

Hollywood films are marketed on a lot larger scale. This includes word of mouth, posters, national magazines, trailers, viral, premieres and of course social networking. An example is Avatar, the released a simple teaser poster months before the film’s release day to excite the audience. As the release date was moving closer, more detailed posters were being shown, including more information about the film. Avatar also released exclusive photos in a magazine two months before the release date, again to excite the audience. There was also a teaser trailer, 2 minutes long, released in cinemas and online; it only included one line of dialogue. Closer towards the release date, a longer trailer was shown internationally giving more of the story away. The premiere was extremely exclusively, to keep with the brand marketing; a blue carpet was used instead of a red carpet. The public had the chance to enter competitions to win tickets for the premier, with all expenses paid for and a night in a London hotel.  In addition to this, Coca Cola partnered with 20^th Century Fox in another competition for the premiere. Extreme increase and popularity of social networking sites allowed a successful Twitter campaign by McDonalds with daily word scrambles and a prize of a private screening to Avatar. Avatar had a Twitter page, Facebook page, YouTube Channel and a MySpace profile. From this, Hollywood movies have a lot higher chance of promoting their film as they can use other globally famous companies that are well known. They can also spend a lot more money on trailers, posters, and other effective ways to make the audience want to view the film.

From this case study, it’s clear that distributors and marketing play a massive role in making the film as successful as possible. Independent films are becoming more up and upcoming, especially in the UK. It’s given me a better understanding on the process, and what we have to be considering whilst making our animation, and the promoting after.

Bibliography
http://www.ekunji.com/film_and_animation/films_and_animations.htm
Used to find out how animation and film are similar.

http://www.creativeskillset.org/film/knowledge/article_5110_1.asp
The major film companies.

http://www.writing-world.com/screen/film1.shtml
How the big Hollywood films are made.

http://www.videojug.com/interview/independent-film-basics-2
Independent film information.

http://suite101.com/article/three-routes-to-indie-film-distribution-a127469
Independent film distribution.

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/?view2=domestic&view=releasedate&p=.htm
Figures on cinema viewings.

http://www.zacuto.com/how-to-market-your-film-the-social-media-way
Independent film marketing.

Making the Animation

Creating the Set

 

Myself and Sam created everything that will appear in the animation. We spent half a day on a wednesday and a full day on a Thursday. The process of painting was really time consuming and would have been better if we had longer, or had more people to paint. We used paper, acrylic paint and pastels.

This photo shows some of the backgrounds that we completed. As you can see there is a mixture, ranging from plain coloured backgrounds which will animate objects on and more detailed backgrounds that have everything that is needed in that particular scene. There are several flags as our character is travelling to each country it's very easy to show the audience where he is and we will also relate objects to give a representation of the country.

This photo shows some of the objects that we created. Some objects are relevant to him ageing throughout his life, for example GCSE results, 18th birthday cake, graduate hat and so on. Most of our objects are just to understand the scene easier such as books, different types of foods, cocktails, fishes, tree, etc. We also plan to make emotions with our objects, like a love heart for when the Bill and Amy fall in love, or tears when one of the characters is sad.

Unit 53: Marketing and Public Relations

Task 3

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

·         Good quality

·         Strong Brand (Walkers)

·         Appealing packaging

·         Strong USP – unusual shape

Weaknesses

·         The flavours give a strong smell whilst eating and after.

Opportunities

The marketing and advertising allowed the new packaging to be a success.

Threats

·         Other crisp companies that cater the same flavour. Space Raiders - Pickled Onion flavoured and Beef, Hula Hoops – Beef flavoured, Discos – Beef flavoured and Pickled Onion, Meanies – Pickled Onion flavoured.

Unit 53: Marketing and Public Relations

Task 1&2

Case Study

What is marketing?

Marketing is a process that focuses on the wants and needs of consumers, by doing this it enables products to be delivered that satisfy them.

There are several stages to the marketing strategy process. The first one being ‘Understand Customer’, to do this a clear picture of the target audience needs to be developed.  The next step is to ‘Analyze the Market’ which consists of basic market research to find data such as total available market, market growth, market trends, etc.  After this is ‘Analyze the Competition’, asking yourself what other choices the target customers have to solve their pain point, as well as researching the strengths and weaknesses. Step four is to ‘Research Distribution Channels’ by thinking about the best way to deliver the product or service to the target audience. The next one is ‘Defining Your Marketing Mix’, this is includes product, price, place and promotion. Followed by ‘Analyzing the Financials’, putting together a marketing budget and evaluate marketing ROI, customer acquisition costs and so on. The last stage is to ‘Review and Revise’, evaluating the effectiveness of the marketing strategy and extend as needed.

Monster munch is a baked corn snack available in the UK produced by walkers. Monster munch was launched in Britain in 1977 by Smiths, originally called ‘The Prime Monster’. In 1978 the decision was made to rename the snack ‘Monster Munch’. It was advertised as ‘the biggest snack pennies can by’. The four original monsters were advertised were; a Pink monster – Roast beef flavour, Blue monster – Smokey bacon, Yellow monster – Pickled onion and an Orange monster – Prawn cocktail. Throughout the years they’ve had limited editions available for a short period of time, ‘baked beans’ was made available in 2003 for comic relief, ‘vanilla ice cream’ was released in 2004 but received mainly a negative reaction, the type of monster munch was non-savoury and contained sugar instead of salt. In 2008 Monster Munch was re-launched, the crisps returned to their original larger size, featuring three of the original four monsters. Since the launch of the new retro packaging, roast beef monster munch outsells Walkers cheese and onion wherever they are sold together. All three monster munch flavours reside in the top 20 snacks within this sector. The retro designed packs have contributed to a 35% growth on the big eat version of this favourite snack, taking the brand to £47 million. 

Target Audience

The main target audience is students aged 18-24 for whom food is not a major priority; it has to fit around a life style of college and working part time, sport, drinking, clubbing, sleeping. Research showed it’s a number one snack for fun and hunger filled men aged 18-24. Research also shows that there is a preference for the old texture, flavour, crunchiness and the larger pieced corn snack. As well as appealing to the core target consumer, it’s also now broadened the audience to people who remember eating Monster Munch in the 70s, 80s and 90s.  The brand manager says:

‘It's great that a product like this can evoke so many memories for people and we think the re-launch will appeal to the big kid in us all!'

Advertisement

Monster munch had a series of 80s TV commercials. The advertising campaign that accompanied the launch of ‘Mega Monster Munch’ was linked to the original advertising series. It was to bring back memories of the children at that time.

The website http://www.megamonstermunch.com/main.html also promotes the brand. The links include: monster blog, celebrity fans, meet the monsters, play pap the monsters, bigger snacks like 1977 and posters, masks & more.

Monster munch also done a promo for their retro t-shirts. All you had to do was buy 3 packets of Mega Monster Munch in the UK and send the empty packets and a cheque for £5 to redeem the t-shirt. The promo was interesting to engage to the customers. Instead of having an on-pack gift, the customers had the choice whether they wanted the t-shirt or not. By asking costumers to collect and send in a certain number of empty packets also increase the sales.

The Nine Functions Of Marketing

In order for the marketing bridge to work correctly, providing customers with opportunities to purchase the products and services they need, the marketing process must accomplish nine important functions.

·         Product/service management: assisting in the design and development of products/services that will meet the needs of the costumers.

·         Marketing Information Management: managing and using market information to improve decision-making.

·         Financing: Budgeting for marketing activities, providing financial assistance to customers to assist them with purchasing the organisations products.

·         Purchasing: Planning and procedures necessary to obtain goods and services for the use in business or resale.

·         Pricing: Establishing the value of products and services to customers.

·         Distribution: Determining the best methods to be used, so the customers are able to locate, obtain and use the product.

·         Promotion: Communicating information to prospective customers through advertising and other promotional methods to encourage them to purchase the product.

·         Selling: Direct communication to the customers in order to assess needs and satisfy those needs with appropriate services.

·         Risk Management: Planning, controlling, preventing business losses.        

In 1977 Monster Munch was retailed for a price of 5-10 pence, which weighed at 26g. Now you can purchase a bag for around 50 pence for a smaller bag of 22g. Although the price of monster munch is above normal food price inflation the price increases are broadly in line with the price of maize.

This chart shows one line that’s based on the price of a standard packet of monster munch, and one that reflects both the price and the inflation hidden by the shrinkage of the package.  The hidden inflation results from a 15% reduction in the packet size. This makes an additional large different to monster munch inflation.

The four Utilities of Marketing

The marketing process must also add utility to the products consumers want. There are four types of utility: form, place, possession and time.

Form Utility

A product must be processed into a form that the customer wants or needs. Examples include: wheat processed into bread, trees are processed into lumber, and potatoes are processed into chips.

Place Utility

This is about transportation. How are they transported to the location to where consumers can buy them? Modern day transportation systems make this possible.

Possession Utility

This establishes legal ownership of a product. When you buy something you receive a receipt, this is proof of legal ownership and gives you the right to use the product. Computer software is an example where you have to provide a user license; the license gives you the right to use the product within certain guidelines.

Time Utility

This is described as being in the right place at the right time when a customer is ready to purchase a product. Creating and keeping the customers means having products available for when they want them. This often involves a storage facility. Carrying on from the first example, wheat is an example o a commodity that must be stored after it is harvested. It is stored until its ready to convert into food products such as bread or cereals.

Examples of Good PR

·         Victoria Beckham has been getting a lot of press (April 2012) after helping to design the limited edition Range Rover Evoque.

·         The supermarket Lidl, whose mayonnaise has been crowned top of the egg-based condiments in a taste test by consumer watchdog, received good PR.

·         Burger King offers a variety of healthy salads, they have launched a new advertising campaign with Salma Hayek ordering salads under three different personalities.

·         JK Rowling announced that she is working on a Harry Potter encyclopedia and will donate the royalties to charity.

·         Adele has been announced Britain’s richest musician under the age of 30, with a fortune of 20 million pounds.

Examples of Bad PR

·         Google’s android market has come under fire for allowing an app called ‘HoboHunt’ to be available for download. The app was rejected three times by Apple and cannot be found on the Iphone app store. It has been branded as ‘sick’ and ‘appalling’ on Twitter, but most people are using the app to take pictures of friends and family members and using it more of a joke.

·         The TV show, ‘The Voice’ has gained some bad press courtesy of rival show Britain’s Got Talent, who have accused the shows producers of ‘dirty tricks’ in the ratings war.

·         Tesco has cut plans to open new stores by more than a third; investors are concerned about Tesco’s profit warning.

·         KFC, following a poorly judged message that was sent out through its Facebook page. Following the tsunami scare in Thailand, KFC posted the following message, ‘Lets hurry home and follow the earthquake news. And don’t forget to order your favourite KFC menu.’

                                                                                  

Bibliography

http://www.easy-marketing-strategies.com/marketing-strategy-process.html

http://assets.ycnonline.com/briefs/0910_Monster_Munch.pdf

http://www.standoutuk.com/our-work/monster-munch-repackaging/

http://www.pepsico.co.uk/our-company/trade-information/trade-media-centre/trade-news/look-whos-back

Character Profile

My set task was to create the character profile. Although our characters are animation and will not be real people, i still had to give the character real life characteristics so the audience could relate to the personality of the character.

Name: Bill
Age: Various ages - From a baby until 30 Years old.
Nationality: British
Hometown: London
Siblings: Two Brothers
Height: 162cm
Weight: 9 Stone
Eye Colour: Blue
Hobbies: Football, Shopping, Reading, Cinema
Best Quality: Not giving up when wanting to achieve something.
Greatest Flaw: But can be lazy when wants to be!

Bill needs to be drawn in a lot of different positions. The first silhouette that we will see of him is when he is a baby, this will be shown as crawling. But even when he is crawling he needs to be drawn several times with the knee's and hands in different positions giving the illusion of crawling. As well as giving the illusion of walking as he grows up, other silhouettes of him standing still need to be shown, simple things such as looking down, looking up, looking the other way, etc. When he is in other countries doing activities such as sky diving and swimming, we need to have him in these positions as well. Making our main character is going to be quite time consuming as each different position needs to be very similar so it flows through fluently. Bill won't be wearing any clothes or anything, he will just be a blocked colour silhouette. But he will have eyes, this is to show emotion more clearly. So the audience will be able to see happy eyes when he's feeling happiness, sad eyes when he's feeling unhappy, etc. The other character is a female, she will appear throughout the story as well, she has the same concept of lots a blocked silhouette.

Understanding the Creative Media Sector (Task 1)

Each of the media industries are vital to the UK's economic success, as well as to the quality of our society and our lives.


Film Industry
The film industry refers to six different parts: development, production, facilities, distribution, exhibition and export. The companies existing today are approximately 43% production, 13% distribution and 44% are exhibition companies. Research shows that in 2006 the UK film industry contributed 4.3 billion to the UK economy. In 2007 the UK film production was 747 million, inward investment productions including Harry Potter and the Half Blood Price and Chronicles of Narnia.
The UK has the largest amount of digital screens in Europe, usually the cinematic release of a film builds its reputation, but over half the revenues of the industry come from DVD rental. Film theft is one of the major challenges for the industry, it was estimated to reduce the film market by 404 million.


The animation industry faces challenges and opportunities that affect its various sub-sectors in different ways. To stay secure in the international market for animation, the UK's animation business relys strongly on a highly skilled workforce that responds to the markets needs.


Interactive Industry
The interactive industry overlaps with other sectors. Its worth several billion pounds and employs around 34,300 people a year. Overall it represents around 7% of the total creative industries. The market for interactive media contributes to larger markets, taking into account those who buy from it and those who are supported by it. The biggest being online advertising. Having a strong definition of this sector is difficult as the pace of change is very rapid, as well as the different companies and individuals involved in interactive media.


Publishing Industry
The publishing industry is one of the biggest earners in the UK creative media industries, it generates a turnover of £10.1 billion. The sectors that come under this topic are:

• Books
• Journals
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Directories
• and Other information services

 This chart shows the main areas of employment in this certain sector. The industry tends to consist of small companies, 88% of them having less than 10 employees. The main area of employment is London and the South East area. The main skill to have is to understand what the customers want, as well as communication skills and project managment skills. These job rolls are critical.


Radio Industry
There are three board categories: publicly-funded radio, commerical radio and the community or voluntary radio - such as students, hospital radio. The industry is growing steadily, and employs over 22,000 people. Employers range in size from the BBC and larger commerical radios, to community radio stations run mainly by volunteers. About a quater of the workforce is freelance or employed on contracts of less than a year. About half the workforce are female, the radio industry employs a relatively low proportion of people from minority ethic groups.


Television Industry
There are nine terrestrial broadcasters. They include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, S4C, SMG, and UTV. They are also known as 'public service broadcasters'. There are also around 300 cable and satellite broadcasters, these sectors include Virgin media, Discovery, Disney, Viacom, and a number of niche broadcasters catering for the audiences interests. The largest part of the industry is comprised of around 800 independent production companies, they make the well-known programmes such as X Factor and Big Brother. These companies generate between £100-200m per year and employ thousands a year.
In 2008 the gross value added for radio and TV combined to a total of £3.2 billion.
Television is going through a rapid change, some of the challenges are:

• Faster predicted growth of broadband in the UK
• Tradional TV buisness models challenged by audience fragmentation and move to advertising on the internet
• Growth of the indie sector (independent production companies)