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.