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Audiences and Institutions
The Film Industry
Section B Institutions and Audiences A case study of the Film industry
1 Exam Question - 45 minutes
Of these seven key areas, one will be the focus of the exam question. For example:
“Discuss the issues raised by an institutions need to target specific audiences within a media industry which you have studied.”
the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice; The importance/influence of the ‘big six’: Disney, Paramount, Warner, Universal, Columbia and 20t C.Fox.
the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing;
Internet, newspapers, radio, television, billboard posters, Social Media (Facebook/Twitter) etc.
the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange;
Such things as Netflix, Love Film, 3D, home cinema, Digital camera/projector.
the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences; Eg. 3D, Digital Camera/projector, home cinema, Smart TVs, Laptops, Tablets , the effect of Piracy etc
the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences; Internet, Netflix, Love Film, home cinema, Smart TVs, Laptops, Tablets etc. , Social Media like Facebook and Twitter.
the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions
How are we targeted? How much choice do we have?
the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.
Where, When and How do you watch films? What do you watch? How typical are you? Piracy?
To be successful in the exam you must be able to confidently discuss any of the seven key areas.
You must make clear references to real examples of films, directors, studios, production companies, distributors and exhibitors.
You will be expected to show a good overall knowledge of the Film Industry.
Production
Distribution
Exhibition
The first three things you will
need to know about are:
Production
Distribution
Exhibition
.
Someone has an idea for a film. They create an outline and use it to promote interest in the idea. A studio or independent investor decides to purchase rights to the
film. People are brought together to make the film (screenwriter,
producer, director, cast, crew). The film is completed and sent to the studio. The studio makes a licensing agreement with a distribution
company. If the film has been filmed in celluloid, the distribution company
determines how many copies (prints) of the film to make. The distribution company shows the film (screening) to
prospective buyers representing the cinemas. The buyers negotiate with the distribution company on which
films they wish to lease and the terms of the lease agreement.
The Film Distributors are responsible for marketing and publicity.
The better the publicity the more people see the film and the more money that is made.
The prints / digital downloads are sent to the cinemas a few days before the opening day.
The cinema shows the film for a specified number of weeks (engagement).
You buy a ticket and watch the movie. At the end of the engagement, the theatre sends the
print back to the distribution company and makes payment on the lease agreement.
Refers to the making of the film:
Finding the idea
Writing the script
Pitching it to a studio
Setting a budget
Casting stars and employing a
crew
Filming
Editing
For a film to go into
production it needs investors
to provide the necessary
funding.
Box office is success is never
certain and so investors try to
reduce the risk of losing their
money by becoming involved in
important decisions
Key questions that they will ask are:
Is the film’s storyline similar to other
films that have made money recently?
Does it offer easy selling points?
Are there obvious marketing spin offs to
give added publicity?
Is the star popular?
Had the director had previous successes?
If the answer to any of theses questions is no
then changes will be made to the “package”
(the details of the film) to make sure all the
answers are yes! Otherwise the investors will
take their money else where.
In recent years the big studios – Sony, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and Disney have dramatically cut the number of films they make (up to 50% less).
At the same time they are increasing budgets to the $150-$200 million range.
On the release of each film they will spend at least $100 million to promote a blockbuster around the world.
Only half of box-office goes to the Film Studios (rest to cinema owners).
Therefore a total budget of $250 million has to have a box office above $500 million to make a profit.
In 2013 there are a large number of blockbusters (19) which is far more than ever before.
In the past a maximum of nine blockbusters have done well in any one year.
Because it still makes financial sense for the Film Studios.
The top ten most successful films are blockbusters.
“Man of Steel” cost $225 million. First two weeks box office = $400 million.
“Fast and Furious” cost $160 million. Box office =$666 million.
The big studios have made up for the dramatic loss in revenue from DVD sales (used to be half their profits) by boosting box office outside America.
In the past international box office sales were 50%. Now it is 70% (2013).
So sure are film studios of their Blockbuster policy that they are mapping release schedules for five years ahead.
Robert Downey Jr has just signed to make two more “Avengers” films with Disney (release May 2015).
Sony/Columbia has announced it will release “Spider Man” films may ‘14, June ‘16 and May ‘18.
Steven Spielberg said in July 2013;
“There is going to be an implosion where three or four mega-budgeted films are going to go crashing to the ground.”
George Lucas (creator of “Star Wars”) says
“It’s a mess. It’s total chaos. In future there will be fewer but bigger cinemas and a revolution in pricing. Tickets may cost $50 -$100.
Going to the cinema will become an event / experience. The film will be secondary.
Soderbergh has announced he will make no more films for the big screen.
He is tired of the studios’ blockbuster strategy and the fact audiences lap it up.
Paul Webster (Producer of “Atonement” and “Anna Karenina”) says:
“It is as hard as it has ever been to get serious stuff of the ground. This is mainly because films have become events and turned into a spectacle. Big blockbusters are like stadium bands playing big arenas. If you are trying to do interesting things you are forced to ever smaller venues.”
He believes television is where the most interesting stuff is being made. He cites “Homeland”, “The Wire” and “Broadchurch” to back up his view.
Before a director can start filming a film has to be “greenlit”.
At this stage a project will generally be fully financed and have most of the key elements such as principal cast, director and cinematographer in place, as well as a screenplay which is satisfactory to all the financiers.
If it is not “greenlit” it can not go ahead.
Figgis has been oscar nominated and his films include: “Stormy Mondays”, “Internal Affairs” and “Leaving Las Vegas”.
He is annoyed that the British Film Industry is ‘defeatist’ in attitude and outdated in structure.
He claims it does not help young British film makers.
He says:
“Film-makers cannot flourish and grow unless you give them room to do so.”
“Creativity cannot exist in a system of committees”
Figgis believes we are now producing unoriginal films.
The films made are either: Depressing working class council estate
films or historical costume dramas.
Without a big star name it is impossible to get finance.
The British film industry will not fully embrace the digital revolution – particularly with regard to distribution.
Our brightest and best film makers are forced to go toAmerica.
China and other developing countries provide an ever increasing proportion of film revenues – International markets = 70% of cinema box office.
Film Production Companies are increasing aware that they need to produce films that will appeal to market.
For 80 years Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard has been one of America’s greatest tourist attractions.
The biggest movie stars put their hand and footprints into wet cement.
It is symbolic that a Chinese television manufacturer has bought the rights $5million.
The Chinese are investing far more in American Cinema.
September ‘12 the Dalian Wanda Group bought ACM Entertainment – America’s second largest cinema chain for $2.6 million.
In 2012 China overtook Japan to become biggest movie market after America.
In 2012 box-office revenues shot up by 36% to $2.7 million.
2000 cinema screens built Jan-March ‘12 alone.
By 2020 China will be biggest film market in world.
Film Producers are trying to satisfy Chinese consumers and pacify their government which regulates the number of foreign films released (currently 34).
American film producers release substantially different versions of their films in China.
American film Producers are changing the content and tone of the films they produce.
For Producers it is the non-American (especially Chinese) teenager who counts now.
“Iron Man 3” had different scenes and characters added in specially for the Chinese market (leading actress Fan Bingbing).
In addition the actor Wang Xueqi was included alongside Robert Downey Junior in the version of the film screen everywhere.
“Iron Man 3” has taken $1.2 billion at the box office.
“World War Z”
The plot was changed to avoid upsetting Chinese censors.
The scene that suggested the Zombie plague originated in China was cut from the exported film.
This American film (from writers of “The Hangover”) has been significantly re-worked for the Chinese market.
For America it is about three College guys (including a Chinese student) who bond over ‘boozing’ and ‘bonking’.
For the Chinese market it has been re-edited.
Chinese audiences will see a moralistic film about the dangers of the hedonistic west and the need to embrace one’s roots!
The market for Films in Russia and Brazil is growing fast too!
Katherine Butler is the Head of Film 4’s Low Budget Feature Department.
Katherine Butler took on her role in 2009. Film 4’s Low Budget Department has turned out award winning titles including “Tyrannosaur”, “Dreams of a Life”, “Kill List” “The Deep Blue Sea” and “Berberian Sound Studio”.
“The Guardian” said:
These films stand for a bold new wave of British film making: cinematically confident, generically ‘tricksy’, compelled by disturbing, ambivalent subject matter.
Direct quotes from Katherine Butler 31/12/12 “The Guardian”.
“You are always going to fail.”
“With risk comes failure as well as success and if we’re doing the films for the right reasons then you can learn from mistakes and move on.”
Butler said, “In 2009 I saw several micro-budget films that were already pushing boundaries with strong directorial voices. Every year since then two or three really strong, self financed pieces come through because technology is enabling that to happen.”
Katherine Butler maintains:
“The job for places like Film 4 and the BFI is to nurture people coming through this route (micro-budget films) and to help enable film makers who have already found their voice to continue to work with the most freedom in an industry that is a business as well as a place of artistic endeavour.”
“What counts as a low-budget for Film 4 –less than £2million – can still mark a massive increase for a previously self-financed film maker, without introducing the kind of pressure that tends to stifle experimentation.”
Katherine Butler says;
“Low-budget is a very risk friendly environment. It is an engine room for innovation. We want to work with directors again and again. Providing a home for new directors is very exciting.”
She maintains: “There are always films like “Tyrannosaur”
and “Kill List” which don’t do the highest box office but are so acclaimed they become stepping stones for their directors and have a long life.”
Finally she says: “It is the up and coming directors who get me
excited. These film makers are so confident in the way they take genre on, whether it’s comedy, thriller, horror or documentary. They are pushing at boundaries, evolving recognisable forms of cinema into something their own…….”
“That’s what excites us. The search for a new generation of directors with the ability to take British cinema to the next stage.”
Katherine Butler stresses:
“Pushing at boundaries is a key priority – low budget is the only place you can do that so you have to be working with directors who want to take that risk with you.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25977033
In starting to plan a marketing campaign, the film distributor has to decide how it will present a film to a potential audience.
They need to decide what sets this film apart from all the other films that are released – they look for a film’s ‘unique selling point’ (USP).
If, for example, the distributor is handling an adventure film, they will need to look for aspects of the film which set it aside from the other action adventure films.
After this they will look at such things as who stars in the film, are there new and spectacular special effects in the film and who is the director?
Taking all of these into consideration, the distributor will then decide which elements to stress in the marketing campaign (posters, trailers, etc.) i.e. how to position the film in the market place.
From the information you are given could you say what you think is the USP of three new films of your choice?
Go on imdb and find a print of hand out that goes with them with three films
Marketing is one of the most important aspects of a film’s distribution and there are many different ways to market a film.
Make a list of the different the ways you can market a film.
Posters Trailers Online and mobile content Special Screenings/Premieres Interviews/ articles Merchandising Festivals/ Awards
www.launchingfilms.com/releaseschedule Choose a film that has either been released
this week or is just about to be released. Create a PowerPoint presentation that covers
as much about the marketing strategy for that film as possible
Make a note of whether your chosen film is British or America
Record the name of the distribution company
Movie Marketing Basics
Distribution is concerned with ’getting the film out there’.
Publicity and Marketing are key features of the distribution process.
Every major Hollywood studio and movie distribution company has an internal department devoted to promotion.
The promotions department is responsible for designing and implementing an effective, cohesive advertising campaign across several different media platforms.
These include: theatrical movie trailers, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, the Internet and billboards.
The Film business is cyclical and seasonal by nature.
Major studio releases are clustered during the summer, Christmas and long holiday weekends like Thanksgiving, Memorial Day and Labour Day. Some important films are released in January to coincide with the Oscars.
With so many high profile movies fighting for the same audience, movie marketers need to figure out how to make their films stand out from the pack.
In recent years, the general tactic for the major studios has been to "go big.“
For expensive, blockbuster movies, the marketing campaign alone can cost as much as half of the total production budget. So if a film costs $80 million to make, the distributor might spend $40 million on advertising and promotion.
The hope, of course, is that all of this marketing money will pay off in ticket sales. One of the most important indicators of the success of a movie marketing campaign is the gross box office sales from the first weekend of a movie's release.
Opening weekend sales are a direct reflection of how much buzz and excitement has been generated by the promotional campaign.
Every movie is different. The promotions department must figure out
what type of campaign will be the most effective at reaching the target audience.
This requires researching the tastes and media-consuming trends of the target audience.
Based on this research, the movie marketers decide how much of their budget to spend on each different media outlet.
The main responsibility of a publicist is to get positive press coverage for his client.
To do this, the publicist needs to create and maintain good relationships with journalists by sending them original, insightful, timely story ideas that involve the client in some way.
Publicists handle all interview requests for the stars of the film – form newspapers, magazines, TV Talk Shows etc.
To protect the client from any surprises, publicists will ask the journalist exactly what the story is about and what questions s/he plans to ask.
In some cases, the publicist will ask to be present at the interview to make sure that the client doesn't comment on sensitive issues or make remarks that could look bad in the papers.
Publicists often organize press tours for actors, celebrities and authors. The publicist makes all the travel arrangements for the client, sets up locations, arranges for press passes and even accompanies the client on the road.
As the release date of the film draws closer, movie marketers try to get early favourable press coverage in newspapers, magazines and on entertainment TV shows.
The main movie publicity tactic is something called a press junket.
At a press junket, journalists, entertainment reporters and movie critics are flown out to a special location for a day or weekend of interviews with the stars and creators of the film. The actors, directors and screenwriters sit in separate rooms and the reporters are brought in one by one to ask their questions.
Press junkets are highly controlled environments where interviews are often attended by a publicist, who make sure interviews never veer from positive topics.
If you've ever seen a TV interview with an actor sitting in front of a poster of their movie, that's from a press junket.
The distribution of a film (or
movie) is the process through
which a movie is made available
to watch for an audience
This can happen in a variety of
ways:
a theatrical release,
a home entertainment release
DVD-video or Blu-Ray disc)
or a TV broadcast.
Every movie is different. The promotions department must figure out
what type of campaign will be the most effective at reaching the target audience.
This requires researching the tastes and media-consuming trends of the target audience.
Based on this research, the movie marketers decide how much of their budget to spend on each different media outlet.
The main responsibility of a publicist is to get positive press coverage for his client.
To do this, the publicist needs to create and maintain good relationships with journalists by sending them original, insightful, timely story ideas that involve the client in some way.
Publicists handle all interview requests for the stars of the film – form newspapers, magazines, TV Talk Shows etc.
To protect the client from any surprises, publicists will ask the journalist exactly what the story is about and what questions s/he plans to ask.
In some cases, the publicist will ask to be present at the interview to make sure that the client doesn't comment on sensitive issues or make remarks that could look bad in the papers.
Publicists often organize press tours for actors, celebrities and authors. The publicist makes all the travel arrangements for the client, sets up locations, arranges for press passes and even accompanies the client on the road.
As the release date of the film draws closer, movie marketers try to get early favourable press coverage in newspapers, magazines and on entertainment TV shows.
The main movie publicity tactic is something called a press junket.
At a press junket, journalists, entertainment reporters and movie critics are flown out to a special location for a day or weekend of interviews with the stars and creators of the film. The actors, directors and screenwriters sit in separate rooms and the reporters are brought in one by one to ask their questions.
Press junkets are highly controlled environments where interviews are often attended by a publicist, who make sure interviews never veer from positive topics.
If you've ever seen a TV interview with an actor sitting in front of a poster of their movie, that's from a press junket.
More than ever, publicists network with online bloggers and read and respond to comments on popular social networks.
In addition to a standard press tour, they might arrange for a live, online Q&A session with a popular fansite or interviews with podcasts.
The theatrical trailer is often the first chance to promote a movie to its target audience.
Starting up to a year before the release of a major studio movie, distributors run movie trailers that are meticulously edited and audience-tested.
The idea is to give moviegoers a taste of the laughs, special effects and plot twists of the studio's upcoming releases, while leaving them wanting more.
It's an art form that's usually handled by special trailer production houses
About the same time that the first trailers hit the theatres, the Film Studio will unveil an official Web site for the film.
Typical movie Web sites allow visitors to: view multiple versions of the trailer, watch behind-the-scenes interviews and mini-documentaries, read plot synopses, download cell-phone ringtones and desktop wallpaper, play games, chat in forums and even pre-order tickets. The official movie Web site is only the beginning of a much larger Internet marketing campaign.
Look up the website for “Iron Man 3” and 4 http://uk.marvel.com/iron-man-3/#/trailer-4
Weeks before the film opens nationwide, the promotions department starts an all-out publicityblitz.
The idea is to bombard the public with so many images and promos for the film that it becomes a "can't miss" event.
Film marketers will plaster the sides of buses with huge ads, place billboards all around the city, run tons of teaser trailers on TV, place full-page ads in major newspapers and magazines, and the movie's stars will show up on all of the major talk shows.
The Internet is proving to be a prime spot for publicity blitzes.
Promoters can place interactive ads on the Web sites most trafficked by their target audience.
They can also release behind-the-scenes clips, bloopers and other viral videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube.
Or they can release different media clips and let the fans create their own trailers.
Another popular strategy is to use highly visible product tie-ins and corporate partnerships.
In the weeks leading up to the release of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," images of the green Grinch appeared on packages of Oreos, boxes of Froot Loops and cans of Sprite.
Even the United States Postal Service got into the act, stamping letters with special "Happy Who-lidays!" messages.
For marketing children's movies, the Holy Grail for publicists is getting promotional gifts in McDonald's Happy Meals.
Brand and film partnership marketing seems more integrated than ever before
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227105#ixzz2ryW1VsEx
In many cases, brands are taking on the personalities of the movies, actually enacting the ethos of the films in their marketing and product experiences.
At the same time, brands are being woven into scripts as vital characters of their own
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227105#ixzz2ryW8XGkb
http://gigaom.com/2013/08/12/can-iron-man-save-a-brand-robert-downey-jr-tapped-for-htc-ads/
One final movie marketing strategy is the publicity stunt, an orchestrated media event where someone does something incredibly silly, dangerous or spectacular to draw further attention to the opening of the film.
An example is when the promoters of "The Simpsons Movie" transformed dozens of nationwide 7-Eleven convenience stores into replica's of Springfield's own Kwik-E Mart.
Films are released in “release windows". This keeps different instances of a movie from competing with each other.
In the standard release, a film is first released in the cinema (theatrical window),
After approximately 16 and a half weeks, it is released to DVD (video window).
After an additional number of months it is released to Pay TV and On Demand services and
A simultaneous release takes place when a film is made available on many media (cinema, DVD, internet) at the same time or with very little difference in timing.
What are the pros and cons of a simultaneous release?
Consumers have more choice Producers only need one marketing campaign
A straight to video (DVD/BluRay) release occurs when a movie is released on home video formats without being released in cinemas first.
STV releases used to be seen as a sign of poor quality
Have become a more profitable option in recent years. Especially for independent moviemakers and companies.
Research Task Find out all you can about the first ever “Tesco Films” Release.
Makers of smaller-budget movies are also putting to the test new release strategies.
Films are premiered on VOD (Video On Demand – Pay Per View) systems and received a limited theatrical release one month later.
Some major studios have considered making movies available to VOD services shortly after their theatrical release for a premium price.
Find out all you can about films that have been released in this way.
Originally a six months duration Today been reduced to little more than four months.[
Movie studios have reportedly been pushing to shrink the duration of the theatrical window.
Cinema owners have fought fiercely against this.
Why do you think studios are in favour but cinema chains are against shrinking the
theatrical window?
When we refer to “film exhibition” we are talking about how the pubic actually watches the film.
The cinema release of a film marks the final stage of one part of a film’s journey from idea to audience. It also
marks the beginning of a new journey from cinema to small screen. After its cinema release the film will then
be available on pay TV, free to air TV, as well as television. Each of these “exhibitions” of the film offers
the possibility of generating profits for both the film’s distributor and producers.
Each group will be responsible for discussing the pros and cons of their form of exhibition (watching a film).
You will present your findings to the rest of the group and as a class we will try to decide which way is the best.
The options are: Cinema, Television (VOD), DVD, Online –either through a pc/laptop or mobile phone
• Cinema
• DVD/BluRay/Downloads
• Subscription Television
• Free to air television
Of the “Film Value Chain” where do you think that films make the most money?
Why do you think this is?
There are several different
types cinema :
Multiplex
Imax
Art-house
screens
Cinema Chains:
Odeon
VUE
Everyman
Curzon
Empire
Cineworld
(see printed sheet)
How does the range of “cinematic
experiences” offered vary between
the Odeon/VUE and Curzon/Everyman
chains?
Do all cinemas within the same
chain show the same films? If not
why not?
Do you think all these cinema
chains attract the same types
audience? Why
Which of the films currently showing in cinemas have made the most money?
Look up this website.
www.screenrush.co.uk
Case Study - SHIFTY
o In recent years the production budgets for British films have been falling
o Was £2-3 million – Now £1-2 milliono There has been an expansion in films of
very low budget - known as ‘micro-budget’
o Shifty was made in 2008 under the Microwave scheme (UK Film Council)
o Microwave was set up to widen participation and access for young London-based filmmakers
o The scheme offers support for films to be made in 18 days and with a budget of less than £100,000
The film was written and directed by Evan Creevy
It is the second Microwave film to be released Released on 24th April 2009 Opened with 51 prints through independent
distributor Metrodome
Opening weekend – took £61,000 After 3 weeks down to 12 prints after
taking over £131,000 Final box office - £143,000 Note: that the release used both
traditional celluloid and digital prints
However, the cinema release for a film such as Shifty is mainly a marketing platform not a revenue generator
The majority of the revenue will come form the DVD/Blu-Ray rental and direct sales, television, cable and satellite
“Shifty is an action packed 24 hours in the life of a young crack cocaine dealer on the outskirts of London. The sudden return home of his best friend sets in motion a chain of events that see Shifty's life quickly spiral out of control. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer intent on setting him up. As his long time friend, Chris, confronts the dark past he left behind him, Shifty is forced to face up to the violent future he's heading fast towards.”
The film was distributed by Metrodome who marketed the film in the following ways:
Spent about £50,000 on prints, administration and advertising
They felt that the film was similar to Kidulthood/Adulthood and wanted to reach a similar audience – known as Urban Genre
They wanted to reach a young, urban audience
However, to maximise the reach of the film Metrodome produced three trailers all tailored to appeal to different audiences
It was felt that the film could also appeal to the middle-class Guardian reading audience
The trailer targeting this audience featured a more classical style soundtrack whilst the ‘urban’ trailer featured a hip-hop style soundtrack that didn’t actually feature in the film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsI1hPcNU9s
How to attract the young ‘urban’ audience?
This audience is highly proficient with New Media Technologies
Therefore a low-cost high-tech campaign would be the best way to reach the target audience
http://www.filmeducation.org/shifty/introducing.html (also on the blog)
Introducing Shifty The Production Context 1-4 The Production Context 5-8 Marketing Shifty
Watch/Read the transcripts – prepare to present the information to the rest of the class
To reach the target audience, adverts ran on pirate radio stations
Fly-posters were used The poster was simple & eye-catching with a
bold yellow background ‘Business cards’ representing the character of
Shifty as a drug-dealer were distributed which included the website
A viral marketing campaign was used via email
Emails were sent to various opinion formers in the media (e.g. The editor of Time Out magazine)
The email appeared to be from an official community organisation that had identified the recipient as a possible drug dealer
There was a link at the bottom of the email to the official Shifty website
There was a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority and the email was banned
However, the publicity actually helped to raise the profile of the film
A further viral campaign suggested that recipients ‘frame a friend’
Again the links took you to the Shifty website
The website included a competition whereby music from the film (by Molly Nyman and Harry Escott) could be downloaded and remixed to create a new track
The website stated: ‘We’re looking for remixes in a wide range of
styles, from dubstep to classical, the choice is yours’
The remixed track could then be uploaded and the producer of the best track would win:
‘£500 and time in a studio to complete your track with a professional producer’
Music was also recorded by the star of the film Riz Ahmed who is also a professional musician
Some of the tracks could be downloaded free from the website
A music video was also created that was uploaded to Youtube
There were also pages on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo
The marketing of the film represents an example of cross-media convergence with:
Posters Radio (adverts on pirate radio) A website Social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace,
Bebo) Email – viral marketing
Music – MP3 downloads CD – the soundtrack Youtube – the music video Cinema and television trailers (also on
Youtube) DVD/Blu-Ray
www.shiftyfilm.com
Discuss the issues raised by an institution’s need to target specific audiences within a media industry which you have studied.
50 marks
Discuss two case studies – 1 Hollywood Block Buster, 1 Independent film
Production practices that allow texts to be constructed for specific audiences.
Distribution and marketing strategies to raise audience awareness of specific products.
The use of new technology to facilitate more accurate targeting of specific audiences
Audience strategies in facilitating or challenging institutional practices.
What did the Distributor Metrodome find attractive about Shifty?
What kind of challenges does a film like Shifty present in marketing terms?
Contemporary newspaper report
An artist filmmaker she has received a number of Arts Council awards and made films that challenge, in different ways, how stories are told and which often cross the boundaries between fact and fiction.
Her work has been shown at major international festivals, at galleries, cinemas, on Channel 4, Film4 and has received many international broadcasts, including The Sundance Channel.
She has been the recipient of the Arts Foundation Fellowship for documentary film.
Morley’s first narrative feature film “Edge” - made on a micro budget - was premiered at The London Film Festival in 2010 and is due for a 2012 release. “Dreams of a Life” is her first documentary feature film.
http://www.watershed.co.uk/dshed/filmmaker-focus-carol-morley-cairo-cannon
The film’s world has been expanded by a website, (www.dreamsofyourlife.com), and now a new mobile game Would Anyone Miss You?, both created by digital agency Hide & Seek.
What’s your connection to the British Council?
Over the years the British Council have done a great site dedicated to international film festivals and I’ve always used that to find out about festivals and when to apply.
On the lucky occasions my films have been accepted I’ve applied for British Council travel grants for flights to attend them - and they’ve always been memorable experiences. Attending festivals abroad, meeting international filmmakers and connecting to a global filmmaking community is a highlight at the end of making a film and the British Council has been instrumental in sending me to these festivals.
Dogwoof was founded in 2004 by Andy Whittaker and Anna Godas, and originally concentrated on foreign films, including such titles as Don’t Move, Fateless, El Lobo, and Esma’s Secret.[1] They recently began to distribute documentaries such as Black Gold, Crude Awakening, and The Devil Came On Horseback.[1]
In July 2005, the company experimented by distributing James Erskine's EMRsimultaneously in Cinemas, on the internet through Tiscali ISP, and on DVD through its Home Entertainment division.
The move was notable since most films are released through different distribution channels on a staggered schedule, giving each channel an exclusive release window. Exhibitors were especially fearful, as many feared that they would eventually lose their exclusive release windows for more mainstream films.
In 2010 Dogwoof announced a deal with technology company Cisco to build social media websites using the Cisco Eos platform for each film release. Dogwoof was the first European customer for Cisco Eos. The first website launched was Good with Film.
Dogwoof also distribures social-issues documentaries such as Dirty Oil, Food, Inc. and Burma VJ.[6]
Box Office Opening Weekend: $3,085 (USA) (3 August
2012) Gross: $6,595 (USA) (10 August 2012) Company Credits Production Co: Cannon and Morley
Productions, Irish Film Board, Soho Moon Pictures See more »
Show detailed company contact informationon IMDbPro »
The website featured a narrative and questions from award-winning writer AL Kennedy alongside photography by Lottie Davies.
Dreams of a Life’s plans were created by Film 4 senior commission editor Katherine Butler and multiplatform commissioner Hilary Perkins as Film 4’s first cross-platform commission before Film4.0 launched but should offer an idea of the types of plans that Higgs will work on going forward. (The BFI and the British Council backed the SXSW initiatives.)
“The feature documentary is a project in and of itself, and the digital properties work with the themes of the film but exist in and of themselves as well. It’s about telling stories in parallel places,” Higgs says.
“What’s been wonderful from the stats of [Dreams of Your Life] so far is that we can demonstrably show that we brought a new audience to the feature documentary,” adds Higgs, who took the post of head of the new Film 4.0 in September 2011. “Tens of thousands of new audience members came across the film, but that’s because it was a quality creative experience in its own right.”
The website was an intense 25-30 minute experience for each visitor so having more than 16,500 users “is a really big win,” Higgs adds.
The website and streetgame can be used anywhere the film is being launched. “You’ve got this brilliant toolkit when you’re selling the film. It’s a wider-world toolkit that any distributor can plug in and use in their territory.”
• Dreams of a Life (2011)• Director – Carol Morley • A low-budget British film• This was a difficult film to market being an unusual combination of
documentary and actors recreating or approximating the real events surrounding the life and death of Joyce Vincent
This is the description of the film from the website:Would anyone miss you? Nobody noticed when Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit above a shopping mall in North London in 2003. Her body wasn’t discovered for three years, surrounded by Christmas presents she had been wrapping, and with the TV still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of her life– not even a photograph. Interweaving interviews with imagined scenes from Joyce’s life, Dreams of a Life is an imaginative, powerful, multilayered quest, and is not only a portrait of Joyce but a portrait of London in the eighties—the City, music, and race. It is a film about urban lives, contemporary life, and how, like Joyce, we are all different things to different people. It is about how little we may ever know each other, but nevertheless, how much we can love.
Official website
• This was a difficult film to market being an unusual combination of documentary and actors recreating or approximating the real events surrounding the life and death of Joyce Vincent
• The website operates like a game to try to appeal to a wider audience other than just the ‘art-house’ audience who would be the usual audience for such a film
• By having the game format the website was designed to also appeal to the ‘geeks’, gamers or web-designers. This is an audience that art-house films usually find difficult to reach
• This audience found the website and it was reviewed by the gaming community many of whom then saw the film.
• The film was therefore able to reach an alternative, difficult to reach, audience that wouldn’t normally see such a film
Example screen
• The film premiered in the USA at the South by SW Festival – which specialises in unusual and independent films and is considered to be a ‘cool’ place to show a film.
• At the festival the marketing team played a ‘street game’ taking pictures of people sending messages. These were then uploaded to the ‘wouldanyonemissyou’ website. The use of iPads to show the pictures caused some interest and helped the increase in ticket sales.
• In the USA it was marketed using the website• www.wouldanyonemissyou.com
Summary – Problems in marketing• Difficult to market film• Hard to reach audience• Low budget – can’t afford large advertising campaign
(posters, TV slots etc)
Effective Marketing Strategies:• Different marketing for UK and USA• Conventional website• Innovative website – the ‘game’• Appeals to hard to reach audience• Use of iPads• US website made use of publicity from South by SW
festival• Effective audience interaction – enabled audience to
personally relate to the themes of the film
Carol Morley came to prominence with her documentary The Alcohol Years, a BAFTA nominated, Grierson Awarded, festival winning film that was later released on DVD to critical acclaim.
The film masqueraded as an autobiography but became as much about the people in it as Morley herself - and was seen to define an era (the 80’s) and a place (Manchester).
Marketing is one of the most important aspects of a film’s distribution and there are many different ways to market a film.
Make a list of the different the ways you can market a film.
Posters Trailers Online and mobile content Special Screenings/Premieres Interviews/ articles Merchandising Festivals/ Awards
Directed by Gary Ross Produced by Nina Jacobson
Based on The Hunger Games bySuzanne Collins
A co-production from Lionsgate and ColorForce
Distributed by Lionsgate
When the film released, it set records for the opening day and opening weekend for a non-sequel
Opening day - $67.3 million Opening weekend $152.5
It is the first film since Avatar to remain in first place at the American box office for four consecutive weekends.
The movie was a massive box-office success by grossing $685 million worldwide against its budget of $78 million, making it the third highest grossing film in the United State in 2012.
The film was a success before it was officially released.
On February 22, 2012, The Hunger Games broke the record for first-day advance ticket sales on Fandango, topping the previous record of Eclipse (Twilight). The sales were reported to be 83 percent of the site's totals for the day
The film sold out in over 4,300 showings across the United States.
The Hunger Games is what studios call a “tentpole release”.
The term refers to a film that the studio expects to “prop up” the studio for that year.
In other words, they think it’s going to make a lot of money!
For Lionsgate – “The Hunger Games” For Summit Entertainment – “Twilight”
Lionsgate has generated this high level of interest with a marketing staff of 21 people working with a relatively tiny budget of about $45 million.
Bigger studios routinely spend $100 million marketing major releases, and have worldwide marketing and publicity staffs of over 100 people.
The studio has been able to spend so little largely because Mr. Palen has relied on inexpensive digital initiatives to whip up excitement.
Early promotion for “The Hunger Games” started in spring 2009, when Mr. Palen flew to New York to meet with publicity executives from Scholastic to learn about the book franchise.
While some studios have halted once-standard marketing steps like newspaper ads, Lionsgate used all the usual old-media tricks — giving away 80,000 posters, securing almost 50 magazine cover stories, advertising on 3,000 billboards and bus shelters.
However, the campaign’s centrepiece has been a phased, yearlong digital effort built around the content platforms cherished by young audiences:
Near-constant use of Facebook and Twitter, A YouTube channel, A Tumblr blog, Iphone games Live Yahoo streaming from the premiere.
The campaign really sprung into action in May 2011 when the Lionsgate team started methodically releasing information about the casting of the film via Facebook and Twitter.
Twitter became an integral part of the marketing campaign for “The Hunger Games”
Fans anticipating the film could actively engage with Lionsgate via social networking.
It was an easy way for fans to be constantly updated on the progress of the film and thus build momentum for the release of the film.
In July 2011 the first official poster was released via Facebook.
Later the same month the first look at photographs of the cast on set were released over twitter.
Early in August the official release date for the second film “Catching Fire” was released
They had a stand at Comiccon
Gave out copies of a new poster to fans
In August 2011 came a one-minute sneak peek, introduced online at MTV.com. People liked it but complained — loudly — that it wasn’t enough. “We weren’t prepared for that level of we-demand-more pushback,” Mr. Palen said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVNNHs3RZE&feature=player_embedded
The footage did include a Twitter prompt through which fans could discover a Web site for the movie, TheCapitol.pn.
The Capitol is where the Hunger Games take place. The site allowed visitors to make digital ID cards as if they lived in Panem, the movie’s futuristic society; more than 800,000 people have created them.
October included another Twitter stunt, this time meant to allow those ID makers to campaign online to be elected mayor of various districts of Panem.
November ‘11 marked the iTunes release of the main trailer, which received eight million views in its first 24 hours.
Again, Twitter was used to build up hype prior to the release.
In January 2012 posters were released that featured the main characters of the film.
On Dec. 15, 100 days before the movie’s release, the studio created a new poster and cut it into 100 puzzle pieces.
It then gave digital versions of those pieces to 100 Web sites and asked them to post their puzzle piece on Twitter in lockstep.
Fans had to search Twitter to put together the poster, either by printing out the pieces and cutting them out or using a program like Photoshop.
A 100-piece online puzzle.
“The Hunger Games” trended worldwide on Twitter within minutes.
“It was a silly little stunt, but it worked — bam,” Mr. Palen said.
A lavish Tumblrblog called Capitol Couture dedicated to the movie’s unique fashions.
“The Hunger Games Adventures” was released on the same day as the film and took the form of a social networking platform
One important online component involved a sweepstakes to bring five fans to the movie’s North Carolina set.
Notably, Lionsgate invited no reporters: The studio did not want consumers thinking this was another instance of Hollywood trying to force-feed them a movie through professional filters. “People used to be O.K. with studios telling them what to like,” Ms. DePalma said. “Not anymore. Now it’s, ‘You don’t tell us, we tell you.’ ”
Capitol TV arrived in February 2012
A YouTube channel designed to look like the official network of “Panem”.
It combined sneak previews of film footage and user-generated “Hunger Games” videos
“You’ve got to constantly give people something new to get excited about, but we also had another goal in mind,” Ms. DePalma said. “How do we best sustain online interest until the DVD comes out?”
Lions gate revealed a new trailer for the film at Americans Super Bowl in February 2012.
The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL) and is a huge event in America’s calendar
Throughout March 2012 various members of the cast toured “malls” (shopping centres) across America
Lionsgate joined Scribd, Donorschoose.Org, and Scholastic, for The Hunger Games national literacy month campaign
Throughout the month of September, any fan that read The Hunger Games in the Scribd social reader application was entered in “Read a Chapter, Win a Library” for a chance to win a classroom library of books for one of the public schools served by DonorsChoose.org.
From left, Julie Fontaine, Tim Palen and Danielle DePalma, the movie's marketers. The art lies in allowing fans to feel as if they are discovering a film, but in truth
Hollywood’s new promotional paradigm involves a digital hard sell in which little is left to chance — as becomes apparent in a rare step-by-step tour through the timetable and techniques used by Lionsgate to assure that “The Hunger Games” becomes a box office phenomenon
Along the way the studio had to navigate some unusually large pitfalls, chief among them the film’s tricky subject matter of children killing children for a futuristic society’s televised amusement.
The trilogy of novels, written by Suzanne Collins, is critical of violence as entertainment, not an easy line for a movie marketer to walk, even though the movie itself is quite tame in its depiction of killing.
“The beam for this movie is really narrow, and it’s a sheer drop to your death on either side,” said Mr. Palen, during an unusually candid two-hour presentation of his “Hunger Games” strategy at the studio’s offices.
A built-in fan base for “The Hunger Games” certainly helps its prospects. More than 24 million copies of “The Hunger Games” trilogy are in print in the United States alone. About 9.6 million copies were in circulation domestically when the movie’s marketing campaign intensified last summer, so Lionsgate’s efforts appear to have sold the book as well as the movie.
They assigned one team member to cultivate “Hunger Games” fan blogs.
Danielle DePalma, senior vice president for digital marketing, drafted a chronology for the entire online effort, using spreadsheets (coded in 12 colors) that detailed what would be introduced on a day-by-day, and even minute-by-minute, basis over months.
“Nov. 17: Facebook posts — photos, Yahoo brand page goes live.”)
The film was released in March 2012 in both conventional cinemas and digital IMAXcinemas.
Last summer, the Lionsgate team, including Nina Jacobson, a producer, and Joe Drake, then the studio’s top movie executive, started debating how to handle the movie’s subject.
The usual move would have been to exploit imagery from the games in TV commercials. How else would men in particular get excited about the movie? But Mr. Palen was worried.
This book is on junior high reading lists, but kids killing kids, even though it’s handled delicately in the film, is a potential perception problem in marketing,” he said.
One morning, he floated a radical idea: what about never showing the games at all in the campaign? Some team members were incredulous; after all, combat scenes make up more than half the movie. “There was a lot of, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t see how we can manage that,’ ” Mr. Palen recalled.
Eventually, he prevailed. “Everyone liked the implication that if you want to see the games you have to buy a ticket,” he said. Boundaries were also established involving how to position plot developments; in the movie, 24 children fight to the death until one wins, but “we made a rule that we would never say ‘23 kids get killed,’ ” Mr. Palen said. “We say ‘only one wins.’ ” The team also barred the phrase “Let the games begin.”
“This is not about glorifying competition; these kids are victims,” Mr. Palen said. A few months later, when a major entertainment magazine planned to use “Let the Games Begin” as the headline on a “Hunger Games” cover, Ms. Fontaine, traveling in London, frantically worked her cellphone until editors agreed to change it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/siliconangle/2012/03/25/how-a-startup-powered-hunger-games-into-a-global-social-phenomenon-a-money-machine/
• Released summer 2012• Prequel to the four previous Alien films• Directed by Ridley Scott – director of first Alien film
in 1979• Huge advance publicity – massive media/fan
speculation and sense of expectation.
• To fuel the sense of expectation four short ‘viral clips’ were released onto the web
• These created a detailed back-story to the film• The most significant of these clips used the increasingly well-
known and significant TED (Technology, Education, Design) conference
• It featured a character from the film, Peter Weyland, making a speech to the conference in 2023 some 50 years before the setting of the film
FROM THE TED WEBSITE:TED is a non-profit organisation devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.
The TED website describes Weyland, the keynote speaker, in the following terms:
Peter Weyland has been a magnet for controversy since he announced his intent to build the first convincingly humanoid robotic system by the end of the decade.
Whether challenging the ethical boundaries of medicine with nanotechnology or going toe to toe with the Vatican itself on the issue of gene-therapy sterilization, Sir Peter prides himself on his motto, “If we can, we must.” After a three year media blackout, Weyland has finally emerged to reveal where he’s heading next. Wherever that may be, we will most certainly want to follow.
Viral clips
Viral clip 2 – creation of the android David http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWmbqH
_z7jM
Viral clip 3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9PNTIZ
eJzY
SYNERGY These clips serve to created a detailed context for the
film and particularly appealed to the technologicallyadept and followers of the TED conference.
This represents an excellent example of SYNERGYwhereby both the film and TED benefit from beingassociated with each other. The film gains credibilityfrom being associated with TED and brings in anaudience who might not normally be interested in thefilm and TED gains by raising its international profile bybeing associated by such a high profile and eagerlyexpected film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w_wmZrESxI
Iron Man 3(2013)
130 min - Action|Adventure|Fantasy - 25 April 2013(UK)
Budget/marketing: $375 millionProjected global gross: $1.2 billion
Revenue analysis: The film made a profit for Marvel and Disney, even after gross participants -- including Robert Downey Jr. --took their fees, along with the $90 million or so owed Paramount because of its previous distribution deal with Marvel.
Remember the film already has a fan base (films 1 and 2).
The publicists want to appeal to existing fans and attract new ones.
In July 2012, at the San Diego Comic-Con International, a new Iron Man armour from the movie, the Mark XLII, was on display on the convention floor, along with the Marks I-VII from the first two Iron Man films.
A panel was held, during which Shane Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau and Kevin Feige discussed making the film, and several minutes of footage from the movie were shown.
The first television advertisement aired during Super Bowl XLVIIon the CBS network in the United States.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEH05OYX0CA
On March 25, 2013, Marvel and Disney revealed on the official Iron Man Facebook page, "Iron Man 3: Armor Unlock," to reveal suits Stark has made before the events of the film.[
On March 25, 2013, Marvel and Disney revealed on the official Iron Man Facebook page, "Iron Man 3: Armour Unlock," to reveal suits Stark has made before the events of the film.
This reinforces the notion that the character exists outside of the film world.
Disney also promoted the film at its domestic theme parks beginning April 2013.
The Walt Disney World Monorail System was given an exterior Iron Man scheme.
In addition, there is a simulator game, titled "Become Iron Man," that uses Kinect-like technology to allow the viewer to be encased in an animated Mark XLII armour and take part in a series of “tests,” in which you fire repulsor rays and fly through Tony Stark's workshop.
The game is guided by JARVIS, who is voiced again by Paul Bettany. The exhibit also has smaller displays that include helmets and chest pieces from the earlier films and the gauntlet and boot from an action sequence in Iron Man 3.
In selected countries the Premier of the film was shown in the 4DX format.
4DX is a motion picture technology owned and developed by South Korean company CJ 4DPLEX, a part of the CJ Group. 4DX allows a motion picture presentation to be augmented with environmental effects such as motion, scents, mist and wind, outside the standard video and audio. As such, it requires a theatre with special equipment (in the same way that IMAX theatres require special equipment/design).
A smart phone video game titled Iron Man 3: The Official Game, developed and published by Gameloft, was released on April 25, 2013. Gameplay is similar to Temple Run: the player attempts to dodge objects to score points and complete the level while still defeating the Crimson Dynamo, Ezekiel Stane, Living Laser and M.O.D.O.K.
In January 2013, Marvel Comics released a two-issue comic book.
The story set between Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3, centres on War Machine and what he was up to during the events of The Avengersand why he was not present during the battle in New York.
Iron Man 3 was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment in digital download form on September 3, 2013 (5 months after Cinema Release)
This was followed by the film's release on Blu-ray disc, 3D Blu-ray, DVD, digital copy and on demand on September 24, 2013.
The home video release includes a Marvel One-Shotshort film titled Agent Carter starring Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter from Captain America: The First Avenger
Twitter From April 5-10, Iron Man 3 was responsible for a
fantastic 13,315 tweets.
The film was generating consistent chatter thanks to the debut of a new scene that aired during Sunday night's MTV Movie Awards.
Additionally, the movie held its world premiere in Beijing, China followed by Moscow.
Through April 9 2013, Iron Man 3 boasted over 13.76 million fans on Facebook--a solid number for a second sequel in a series of films. It continued to gain momentum approaching the release date.
By comparison, The Dark Knight Rises carried 11.69 million fans at the same point in the release cycle.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon was responsible for 6.34 million
Fan anticipation on Flixster followed the lead of the other social networking sites with an incredible 99% "want to see" score from almost 93,000 voters.
Flixer is an American ‘social movie site’ for discovering new films, learning about films, and meeting others with similar tastes in films. The site allows users to view movie trailers as well as learn about the new and upcoming movies in the box office. The site is based in San Francisco, California and was founded in 2007. Flixster has been the parent of website Rotten Tomatoes since January 2010.
Iron Man 3 had a deliberate strategy to break China's growing film market with a special Chinese version of the film?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324077/Iron-Man-3-execs-changed-film-Chinese-audience-adding-4-minutes-Chinese-actors.html
When Marvel launched the international promotional campaign for Iron Man 3, it did not choose Hollywood or London's Leicester Square, but Beijing's Forbidden City.
It was the first time a Hollywood film had ever been celebrated inside the Chinese capital's Imperial Palace.
Leading man Robert Downey Jr. did his part to charm the Chinese press by calling out to fans in the local Chinese dialect. He told the press conference, "I'm interested in all things Chinese and I live a very Chinese life in America,".
It was all part of Hollywood's attempt to woo Chinese audiences and authorities
Iron Man 3 was distributed worldwide by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures1
with the exception of China, where it was released by DMG Entertainment, and Germany and Austria, where it was released by Tele München Group.
The Chinese version offers specially prepared bonus footage made exclusively for the Chinese audience.[ This version features a four-minute longer cut of the film, with a scene showing Dr. Wu on the phone with Iron Man visible on a television screen behind him, as well as a longer scene of Dr. Wu operating on Stark. The extra material also features product placement of different Chinese products.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG2nVGwPfCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39m85puOQok
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22188200
China recently overtook Japan as the world's second-biggest cinema market, as box office revenues surged 30% to $2.7bn (£1.8bn).
Since James Cameron's Avatar took $222m (£145m) in China in 2010, Hollywood has been desperate to crack the Chinese market.
Marvel has found a way through some of the red tape by co-producing Iron Man 3 in China with DMG Entertainment, a Beijing-based production company.
"The concept of what people want to see and what the government doesn't want to be seen isn't understood very well," says DMG's chief executive officer Dan Mintz.
Chinese authorities allowed 34 foreign films to be screened in the country each year.
David Cameron achieved a diplomatic breakthrough in January 2014 – the Chinese will allow more British films to be shown.
The Chinese authorities often request changes to remove sexually explicit scenes, violence and other topics deemed inappropriate for the home audience.
"Everyone is trying to figure out the loopholes," says Mintz. "The pressure is immense to crack this market and to understand it."
Marvel has even created a special Chinese version of the action film with an extra scene featuring a new character and storyline.
The additional eight-minute scene stars Chinese actress and singer Fan Bingbing and A-lister Wang Xueqi.
"It takes a fundamental character from our movie who isn't in it as much and extrapolates out his story," says British co-writer Drew Pearce.
"People didn't grow up with Marvel in China," says Mintz, who set up his advertising and production company 20 years ago. "Awareness needed to be built."
Mintz says China has "crept up" on Hollywood, explaining: "Five years ago, it didn't matter if you took it seriously, but that was the time they should have been figuring out their strategy."
Iron Man 3 is not the only film to take aim at the Chinese market. The next Transformers movie is to be partly made in the country, and James Cameron (“Avatar”) announced a joint venture with two Chinese firms last year.
Iron Man 3's main cast members did not film in China. But Don Cheadle, who plays US Air Force colonel James Rhodes, says he is keen to be a success in Asia.
"If I become a big Chinese star, you can guarantee I'll be shooting a movie in China," he says.
The efforts from Marvel and DMG paid off as they secured a release date in China - 3 May, the same day the film came out in the US.
Mintz is convinced that the Chinese market will continue to grow and says it may one day challenge Hollywood for supremacy in the global movie market.
"There's always been a number two, but this is the first time anyone is challenging for number one," he says
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=ironman3.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/957323/iron-man-marketing-13534159
http://www.slideshare.net/vividproduction/marketing-campaign-of-iron-man-3
This ‘Superhero film’ took an innovative approach to brand partnerships.
Public relations and product integration hit all new heights in this sequel, where there was a lot of hype in the entertainment and pop culture press about which car the film's hero, Tony Stark would be driving.
The partnership allowed Audi to align its new R8 model with the film's protagonist, who adapts his superpowers to the changing world around him.
The movie's star, Robert Downey Jr. showed up at the U.S. premier in Los Angeles behind the wheel of the same red 2014 Audi R8 Spyder that he drove in the film, taking product placement from the screen to the real-world.
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227105#ixzz2ryWXN3UZ
Marvel Comics putting out the film with Disney, started their unconventional marketing strategy with the skin and hair care brand, Kiehl's.
Kiehl's retail stores were decorated with signage and product displays featuring the characters.
Marvel came out with a custom-made Captain America comic book specifically set inside a Kiehl's shop. The comic book recently ran as an insert in the Wall Street Journal and was offered to customers when they made a purchase in-store or online.
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227105#ixzz2ryWOlrDm
This ‘Superhero film’ took an innovative approach to brand partnerships.
Public relations and product integration hit all new heights in this sequel, where there was a lot of hype in the entertainment and pop culture press about which car the film's hero, Tony Stark would be driving.
The partnership allowed Audi to align its new R8 model with the film's protagonist, who adapts his superpowers to the changing world around him.
The movie's star, Robert Downey Jr. showed up at the U.S. premier in Los Angeles behind the wheel of the same red 2014 Audi R8 Spyder that he drove in the film, taking product placement from the screen to the real-world.
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227105#ixzz2ryWXN3UZ
http://gigaom.com/2013/08/12/can-iron-man-save-a-brand-robert-downey-jr-tapped-for-htc-ads/
www.launchingfilms.com/releaseschedule Choose a film that has either been released
this week or is just about to be released. Create a PowerPoint presentation that covers
as much about the marketing strategy for that film as possible
Make a note of whether your chosen film is British or America
Record the name of the distribution company
What is technological convergence? For the purposes of this essay I am defining technological convergence as ………
Discuss the impact of technological convergence on the way “Shifty” and “Dreams of a Life” were publicised and distributed.
Discuss the impact of technological convergence on blockbusters such as “The Hunger Games” and “Iron Man 3”
Production.
What problems/advantages do small independent film makers have getting films made? Be specific – “Dreams of a Life”, “Shifty” and Film 4.
What advantages do the ‘big six’ major studios have?
What effect does the power of the ‘big six’ have?
Distribution
What marketing strategies did small independent films like “Dreams of a Life” and “Shifty” use to attract attention and publicise their films with a limited budget? NB Cross Media Convergence.
In contrast what marketing strategies did “Iron Man 3” and “The Hunger Games” use with their much larger budget.
Exhibition – what strategies do the film makers/Distributors use to get the films to you?
How exactly can you watch the films? Cinema? Mainstream or Independent? Curzon on Demand? DVD? Sky? Smart TV? Netflix.
It may have lacked a generation-defining event movie like 1977's Star Wars, or even a technological ground breaker like 2009's Avatar, but 2013 was still the year of the Hollywood blockbuster.
This year, 26 films costing more than $100m (£61m) each were released by the major Hollywood studios - more than ever before. They are likely to have raked in tens of billions of dollars in worldwide box office revenues as a result - close to the record $35bn (£21.5bn) delivered in 2012.
Some of the films did badly. The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp, barely made back the $250m it cost to make. But the hits outweighed the flops: Iron Man 3 took $1.2bn in box office receipts around the world, topping the charts and making it the fifth highest-grossing film of all time.
But despite the runaway successes, there are concerns within Tinseltown that blockbuster budgets are getting dangerously high.
Bankrupted "There's eventually going to be an implosion,
or a big meltdown," said Hollywood elder statesman Steven Spielberg in a speech earlier this year. "Three or four or maybe even a half dozen mega-budget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm."
It has happened before. In 1980, Heaven's Gate effectively bankrupted United Artists. The budget for the sprawling Western got out of control, the film bombed, and the studio was forced into a takeover by MGM.
The irony is that Spielberg almost singlehandedly invented the blockbuster genre.
When his film Jaws was released in 1975, Hollywood realised that making a few big-budget films a year that appealed to the masses was more lucrative than making dozens of smaller ones, and a business model was born. Since then budgets have soared and artistic merit has taken a back seat.
Hollywood watchers say it's a statistical certainty that another bomb to rival Heaven's Gate, or even 1995's Waterworld, is around the corner. But the difference, they say, is that modern Hollywood studios are equipped to cope.
After a wave of acquisitions in the 80s and 90s, the six "majors" that dominate global box office are now parts of massive media conglomerates. They have found ways to both boost profitability of their films and mitigate the risks associated with making such huge investments.
HIGHEST-GROSSING FILMS OF 2013 WORLDWIDE Iron Man 3 (Walt Disney) - $1.2bn Despicable Me 2 (Universal) - $919m Fast & Furious 6 (Universal) - $789m Monsters University (Walt Disney) - $744m The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Lionsgate) - $730m Man of Steel (Warner Brothers) - $663m Gravity (Warner Brothers) - $642m Thor: The Dark World (Walt Disney) - $620m The Croods (20th Century Fox) - $587m World War Z (Paramount) - $540m Source: Box Office Mojo
The first thing the studios have done is spread the risk by getting dozens of smaller production companies to invest alongside them, reducing their exposure to a potential flop.
Revenue streams The second thing is that they have made the
success of their films almost a sure thing. Recent research by British film academics John
Sedgwick and Mike Pokorny has found that not only have blockbuster films become more profitable over the past 20 years, they have become more reliably profitable: in the late 80s just 50% of major studio films turned a profit. In 2009 it was 90%. Flops have become rare.
"[Studios] are ruthlessly good at getting returns from their investments," Prof Sedgwick says. "Hollywood has got better and better at it. The more you spend, the more you get back. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily successful model."
How have the studios achieved this?
How have the studios achieved this? The first step has been to generate new revenue streams.
In the early days of Hollywood, 100% of revenues came from ticket sales. Now it's just 20%. The rest of the money comes from television licensing, DVD sales, merchandising and other commercial deals.
"Blockbuster films are not really films," says Charles Acland, a professor of communication studies at Concordia University in Montreal, and author of the book Screen Traffic. "They are in fact very elaborate 'tent-pole' business models that connect all sorts of different commodities in all sorts of different industries."
The second step has been to look beyond the domestic US market, where cinema audiences aren't really growing, and look overseas to developing markets such as China
Iron Man 3 earned two-thirds of its revenues outside of the US. The Chinese version of the film even had four extra minutes of footage, featuring Chinese actors and half a dozen Chinese product placements.
Finally, the studios have become incredibly risk-averse in terms of the types of films they produce. Instead of taking a chance on new directors and original ideas, they produce tried-and-tested franchises, remakes and book adaptations.
Communal experience A look at this year's top 10 highest-grossing films
reveals just two original screenplays - animation The Croods and 3D epic Gravity. In both 2012 and 2011 there were none in the top 10.
As a mark of the power of the franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man was released last year, and Sony has already pencilled in dates for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 3 and 4 stretching until May 2018.
That's on top of Spider-Man 1, 2 and 3 released between 2002 and 2007.
Hollywood faces challenges. Executives are sweating over a virtual collapse in DVD sales in recent years amid the growth of online streaming services such as Netflix. The major conglomerates that control the studios are seeing profits faster at their television arms than in the film industry, and are cutting costs.
But perhaps the more worrying long-term problem is what Charles Acland calls "aesthetic bankruptcy". The blockbuster business model necessarily leads to making bad movies.
The perception that Hollywood peddles lowest common denominator crowd-pleasers at the expense of "serious" cinema means screenwriting talent is increasingly moving over to television. This year director Steven Soderberghthreatened to quit altogether.
But while blockbuster franchises continue to bring in billions worldwide, there is little sign that Hollywood will change its ways.
"If you want a shared communal experience of the film that everybody's talking about right now, then you go to the movie theatre," Prof Acland says. "The blockbuster is very stable in Hollywood. It's not going to go away any time soon."
