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“SUCCESSFUL MEDIA PRODUCTS DEPEND AS MUCH UPON MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION TO A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE AS THEY DO UPON GOOD PRODUCTION PRACTICES.” To what extent do you agree with this statement, within the media area you have studied? (June 2011, past paper question)

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“SUCCESSFUL MEDIA PRODUCTS DEPEND AS MUCH UPON MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION TO A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE AS THEY DO UPON GOOD PRODUCTION PRACTICES.”To what extent do you agree with this statement, within the media area you have studied? (June 2011, past paper question)

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INTRODUCTION• In terms of the film industry, the practices of marketing and distribution

are as important as a film’s production practices. They are the factors which influence its success either critically or commercially, and production companies decide which process is important for their film. When a film is mainstream and popular, good production practices, marketing and distribution are as important to the expectations of audiences.

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• Large film companies play a major role in the marketing and distribution of several successful media products. One example of this is the American media company Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. It has produced over 4413 films and was founded in April 4, 1923. A division of parent company Time Warner, its production practices are incredibly vast, along with its marketing and distribution of blockbuster films such as The Dark Knight Rises (in the Dark Knight trilogy) and the Harry Potter film series. Since they were based upon popular source material, these films became well- remembered that they have attracted massive audiences universally around the world. As in the case of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, its integrated marketing campaigns, online and physically, have contributed to its successful distribution in the USA and beyond, outlining how their style of film promotion has radically diversified over the years of a new technological dawn.

Warner Bros. Pictures – A TimeWarner Company

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• Being a massive studio conglomerate, Warner Bros. is able to market horizontally and vertically as well as integrate with other subsidiaries. As they have their own record label company, studios, TV channels and shop (WB Store), WB is able to distribute easily through these factors. Hans Zimmer’s Batman v Superman soundtrack was released on WB’s own record label WaterTower Music. Apart from this, viral marketing is also utilised for some of its films to raise universal audience awareness by releasing new teasers and trailers periodically, as well as keeping people up to date with newly unearthed technologies and trends. That way, wider audiences expand as new individuals are introduced to WB’s range of films by integrated awareness.

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RECORDED PICTURE COMPANY AND HIGH-RISE

• However, in contrast to major multi-million dollar-making film companies like WB, Recorded Picture Company uses different marketing and distribution strategies. It is an independent director-driven production company founded in 1974 by chairman Jeremy Thomas, which has recently released the 2016 social science fiction thriller film ‘High-Rise’. Teaming up with HanWay Films, Film4, and Ingenious Media, the production company distributed the film through StudioCanal. Even though the main cast included big names like Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers), Sienna Miller (Burnt), and Jeremy Irons (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), the film was targeted towards a smaller niche audience because of its sophisticated subject matter adapted from the J. G. Ballard book of the same name. It was advertised more in newspapers, magazines and on posters so not targeted as much towards a younger audience. Producer Jeremy Thomas had developed the project in the 2000s with different scriptwriters and directors attached. His emphasis on the quality of script was important when it came to the distribution of the film by StudioCanal. This major point in production indicates that quality outweighs quantity, which contrasts both Warner Bros. and RPC against one another.

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BATMAN V SUPERMAN AND BLOCKBUSTER FILMS

• Warner Bros. Pictures recently released ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’, a good example of a tentpole movie to become hugely successful commercially. With hugely famous names such as Ben Affleck (who plays Batman), Henry Cavill (Superman) and director Zack Snyder, the film already creates a huge tsunami of fans as the source material is based upon two of America’s biggest superheroes created by DC Comics and they also want to see it just for the actors involved. Batman v Superman had a huge $165 million marketing effort to promote the film worldwide, and the given budget was $250 million. The film used a heavy amount of CGI to add to the expenses of production to make it seem realistic. Compared to this powerhouse of a production, Wheatley’s High-Rise (assumed to have a lower production budget) with a minimal amount of CGI was filmed on location in the seaside town of Bangor, Country Down instead of studio-built sets as used in the other superhero movie. This shows that there is a clear rift between success and production of films as there is no direct link between the two factors of the film industry, regardless of the length of time it takes to produce a media product and distribute it.

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CONCLUSION• Looking at the basis of Warner Bros. as a major conglomerate in the

‘big six’ group of studios, we can see that its vast array of films have been nominated for more than 200 Academy Awards but have won just around 60 or so awards. In juxtaposition to this, RPC’s High-Rise was only nominated for 4 awards, and this does not affect the critical and commercial success of the film as awards do for Warner Bros. Pictures. Even with a monumental marketing and distribution effort for a massive blockbuster film like Batman v Superman, that does not account for a positive critical response. Instead, it just generates new wave after wave of audiences. Adequate production practices are what it takes to make a film critically commercial to secure its universal success. Quality is a factor that will cement a memorable film through the likes of High-Rise and others (The Big Short is another example, where it has won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay). As the quality of a film diminishes over time, we can see that production is important because the audience of a film that has left the cinema will decrease and nobody would want to watch a CGI-effects-filled whirlwind of grim and loud action compared to a universally recognised film with a dedicated fanbase and lasting success critically and commercially. It, overall, outweighs the methods of marketing and distribution.