Film Industry

The last film I watched was Rio - an animated film. I watched it at home on Disney +.

Odeon now showing - patterns

• huge range of audiences
• sequels/prequels
• cross media convergence - music and film/games and film
• big studio dominance

Film industry and history-

biggest in the world - American - LA Hollywood

New town created - famous for holly trees

center of global film production and the longest established (early 1900s)

however some of the first films were made in France

THE BIG 5 - 

• Disney - Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm
• Warner brothers- DC, Castle rock, Cartoon network
• Paramount- Paramount+ and MTV
• Universal-Hulu and Amblin
• Sony- Columbia and Tri-Star

20's-60's were golden age of Hollywood

Big mainstream studios vs independent companies

largest independents - Lionsgate, DreamWorks and Amazon

Some smaller companies share risk by having co-productions  - temporary arrangements with other companies

National cinemas offer financial incentives to film in their country eg Lord of the rings in New Zealand

Industry is dominated by pre and sequels

2 ones that surprised me most was ESPN and GoPro.

• Development- ideation/script
• pre-production- pitching to studios
• production- set construction/casting and shooting/animating
• post production-editing
• distribution- cinema and home releases with marketing

Marketing-

ways companies advertise new films-

• Posters
• billboards
• actor interviews
• cinema websites
• trailers
• TV ads
• newspapers/magazines - print media
• Articles
• press releases

These are ALL above the line marketing - paid for

Below the line is free - word of mouth/internet forums

Traditionally the P&A for a movie was around 70% on top of the budget of the film

In the last 10 yrs however this has changed - cheaper production MUCH higher marketing budgets

How film has changed over the years

• Video Home System (1959)
• DVD (1997)
• Blu-ray (2003)
• Netflix (2007)
• Disney+ (2020)

Its gotten more digital as time has passed.

product/video quality increased

Ease of access became more and more important

cheaper and more reliable

Piracy became more of a pressing problem in the mid 90s

HISTORICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT- THE PANDEMIC-

• Unlike many sections of media, cinema has typically never suffered from financial crisis' due to cheap tickets and an element of escapism
• However during the COVID pandemic, cinemas were forced to physically close down for long periods of time - admissions dropped by 76% and the cinema industry lost £1bn in ticket sales
• One of our case studies, Shang Chi was delayed repeatedly due to the pandemic

In order to recover the film industry, producers had to get creative - 

WB released Wonder Woman to cinemas AND their streaming service at the same time (in contrast to the typical pattern of cinema, a months wait and then DVD and streaming releases) - HYBRID RELEASE

Disney introduced premier access, an add on to your subscription that allows you to watch newer films