Audience and Institutions Essay

"To what extent does Media Ownership impact the success of a film."

To a certain extend Media Ownership impacts the success of a film- this is taking into account that the marketing strategy is good. Media ownership is the right a company has over its media in the stages of the production process- pre-production, production, post-production, distribution/marketing and exhibition. Conglomerates are a parent company that owns a subsidiary (smaller company). An example of a conglomerate is Disney which owns the Hollywood Big Five: Century-Fox, MGM, Paramount, Columbia and Warner Bro.  

New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) is owned by the government which invests in New Zealand feature films and short films.  In the last years, NZFC has made movies that had done well internationally such as Hunt for the Wilder People (2016), The Lord of the Rings series (2001-), The hobbit series (2012-), What we do in the Shadows (2014). NZFC main goals are to promote NZ  to overseas industry to attract international productions and tourism and to stimulate the economy by providing jobs to people in the film-making industry as evidenced by the fact that in 2018 they funded 18 films and that 3/7 of the documentaries were made by first-time directors. Most of the films made by NZFC address social issues for this reason they are classified as independent films. 5/10 of the movies were narratives. Narratives have different storylines unlike the conventional themes and plots in Hollywood movies. 

Media ownership influences how successfully a film is marketed because of the finance available to reach the optimal opportunities given by cross-media convergence and synergy to promote the film.  The film, Jurassic World (2015) had a high budget of $150mUSD compared to the New Zealand Film, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) budget of $2.5mUSD which limited its resources. Jurassic World used cross-media convergence  (only media)  such as the viral fictional Masarani Global Cooperation website created by fans who Universal had later hired to design, movie clips with a sensitive comment provoking a response and the video games Lego Jurassic World game and Jurassic the World: The Game for its marketing strategies to successfully promote its movie and synergy (includes non-media products) such as film stills, two different posters and toys based on the movie characters. 

Hunt for the Wilderness people started a social campaign using the hashtag #nzbush in a post to win a chance to meet the main actor of the movie.  There was a simulcast of the gala premiere to create social awareness of the movie. The NZFC gave a production grant to help assist it with co-productions. It was also supported by local business including Air New Zealand, Trade Me, the Department of Conversationism, Tourism NZ, NZ Defence Force. It was the highest-grossing film in the opening weekend for a New Zealand film of $1,263,000. It has become the highest-grossing New Zealand film which made over $12 million in NZD. 

The Dark Knight produced by Hollywood and What We Do in the Shadows produced by NZFC both shows how two different media ownership can make a film successful based on its marketing campaign. The Dark Knight viral campaign immersed over 10m participants in more than 75 countries in the experience of the Batman movie by playing across hundreds of interactive games, webpages, email, real-world events and unique collectables. What We Do in the shadows grossed 6m worldwide and its marketing campaign consisted of gathering casts and crew at movie events, running art competitions on social media, publicity stunts by changing 'Wellington' sign into 'Vellington', selling artwork made by movie characters on TradeMe while also interacting with Q&A, interacting with all fans, setting dating profile for movie characters on a real-life dating app and engaging with the audience on social media through authentic yet hilarious voice. 

Big production companies are able to cast actors with 'strong media presence' such as Mark Ruffalo who has  6.6m followers on Twitter that significantly helps with the marketing side of the movie. They have access to finance and so have bigger budgets. This gives them top-notch technical equipment to insist on computer generate imagery (CGI), visual effects that help make the action and explosions in the movie more realistic and thus entertaining for the audience to watch. 

Film distribution is the commercial process of making a movie available to the public. It determines the marketing strategy. Major studios immediately get deals with production companies. Normally has international rights to distribute the movie. Ancillary rights are supplementary rights arising from a primary right. It leads to the simultaneous release of a movie depending on theatre or streaming rights to the movie. In contrast, indie films distribute their movies by regions of the country (the region rights determine how they distribute the movie). Small Indi films must distribute their films through the following ways: use festivals to premiere the movie and target audience, use sales agent to connects the film to a distributor- the sales agent may be in the cast,  have a distributor screening this allows connections to be made with movie distributors and sometimes offers are made, Self distribute by using the digital platforms or connect with movie distributors on a digital marketplace called film hub- this is becoming the most used method.  Social media is a great help with distribution- consider trailers, clips for social media, potential artwork. This should align with the distributor's goals. 

The top 10 highest-grossing movies in 2019 were Avengers Endgame, The Lion King, Frozen 2, Toy Story 4, Captain Marvel, Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, Spiderman: Far from Home, Aladdin, Joker and Jumanji: The Next Level. Seven out of ten of these movies were distributed by Walt Disney, two out of ten of these movies were distributed by Sony Pictures ( SpiderMan: Far From Home & Jumanji: The Next Level) and The Joker was distributed by Warner Bro. Adventure is the most common genre with action (top 1)  and thriller (top 9) alongside it. Hollywood's dominance enables them to set the trends and the finance available to them means they can market and distribute the release films with the same storyline or same title, for instance, sequels or even prequels depending on how popular the movie franchise is.  Independent filmmakers must observe the movie demographics see what movie is bought and what isn't. They must also identify elements that consistently work in the trends to help produce fresh yet familiar movies. 

Piracy is made easier by digital technology allowing quicker illegal distribution. However, advances in technology help to secure films with digital encryption. Digital technology allows simultaneous release of movies worldwide preventing people from watching the movie illegally which are normally at a lower quality. The Hollywood Blockbuster, Jurassic World was illegally downloaded 36,881,763 times it was the 4th top pirated movie of 2015.  In March 2020 during the lockdown in Britain, there was a 29% increase of using piracy sites to illegal watch movie & TV shows and 300milion visits piracy sites allowing illegal downloading of movies & TV shows. Piracy is harming the movie industry and the jobs in it with an estimation of 230,000. Streaming technology allowed easy access to TV shows, movies and music reducing piracy.  Legal actions of watching content became easier than illegal actions (bugs and viruses and lowe-quality.  Piracy still remains as some people prefer not to pay for streaming services or pay-per-view services such as Google Play.