Ownership Essay

Grace Watson

13 May 2020

Media Studies

Ownership Homework Essay 1

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Films owned by large Hollywood firms and/or production company’s instantly have an advantage in the market at becoming successful. However, despite Hollywood’s advantage and it’s dominance in the film industry with all its finance to saturate the markets and get their products out there, it is not at all impossible for normal, smaller Indie and New Zealand films to get their names out there and their numbers up, too. 

Hollywood is the hub of film and consists of MANY large production company’s which have immense finance available to them for marketing their film. Disney, a conglomerate which owned 26% of the studio market share in 2018, is an example of one of these large production companies. In 2018 all three of the highest grossing films in the USA were produced by Disney alone, these movies being Black Panther ($700 million on Box Office), Avengers: Infinity War ($679 million on Box Office) and Incredibles 2 ($609 million on Box Office). One quarter of all tickets sold at Box Office were for Disney film’s in 2018. As visible in the above stats, the movies of these large conglomerates are mostly always successful with large Box Office numbers. This is because they use their large sums of money to saturate the markets, filling the possible audience’s media with adverts, trailers, q&a’s, pictures, posters etc across the numerous media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram to publicise their film. Also, they are already well-known and so people already have an awareness as to their films before they even have to extensively advertise because of their built up reputation. Disney, along with other conglomerates such as Sony/Columbia (which had 10.9% of the studio market share) and Warner Bros. (which had 16.3% of the studio market share in 2018) own many subsidiaries. Some of Disney’s subsidiaries include Marvel (which Disney purchased in 2009 for $4 billion) and Fox (which Disney purchased for $2.9 billion in 2001). Films which are owned by large production companies have a greater chance of guaranteed success because the production studios earn so much revenue from the owning of all the subsidiaries, which they can use to advertise the film. An example of this is one of my case studies, Jurassic World, which had a production budget of a massive $150 million USD because it was funded by four massive production companies. With such a large production budget, the company could go to such extents to advertise the film, assisting them in becoming exceptionally successful in Box Office.

As discussed above, the Hollyword films saturate the markets, creating great competition for the smaller Indi films which die not have such wealth. However, despite this competition, there are indeed Indi films which end up very successful internationally. An example of this is the film “What we do in the Shadows”, a New Zealand kiwi comedy film directed by Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi. Despite their lack of funding from a large production studio, these two directors managed to advertise the film and make it successful. It was funded through crowd funding where both directors appealed to New Zealand to raise the funds that they needed to make the final product. The sum required was $400000 which together they managed to acquire before receiving the green light. The film was a massive success, proved by its total gross of $6.9 million worldwide and the fact that it is the basis of two spin-off TV series’ that are currently being filmed. Today, both directors who back then were neither well-known nor experienced have become famous and done really well, with Jermaine Clement becoming the voice of the crab in the film Moana, a film released from the USA. ‘What we do in the Shadows’ is a prime example of a regular NZ, Indi film which was able to rise to the top in success, proving that despite its type of ownership and financial value, its success was definitely possible.

In New Zealand there is a government agency called the NZFC. According to the NZFC’s website, it balances both “cultural and economic objectives to achieve successful outcomes for our industry and our people”. The NZFC has supported films such as the Hobbit and The Game of Thrones, and in 2018 the agency supported another 17 films. Three out of seven of the documentaries were directed by first-time directors. The NZFC’s bottom line is to promote NZ’s talent and the country as a whole to stimulate the economy and improve tourism. This is because it is government owned. Their bottom line is not to make money, therefore their films are often based on cultural, New Zealand stories and the Maori heritage, discussing ethnical and cultural issues to spark thinking within the viewer. On the contrary, however, are large conglomerates which have the sole aim of making money. These large film owners only support and produce films that fit the typical “successful film” plot line that will make them money. They only really worry about making a movie entertaining and stimulating for the audience to maintain a great reputation and improve their sales and success. They are not as much worried about forming plots about culture and ethnical issues if it doesn’t seem to generate a lot of income. Where the NZFC is willing to employ first-time, up and coming directors, large conglomerates and large film owners usually only chose directors who have experience and can, once again, lead their film to obtain large amounts of finance.

Because large films deliberately focus on forming plots which fit the typically successful plot lines and which they know will be adored, they usually do remain successful. However despite their success on Box Office, they lose a sense of deepness. Their success poses a problem for the possible support of Indi films by independent film producers who may not go the route of only sticking to typical plot lines. 

A source from DGNZ in New Zealand discusses how “Like the Australians, we do generally struggle to get NZ audiences to NZ films.” People watch films which have the most publicity, and the films with the most publicity tend to be the large, popular Hollywood blockbusters, such as Jurassic World which was directed by Colin Trevorrow and funded by four major production companies (one being Universal Pictures). This film grossed over $500 million USD. Their massive funding enables them to obtain massive success. 

Just as they have the finance to saturate the markets (even with prequels and sequels, such as ‘Star Wars’ and it’s chain of movies) in the distribution and marketing stages and advertise their films well, large conglomerates and production companies of Hollywood blockbusters also use their wealth for vertical and horizontal integration, for cross media convergence and to form items of synergy. By vertical and horizontal integration, they are able to penetrate markets and easily distribute their films worldwide. An example of Disney’s vertical integration is its purchasing of Fox, also a production company. An example of its horizontal integration is its owning of Disneyland. An example of it’s cross media convergence is when Disney partners with famous singers to sing the songs of certain movies, and then publishes those songs onto music streaming devices as a form of further promoting their film. Disney also prints pictures of characters from their movies onto objects such as pencil cases, duvets, phone covers etc. A few specific examples of this are the numerous Mickey Mouse water bottles based on the Mickey Mouse children’s series on Disney Channel, Disneyland, Cars Land, light-sabers (children’s toys) etc.

Synergy and cross media convergence, vertical and horizontal integration all further publicise these films, increasing their wealth as well as the films success (each item brings them money when sold). In comparison, smaller, more local films which are nowhere near as large and do not have as large budgets, cannot market as extensively and therefore may not receive as much support for their film. They are not as capable to have synergy or cross media convergence because they have less finance available to afford it. Where ‘Jurassic World’, a Hollywood blockbuster, had a massive production budget of $150 million USD, ‘What we do in the Shadows’, a NZ film, had a low production cost of $400000 which for them seemed massive! A lack of synergy can mean fewer sales because of less awareness.

With saying that though, smaller NZ films can still do very well despite their lack of synergy. An example of this is once again the film ‘Why we do in the Shadows. For this film, the directors were excellent in using the media, which is completely FREE, to advertise their film! They had two of the vampires from the film pop up in public areas to generate publicity, they changed the city town name on the hill from “Wellington” to “Vellington” (a GREAT idea as every person who drove past that sign would’ve researched what it meant - advertising), they did interviews with ANYONE who asked, which lead people to believe that they were lovely and humble - causing them to support the movie, they were also funny online, posting jokes and humorous slogans on Facebook to create laughter. All of the above kept their audience engaged and generated hype. Their Facebook page alone had 197 000 hits/likes. This successful marketing campaign is what assisted them in reaching their large success. The film grossed $3.4 million in NZ, $3.5 million internationally and, as discussed earlier in the essay, $6.9 million worldwide. Compared to large blockbusters in Hollywood, this is amazing, and proves that it is not only cross media convergence and synergy which leads to success.

When observing information about films, it tends to be the case that the marketing strategy has a MASSIVE role in the films success. Just as the ‘What we do in the Shadows’ film did so exceptionally well due to its marketing campaign, the film ‘The Dark Knight’, too, excelled, probably thanks to the wisdom and creativity of its marketing team. This film had the most advanced pre-sale tickets ever, with opening night, morning,  midnight, 3am and 6am showings all completely sold out, and the film grossing top of the year.  

Where many years ago only Hollywood films would do really well, nowadays Indi films can too, soar. This could be thanks to the internet. The development of the internet has completely changed and revolutionised the way in which we consume media. Today 4338 billion of the world’s population are connected to the internet. Before the internet, there was limited choice and audiences were unified. Nowadays, the internet has lead to fragmentation in which audiences are now split across many different platforms, whether it be YouTube, Facebook, Netflix or Neon. On each platform are various film options, meaning that international films have become more readily available and therefore more supported. Millions of people consume media using various SVOD services such as Netflix which had over 75 million users worldwide in 2016 (a number which has CERTAINLY increased) and Neon which experienced a “BOOM!” in subscriber growth, according to a source. Films are also advertised online, such as the NZ film ‘Broken’, another one of my case studies, which had it’s trailer posted on Facebook.

Larger, wealthy firms just simply tend to have advantages in all stages of production. As mentioned above, they usually have large budgets and can therefore afford great technology to produce media of fantastic quality. They can include sound effects and transitions which grab the viewer’s attention and lead to an enjoyable movie experience. Great quality satisfies and attracts viewers and therefore success, whereas the lower quality of a film, such as the film ‘The God’s Must Be Crazy’ may put people off that film - many Indi films may not be of the best quality in terms of focus, sound and sound effects - lack of finance for it. In terms of exhibition and exchange, the larger films once again have an advantage because of their finance. They can easily afford to release their films massively word-wide, such as ‘Jurassic World’ which was released in over 60+ countries on the 10th of June and then in the USA on the 12th, whereas smaller Indi films such as ‘Shiftly’, was only released to 51 points initially. Individual movie producers may not have the finance to compete, leading to their lack of success. The fewer cinemas the film is sent to, means the less support it will receive. Another advantage that larger Hollywood films have is the fact that they often have famous, well-known cast members, such as Brad Pitt, who have a large social media following which can instantly be used as a platform for advertising. As soon as the possible viewers find out that he is in the film, they may instantly gravitate to watching it, as opposed to an Indi film in which they do not know any of the characters. ‘Jurassic World’ had Chris Pratt, a well-known actor with 28.6 million followers on Instagram, acting as one of the characters. His large influence on the media may have contributed to the large number of sales the movie obtained, where it became the first film to ever goss over $500 million USD. However, despite the Hollywood films’ advantages, smaller, Indi films can still experience success in the marketplace, as discussed earlier.

In terms of distribution, larger films either already have a production company distributing their film right from the get-go, such as all of Disney’s films which are distributed, advertised and marketed by Disney, of course, or they find it quite easy to find a distributor as many distributors are in favour of distributing large films as opposed to smaller Indi films, as they are more sure that they will be paid and that the film will actually be successful in the market place. With all Indi films there is more of a risk for the distributor as there is a possibility of them not being very popular in the end. For example a distributor is more likely to take on a film such as ‘Jurassic Park’ as they are away of its prequel, ‘Jurassic World’ and how well it did, than what they would be to take on another ‘random’ film. For Indi film producers, there is always the option of self-distributing the film, which is something that is becoming more “common” according to a source. This source discussed how ancillary rights have become so important in the distribution stage of production that many movies are now doing simultaneous releases where they release their film onto both SVOD services and the cinema at the same time to increase sales and therefore success. Both Indi, NZ and Hollywood films can do just that, and therefore they all have the equal opportunity. However, because of its great dominance and finance, Hollywood affords these services far more easily and therefore has an advantage at attaining the success. Films can also go to film festivals or hire sale agents to distribute their film, each with disadvantages and advantages of their own. Examples of film distributors in New Zealand include Sony Pictures NZ and Limelight Distribution. Despite Hollywood having the advantage, NZ films can actually be just as successful. This is proved by the fact that the film ‘What we do in the Shadows’, an NZ film, was distributed by ‘Madman Entertainment’, an NZ distributor, and ended up doing so well.

Piracy affects the success of films under all kinds of leadership. It effects Indi films, such as Broken which, according to Josh Campbell the director, has been pirated about 200 000 times, as well as it effects Hollywood blockbusters such as ‘The Interview’ (another case study) which has been pirated thousands of times on an illegal saint called ‘TorrentButker’. On Christmas Day alone in 2014, it was pirated 750 000 times! 

In New Zealand specifically, the illegal downloading of films has decreased, however in countries all around the world, this value seems to be rising, specifically in the USA where it has risen by 43% and the UK where there are currently 300 million visits to sites allowing illegal downloading of films. A possible reason for this increase could be due to lockdown and the world’s current situation as well as the fact that it allows people to “tie everything together” according to a source. Despite the reason, piracy steals millions of dollars from the film, steeling from part of its success.

In conclusion, although large Hollywood films do have an initial advantage, the type of owner of a film does not determine whether the film will be successful or not, but rather the director and producer’s work ethics, their creative thinking and their effective marketing ideas and campaign do.

2783 words