Classwork Wednesday 13th Ownership Essay

 Media Ownership: The big 6 media companies earn 90% of the USA’s Box Office revenue- Therefore they have the money to distribute and market their film in a way that almost guarantees the success of a film. They are Warner Bros, Paramount, Disney, Columbia Pictures, Universal Studios, and 20th-century fox. It is impossible for smaller companies to compete through traditional methods therefore they have to do something different in terms of marketing and distribution to make their film successful. They have less money than the big 6 so they need to be more creative.

The film World War Z, had negative speculations at first after Brad Pitt feuded with the director Marc Forster. The marketing of the film convinced the target audience to have a positive view of the film.

They paid the NYTimes for an attention-grabbing online ad When entering the NYTimes website a fake news article pops up in the style of the NYTimes titled “Population Loss projected at 4.6 Billion’- actually an advert for the film. It costs a lot of money to do a big publicity stunt like this.
Many posters released of the most dramatic scenes in the film (zombies hanging off helicopters etc) attention-grabbing and spectacular- Hints towards the sheer scale of the film. Adverts everywhere: Big, press covered premiere, exclusive TV interviews, bus/train/taxi adverts, TV/Youtube adverts- near impossible not to know about this film and to forget the name of the film.

The ‘Big Six’ is a group of film companies that earn 90% (2007) of the USA’s box office revenue, therefore they have immense power and influence in the industry. Because they own so much they earn so much and therefore are able to ensure the successful distribution of a film through money. The companies are Warner Bros, Paramount, Disney, Columbia Pictures, Universal Studios, and 20th Century Fox.

The first example of this is the 2013 Zombie apocalypse film ‘World War Z’ produced by one of the ‘Big Six’ Paramount Pictures. With an estimated budget of $190,000,000, the film is on a monumental scale and Paramount was willing to spend whatever they needed in order to make this film successful. This film was a tentpole release so the success of the film was paramount to Paramount.

At first, the film had negative speculations after starring actor Brad Pitt feuded with director Marc Forster however the money spent on marketing the film changed public opinion. Firstly they had an advert on the NYTimes advert. This opened as soon as you clicked on the NYTimes page meaning everyone that viewed the page saw the advert. This is something only a large film company could afford to do. The piece was titled ‘Population loss at 4.6 billion’ which immediately grabbed the reader's attention and in-sighted interest in the film. Secondly, they spent lots of money on as many small scale adverts as they could such as posters on bus stops, trains, taxis and billboards in England as well as across the world. This made sure the maximum amount of people were aware of the film and the advertisement reached all possible markets.

A smaller film company that cannot compete with the big six is the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) which supports and promotes New Zealand’s film industry. The NZFC has a wide range of responsibilities covering the development, financing, production, and marketing of feature films and short films made by New Zealanders both in New Zealand, (and very occasionally) offshore when structured as official co-productions. We work with filmmakers, supporting their films from inception to the exhibition. We assist with the making, promoting, distributing, and exhibiting of New Zealand films. We also work with other industry players to provide professional development to ensure the
the film industry continues to grow and that our filmmakers are constantly upskilling themselves.
In the past 30 years, the NZFC has invested more than $150m in 140 New Zealand-made feature films. The subsequent success of those films, both here and abroad, has seen the birth of internationally acclaimed film industry and a pool of world-class filmmakers and infrastructure. Our presence and support have enabled New Zealand filmmakers. To have greater access to international markets and to be more competitive on the world stage than might otherwise be the case. The NZFC is also responsible for administering the Large Budget Screen Production Grant scheme (LBSPG) offered to production companies filming a large budget production in New Zealand, and the new Screen Production Incentive Fund (SPIF) targeted at encouraging feature filmmakers to produce films with significant New Zealand content. In addition, the NZFC also certifies productions applying for New Zealand nationality and administers projects seeking official co-production status. A key measure of the industry’s success (and the NZFC’s) is that international distributors and sales agencies believe our films are of international standard, international film financiers are getting involved in New Zealand projects, our people are regarded as being some of the best in the world, and film audiences in this country positively engage with New Zealand feature films. Also, in the past year or so there have been 4 or so movies done by the NZFC which are; Guns akimbo, Come to daddy, The legend of baron To'a, and This town.

As a film’s budget increases, so do the prices distributors will pay for the film. There may be slight variations, but not much. The first question asked by all distributors is: “What is the budget?” The higher the budget, the more the film sells for, so there is a perverse tendency to inflate the cost of films. Producers often increase the budget for a picture by tagging on additional inflated “producer fees” or “overhead charges” for themselves, which are nothing more than a mark-up to the true cost of the film. When all else fails, one irresistible tendency is to greatly exaggerate the true budget in order to jack up prices. Also, the fact the budget is high they are able to hire big stars who have a large media presence, this allows the movie to get a lot of people wanting to watch it because of the stars and how they are famous and the fact the actors are able to advertise for there movie on social media making the followers want to watch that movie and it makes them more aware, sometimes, even more, the billboards and posters. Some examples of movies having big names are Avenges, the suicide squad, Batman, Star Wars.

Mainstream films are more formulaic and have a huge production budget, whereas indie films have a small budget - like less than $2 million. Some do have excellent production value and a few of the independent films have directors have decent production values. It depends on what you can do with a very small budget. The director's vision, the cinematographer’s skills as well as production design also come into play and contribute significantly towards the overall production value of the film. We are in an age where there are independent productions doing some pretty amazing things on a shoestring budget and are really great at it. While the mainstream films can afford that impact full explosion and car chases you see in the films, including the stunning aerial shots from a helicopter or a plane, they focus more on the action and visual effects side of things rather than the story or plot lines. Independent films that do well focus more on the story than the visual effects and action sequences. Independent film tends to take more time to develop (in the case with Whiplash, which took 12 years to finally get made), the mainstream film screenwriters are under a lot of pressure to crank out material in a short span of time (6 weeks for the first draft).

Piracy does impact on filmmakers being able to keep working because if you are continually not earning revenue back from your films being distributed then it undermines your ability to keep working in the industry,’ said Cristina Pozzan, Executive Producer at Open Channel. Piracy is a zero-sum game. It only can result in less money being invested in the new products, in less interesting, less innovative, less exciting material being available. So pirates are effectively kicking to death the very industry that they see themselves as accessing.show that 18-24-year-olds are the most active pirates, and are almost twice as active as the total population in Australia when it comes to accessing content illegally. While research also shows that pirating in Australia is beginning to lessen due to the increasing popularity of online subscription sites such as Netflix, piracy is an ongoing issue particularly in light of the effect it is having on independent film. We need to keep this conversation going so that filmmakers and producers can keep working. In the end, it comes down to creating a sustainable industry from the ground up.