The British Film Industry - Part 3

The British Film Industry

1.     Why do you think 3D takings went down when the number and variety of 3D films increased in 2011?

·      28 films in 2010 increased to 47 in a year’s time – more options means more people go and see different films.

·      The more people get used to films in 3D, the less likely they are to go and see them as often – “the novelty wears off”.

2.     Where do you think these films end up being shown?

·      Small Art House cinemas and independent film festivals around the UK and or on DVD.

3.     Why do you think there are more people going to the cinema mid-week? Who are more likely to attend the cinema outside of opening weekends?

·      The people who are outside the age range that most films nowadays are aimed at (15-24) are more likely to attend the cinema during the week as there are many young people that go out on the weekends.

·      Lots of films premiere on the weekend, as they know that many young people will go out with their friends on either Saturday or Sunday.

·      Orange Wednesday’s – if you are a member of Orange, then you get cheaper tickets on a Wednesday. Many offers can attract people as they get to save money.

·      Many older citizens are more likely to go to the cinema mid-week as it allows them to stay away from many younger adults who attend on the weekend.

4.     Why do you think there has been a decline in DVD sales in the last few years?

·      More people are likely to watch films on the Internet nowadays as it saves them time and money.

·      Lots of people subscribe to Love film and or Netflix, where they can watch almost every film available instead of paying for a DVD copy. They can pay monthly, which is easier for the consumers as it can come directly from their wages.

·      Illegal streaming sites have started becoming more prominent as people can watch any film for no money at all – DVD prices going down as a result.

5.     Summarise what has remained the same about the UK film market over the last ten years and what has changed dramatically?

·      There have been far more Multiplex cinemas (Odeon) opened in the last Ten years, meaning more places to go and watch films on the big screen. However there have been a large amount of screens around the UK in the last decade.

·      The number of movies shown in 2002 (369) has increased at a fairly slow rate to 558 in 2011 – more films shown.

·      Many more digital screens have been made. Unlike in 2002 when only four screen were digital.

·      Smartphone and tablet ownership is on the rise – more places to watch movies other than on the television or in the cinema.

·      Broadband speed increase – easier to watch films on tablets and Smartphone’s.

6.     How does film production in the UK seem to be very different from the Hollywood model of large, powerful studios?

·      In the 70’s and 80’s, British film industry became increasingly reliant on Hollywood funding.

·      Many UK film production companies are actually subsidiaries of American film companies. Warner Bro’s is a subsidiary of the American Company, Time Warner.

·      BBC and Film 4 films are an important source of funding for the British Cinema companies – they invest into films that eventually make it onto the big screen.

·      Doesn’t have the financial backing that the US film industry has.

7.     What is the benefit to a film producer of their film being branded as British? What is it about ‘Britishness’ that is attractive to investors from outside the UK? What is it about ‘Britishness’ that makes it easy for Hollywood studios to dominate our film market?

·      Britain produces many good Actors and Directors and we are a respected country in the film industry – good thing for film producers?

·      Britain could be seen as an untapped film department as London for example has rarely been used in films apart from recently.

·      Many people in Britain go to the cinema every year and so film companies outside Britain see this as a chance to get their name recognized.

·      Many British companies are owned by larger American companies and so they, “claw back a chunk of the box office profits” – much of the money that is made is not even seen by the British companies.  

8.     How many of these could be considered British films? How many of them are co-productions where the majority of money leaves the country? What does this say about the scale of the UK film industry?

·      Four of them can be considered as being truly British, The King’s Speech, The Inbetweeners, Horrid Henry: the movie and Jane Eyre.

·      16 of the top 20 UK films released in 2011 are co-productions that involve other countries, such as USA and Germany.

·      Other countries dominate the UK film industry, especially America who is involved in almost every film apart from 4 of the films.

9.     Which one of these two films recently released in the UK do you think is a BBC co-production and why?

·      (they both seem to be a BBC co-production)

10. Why do you think the Coalition government decided to close down the UKFC?

·      UKFC, “ploughed £160m of Lottery money into more than 900 productions” – a lot of money and some of the productions were awful.

·      “Cronyism, arrogance and waste” – UKFC has been accused of these words – better for the government to get rid of them.

·      The UKFC was throwing the publics money away – into the art houses – angering the public, which is certainly a bad thing for the government.

11. Do you think the UK film industry needs a body like the UKFC/BFI? Why?

·      Yes I think the UK film industry needs a body like BFI as films make an extremely important contribution to the British economy. – The film industry needs a company like BFI to support it.

·      However, the film industry could do without them as in the case of the UKFC, they were often taking the publics money and investing it into film projects that were not very successful.  

General Introduction - Part 1

1) Why is convergence both a blessing and a curse for the UK film industry?

• Convergence is a blessing to the film industry because it increases the amount of different ways in which the audience can consume a film. However, it is a curse as problems such as piracy are arising at a rapid rate, which could mean the end of the film industry, as we know it.
• Convergence is a good thing as producers and distributors can make more and more money by distributing their films, “across several media” – Movies coming together with videogames, such as Quantum of Solace is a great way for companies to make a lot of money.
• “Represents an opportunity to build on its competitive strengths internationally” – enhances company’s growth and productivity and allows them to develop other skills.
•  Film theft and online copyright – represents a major threat to the film industry.
•  Number of illegal downloads has increased rapidly from 5% to 7-15 per year in the UK – the increasing broadband speed in the UK will also be an obstacle as it allows for quicker illegal downloads, which in turn is a huge problem for the Film industry.

2) How has the Internet allowed filmmakers to find and attract audiences in different ways?

·      One of the main ways the Internet has allowed filmmakers to attract different types of audiences is through social network sites such as facebook and twitter. (Audience fragmentation as all these different ways of accessing media ‘breaks up’ the audience group for particular films.)

·      YouTube has been a revelation ever since it was made and it is a great way to promote films through advertisements, which take place before a video and to watch trailers of films that have either, already been made or are going to come out in the future.

·      Csigo (2007) – less big budget movies made nowadays as they are aimed at promoting a ‘cult’ audience. – Result of increase in Internet usage.

·      People use Internet all the time and so film companies are, “desperately trying to provide 360–degree branding for their films” – Csigo again states that film industries are no longer interested in keeping audiences together.

3) Summarise how you think sites like YouTube, Spotify and Facebook are good for film audiences. What do they let us do, that we couldn’t before?

•  YouTube – this online website, which is owned by Google, allows us as audience members to catch up on trailers of films that are coming out in the cinema. YouTube often plays adverts before videos, which is another way to promote films that may be coming out. It effectively allows you to watch trailers and clips of films and in extreme circumstances the whole film for free and is a great way for companies to advertise their film.
• social Network sites, such as Facebook are also excellent for promoting films across a wide range of audiences as everyone uses Facebook nowadays. Facebook provides the option for audiences to ‘like’ certain pages and also add comments about their own personal views on a certain film etc, which would influence other audience members when reading those comments.

• Spotify, despite being a predominately music streaming site is also another way in, which movie companies can promote their films through pop ups that appear, whilst listening to a song. 

4 Things I Have Learnt

1. Producers and Distributors - I have learnt in the past week that production companies such as 20th century fox and dream-works are completely different to Distribution companies such as warner bro's and anchor bay and they both have a different but equally important role in getting a film to premiere at the cinema or on dvd. Although there are some companies that do both producing and distributing of the films that we see in the cinema.

2. Convergence - I have learnt that convergence is where technologies come together, for example the apple iphone employs music, a camera and much more into a mobile phone. However, Media industries  are also trying to diversify so they can both produce and distribute on many forms of media to survive in our fast moving modern society. 

3. Synergy - Synergy is where films and games look remarkably similar. This can range from the front covers of the dvd or video game to the actual film and the video games gameplay. Many film and game companies have begun to work together and films such as Tomb Raider and Resident Evil, which have now been made into films were video games first.

4. Consuming films - One of my recent posts highlights the different ways you can consume films on the three film websites. I certainly wasn't aware of the amount of different ways you can consume films in todays society and I have now learnt that it is almost impossible to go anywhere anymore without seeing some sort of advertisement or promotional video.

Looper - Producers and Distributors

Looper Producers and Distributors:


Tristar Pictures:
TriStar Pictures is an American production and distribution company, owned by sony entertainment. Victor Kaufman, who was a senior executive at Colombia Pictures, convinced HBO and CBS studios to split their resources in order to make TriStar in 1983. In 1989 everything under coca-cola' influence was bought by Sony Pictures and still is to this day. TriStar have produced and distributed many films such as, Terminator 2, Matilda and Jumanji

FilmDistrict:
FilmDistrict is far more modern than TriStar as it what founded in 2010 by Peter Schlessel. It is a distribution, production and financing company. It is an independent motion picture company who partner with distribution companies, such as Sony Pictures for movies such as Looper and Soul Surfer. They have also partnered with other companies to produce and distribute films such as Insidious, Olympus Has Fallen and Evil Dead. Film District seem to have produced quite a few horror films, which shows their typical genre.

 








Endgame Entertainment:
Endgame Entertainment are an independent production company founded in 2002. They have produced a variety of film, television and stage productions, including the likes of Looper, Harold and Kumar and Bitter Pill.

DMG Entertainment:
DMG Entertainment are a Production and Distribution company who are based in China. It started out as an advertising company in the early 1990's. It started off by distributing non-Chinese films in the countries film market and has since partnered with other production companies to produce films such as Looper and Iron Man 3. The importance of the Chinese film market is growing rapidly in todays modern world (and this is actually highlighted in Looper, when the leader of the loopers tells the main character that he should be learning Chinese and not French as he is from the future).

Consuming a film via the internet

How many different ways can you 'consume' a film on the internet?

Skyfall website:

Skyfall is your more traditional film website but nonetheless slick, like bond himself. There are many ways of the consuming the film on the site and they range from pictures of the film itself to alcoholic beverages that promote the film. I enjoyed the website and not just because of the Bond Girls, but because of the ambient music in the background and the images of Bond himself popping up all over the screen. I also enjoyed the exclusive videos, which were interesting, as we could watch and see how they made the film. It was less of an interactive website than looper but was still enjoyable nonetheless and especially for a big Bond fan, like myself.

Scott Pilgrim:
This film site is a few years older than the other two, therefore it is not quite as slick and up to date. However it is still useful and there are many ways you can consume the film, such as you can read the film synopsis, buy it on Blu - Ray and DVD, watch clips of the making of the film and look at other films that you might also enjoy. I wasn't as impressed with this site as i was with the others but that is undertsandable due to the fact that the film is 3 years older and the film industry has changed a lot in the last three years. I thought they could have spent more time on the interactive side of the website in order to keep the audience entertained.

Looper:

There are many ways you can consume the film on their online website. You can consume it via iTunes, blu ray and DVD, Ultra Violet, online video games and many more. You are also able to look at pictures, videos and trailers from the film itself on their website. Another way to consume the film is the website itself as it so interactive people will remember it. I really enjoyed the website because it was very interactive and made the experience fun. Due to the fact that Flash website was so interactive i didn't find myself getting bored whilst looking at it. However, one thing I would say is that there was a little too much going on and i wasn't sure where to look most of the time.