Lovely Bones - Film4
Director: Peter Jackson
Released: 19th February 2010
Production companies: Dreamworks, Wingnut Films, Film4 and Channel 4
Distribution company: Paramount
Budget: $65,000,000
Only shown on 3 cinemas in the US.
Gross: $44 million
DVD release: 11th June 2010
Above the line marketing: tease trailers in August, invested $70 million in production and $85 million for marketing and distribution.
Below the line marketing: competitions, image gallery, order DVD, director was interviewed, August 2009 a behind the scenes look was released, and fans could win a trip to Wellington for the premiere.
Wasn't much competition, lots of people went to see the film.
Target audience: 12 (the film was mainly made for adults but they lower the target audience to teenagers)
Love Actually - Working Title
Released: 21st November 2003
Cast: Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson..
Director: Richard Curtis
Genre: 'romcom'
Production companies: Universal and Working Title
Distribution company: Universal Pictures
Budget: $45 million
Grossed: $247,472,278
Premiere: 16th November 2003 in London (also premiered in Germany and USA) Most people London and USA premieres.
Above the line marketing: all-star cast soundtrack released.
Below the line marketing: cast gave interviews, music videos of the soundtrack were released, films was released in different languages.
Grossed 5 times it's budget and is now considered to be a well-known Christmas film.
Target audience: 15-40, mainly couples or women.
Wild Child - Working Title
Released: 15th August 2008
Cast: Emma Roberts and Alex Pettyfer
Director: Nick Moore (new director)
Production companies: Working Title, Relativity Media and Studio Canal
Distribution company: Universal Pictures
Above the line marketing: posters - appeal to young girls (target audience) 11-16, relied heavily on girly pop groups for the soundtrack.
359 screens - 3 months prior to advertising.
Below the line marketing: Pink premiere in Glasgow where there was free beauty make overs, a nail bar, make up booth and a tattoo bar. Also held competitions to win a goody bag.
Budget: $20 million
5th place at the box office, $2,196,366
Grossed $19,786,125 worldwide, figures taken on 4th January 2008.
America released the film straight onto DVD.
Slumdog Millionaire - Film4
Released: 9th January 2009
Cast: Dev Patel, Saurabh Shukla, Anil Kapoor, Rejendranath Zutshi, Jenevo Talwar and Freida Pinto.
Director: Danny Boyle
Production companies: Film4 and Celador
Distribution companies: Foxlight Search Pictures, Warner Brothers, Pathe Pictures and Icon Entertainment International.
Above the line marketing: posters (gloomy) regularly seen in London, 'feel good film of the decade', dubbed in Hindi, Pathe approach Tug, Pussycats Doll's - Jai Ho.
Below the line marketing: title banners on Google, premiere took place in India, website offered free downloads, premiered in London, interviews with main characters was posted onto the website.
Budget: $15 million
Broke UK box office records.
Won 7 Baftas and 8 Oscars.
Green Zone - Working Title
Cast: Matt Damon, Brendan Gleeson
Released: 12th March 2010
Budget: $100,000,000
Gross: $35,024,475 (Britain - £5,429,903)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Production company: Working Title
Distribution company: Universal
Above the line marketing: posters focused on Matt Damon (to draw Matt Damon fans to see the movie), trailers focused on the actors and the action shots.
Below the line marketing: interviews and behind the scenes.
Competition: the film was released at the same time as Kick Ass, Alice in Wonderland ect, all of who did better than Green Zone.
This is England - Film4
Cast: Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley, Andrew Shim..
Released: 2006
Director: Shane Meadows
Budget: £1.5 million
Gross: £1,539,372
Distribution and production companies: Film4, Warp Films and Optimum Releasing
Premiere: Denmark on 17th August 2007
Relied on good reviews to promote it (word of mouth)
Above the line marketing: trailer
Below the line marketing: release of soundtrack
The Lovely Bones - Film4 (cont)
Genre: drama/thriller
Runtime: 136 minutes
Budget: $65 million
Gross: $93,535,346
Shown in 2,638 theatres for 98 days.
It was also nominated for a lot of awards.
Below the line marketing: interviews
Showing posts with label Distribution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Distribution. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Working Title Research.
Working Title release two trailers for every film; an English version and an international version. The international versions are nearly the same as the English trailers, but some words may be changed, and, for example, if the film was a comedy, different humour would be shown. Working Title also put their film teasers onto their website.
Working Title's website has information about every film they have ever created, including their new releases. They have the films promotional poster, the plot,. cast, trailers, film information, any awards the film won, on-set photography, and releated links.
The website has links to the live cast, showing the actors thoughts whilst the film is in production. The main type of videos are interviews with the actors and directors, asking them how they think the film went, ect.
Working Title doesn't have any types of competitions for their films on the website, but if you click on the click on the link to the film's website, there are competitions. If the film is a new release the prize is something like free tickets to see it with a meal afterward, or a chance to meet the actors ect.
Some of Working Title's new releases include Green Zone and The boat That Rock, both of which did very well. The website also advertises the upcoming films, such as Johnny English 2, and gives as much information about the film as possible, sometimes including live casts.
Working Title recently had an exhibition at London MCM Expo, where Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (actors from Working Title's Hot Fuzz) went down for a Q&A session. There was a Hot Fuzz stand in the centre of the main hall, and the actors came along to promote the film.
Film Timeline (2006-2010)
Film Timeline (2006-2010)
- United 93 - 2006
- Sixty Six - 2006
- Smokin' Aces - 2007
- Hot Fuzz - 2007
- Gone - 2007
- Catch A Fire - 2007
- Mr Bean's Holiday - 2007
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age - 2007
- Atonement - 2007
- Definitely Maybe - 2008
- Wild Child - 2008
- The Boat That Rocked - 2009
- State of Play - 2009
- Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang - 2010
Friday, 3 December 2010
Film4 Distribution.
- 2002 - big changes to Film4, Tessa Ross was appointed as the head of Film4, and as they realised they were going bankrupt they made 3rd party partnerships, and therefore they don't distribute their own films anymore. (Studio Canal, Love Films ect).
- They have an increased budget, from £8-10 million to £15 million to spend.
- Make between 6-8 films per year.
- They have a low budget studio with Film Council and Optimum:Warp X.
- Working across TV and film drama also allows for economies of scale and cross-fertilisation.
- Film4's money comes from advertisers, they have more adverts on their website than other film companies, such as Working Title.
- They have many partnerships with distribution companies.
- Worked with Working Title, BBC and BBC Films to distribute films.
- Warp X - a Film4/UK Film Council joint project with the Sheffield-based indie Warp- that can finance three low budget films a year.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Avatar Case Study.
Director - James Cameron
Budget - $237million
$2.6 billion - worldwide box office average.
Won Oscars and Golden Globes.
Shown in 3D.
Shot on a 'virtual camera' - allowed James Cameron to move through a 3D terrain (produced in 2003).
3D = stereoscopic films.
3D films earn more money than 2D films.
Largely protected from piracy because it is harder to copy 3D films than it is to replicate 2D.
New 3D, 'illusion of depth' - 2 cameras shoot images side-by-side to give a 3D effect.
Most successful 3D films are also animated.
70% of Avatar is CGI including the main female character.
The cast wore motion capture suits for most of the filming.
Cast acted out their scenes on a 'performance capture' stage, six time bigger than anything used before.
A skull cap was also used to capture the actors facial expressions.
Allows film-makers to add the special effects later, but also letting them position the camera wherever they want.
Setup was the creation of a virtual monitor that allowed the director to see the motion capture results in real time.
Innovative filming rig consisting of a number of stereoscopic cameras that each use a pair of lenses built in to mimic the human eye.
Friday 21st August 2009 - official designated 'Avatar Day'. A 15 minutes trailer was released worldwide throughout cinemas.
London, 21st April 2010 - 20th Century Fox launched the industry's first rich interactive trailer for the DVD eg. zoom in and out any frame, pause and select hot spots which led to extended clips of scenes. Meant people wouldn't be bothered about watching the film at home, rather than at the cinema, because they had all the extra features.
Thinkjam: built interactive units and Eyeblaster.
The adverts debuted simultaneously across the web in 15 markets around the world - makes everyone feel equal because they saw it all at the same time, reduces piracy.
Needs a digitally equipped cinema (possibly silver-coated screen to make it brighter) and a pair of special polarised glasses for everyone to see the film.
Tickets cost more than normal 2D films, as there is an extra cost to the exhibitor.
Cinemas can't show these types of films if they don't have a digital projector.
320 out of 3,600 cinemas are digitally equipped in Britain.
It costs £80,000 to get cinemas into the position to show 3D films.
Additional Notes.
Film4 - 'tiny commissioning department... remit is to make adventurous contemporary films outside the studio system' - Tessa Ross. In the UK, the UK Film Council, Film4 and BBC Films remain the three main film financiers. Slumdog Millionaire was unusual because of its success.
Working Title Notes
Crowd-pleasing, generally produce romcoms. The real secret is their mastery of international distribution.
Distribution Notes
US distribution companies pay more than £5million on making British film prints.
Smaller British distributors try to 'get a film away' with £25,000.
Last year, 73 different film distributors released films in the UK.
Distribution companies have to work differently to Hollywood distributors to stand out.
Distribution companies will plan ahead before they even get the film eg. the DVD.
In the past decade, the public film sector has grown substantially.
The new technologies is having a huge impact on smaller companies and films. Allows more prints to be made.
The UK Film Council were helping British film makers to reduce Hollywood's influence by funding non-mainstream films and they also provided digital facilities to smaller companies.
Studio Canal is the most significant new force in the UK film making.
Optimum Releasing is also a French distribution company (like Studio Canal) that had distributed Film4 and Working Title films.
Where Hollywood leaves in film distribution, companies like Studio Canal have taken their place.
Budget - $237million
$2.6 billion - worldwide box office average.
Won Oscars and Golden Globes.
Shown in 3D.
Shot on a 'virtual camera' - allowed James Cameron to move through a 3D terrain (produced in 2003).
3D = stereoscopic films.
3D films earn more money than 2D films.
Largely protected from piracy because it is harder to copy 3D films than it is to replicate 2D.
New 3D, 'illusion of depth' - 2 cameras shoot images side-by-side to give a 3D effect.
Most successful 3D films are also animated.
70% of Avatar is CGI including the main female character.
The cast wore motion capture suits for most of the filming.
Cast acted out their scenes on a 'performance capture' stage, six time bigger than anything used before.
A skull cap was also used to capture the actors facial expressions.
Allows film-makers to add the special effects later, but also letting them position the camera wherever they want.
Setup was the creation of a virtual monitor that allowed the director to see the motion capture results in real time.
Innovative filming rig consisting of a number of stereoscopic cameras that each use a pair of lenses built in to mimic the human eye.
Friday 21st August 2009 - official designated 'Avatar Day'. A 15 minutes trailer was released worldwide throughout cinemas.
London, 21st April 2010 - 20th Century Fox launched the industry's first rich interactive trailer for the DVD eg. zoom in and out any frame, pause and select hot spots which led to extended clips of scenes. Meant people wouldn't be bothered about watching the film at home, rather than at the cinema, because they had all the extra features.
Thinkjam: built interactive units and Eyeblaster.
The adverts debuted simultaneously across the web in 15 markets around the world - makes everyone feel equal because they saw it all at the same time, reduces piracy.
Needs a digitally equipped cinema (possibly silver-coated screen to make it brighter) and a pair of special polarised glasses for everyone to see the film.
Tickets cost more than normal 2D films, as there is an extra cost to the exhibitor.
Cinemas can't show these types of films if they don't have a digital projector.
320 out of 3,600 cinemas are digitally equipped in Britain.
It costs £80,000 to get cinemas into the position to show 3D films.
Additional Notes.
Film4 - 'tiny commissioning department... remit is to make adventurous contemporary films outside the studio system' - Tessa Ross. In the UK, the UK Film Council, Film4 and BBC Films remain the three main film financiers. Slumdog Millionaire was unusual because of its success.
Working Title Notes
Crowd-pleasing, generally produce romcoms. The real secret is their mastery of international distribution.
Distribution Notes
US distribution companies pay more than £5million on making British film prints.
Smaller British distributors try to 'get a film away' with £25,000.
Last year, 73 different film distributors released films in the UK.
Distribution companies have to work differently to Hollywood distributors to stand out.
Distribution companies will plan ahead before they even get the film eg. the DVD.
In the past decade, the public film sector has grown substantially.
The new technologies is having a huge impact on smaller companies and films. Allows more prints to be made.
The UK Film Council were helping British film makers to reduce Hollywood's influence by funding non-mainstream films and they also provided digital facilities to smaller companies.
Studio Canal is the most significant new force in the UK film making.
Optimum Releasing is also a French distribution company (like Studio Canal) that had distributed Film4 and Working Title films.
Where Hollywood leaves in film distribution, companies like Studio Canal have taken their place.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Distribution Cont.
Release of films
Marketability: audience? devising a strategy.
How much money in marketing? What can the movie take?
Speaking to media partners; radio, newspapers, TV, cinemas?
Premiere.
Online websites, media, newspapers.
Choose the right target audience.
Positioning and audience
Genre of film? Speaks to which age group?
Target film using director and actors to certain people.
Target audience
Smaller films focus more on their target audience.
Gather ideas from past films, but there is also an element of gambling.
45+ age group - make decisions from TV, needs to be reinforced to make them go.
Teenagers - may just turn up at the cinema and watch whatever is on at the time, less fussy about what they see.
Marketing plan
Advertising - more expensive adverts in magazines ect. publicity of the film, stories about the film aka media coverage.
Outdoor advertising - adverts on buses, billboards.
Word of mouth - free advertising, make or break a film.
Internet - emails and virals.
Screening programmes.
Competition
Films need to stand above other films released at the same time.
Why do the audience want to see your film?
Oct/Nov: good time for cinema going, bad weather, people more inclined to see a movie, good release time.
Weather plays a part in advertising.
Big outdoor posters in the summer mean more people will be more likely to see it as they spend more time outside.
Word of mouth
Critical to any movie, but mainly to smaller productions.
Can make a film either fantastically strong or very bad.
Companies work with media partners to show advance screenings.
People listen to what their friends think more than film reviews, if they say the film is good more people are likely to go and see it.
The life expectancy of a film is shorter if there is bad word of mouth.
Budget
Covers films prints and technical elements.
Advertising costs: making trailers, posters ect.
What is the target market audience? Where will they see adverts?
Radio advertising is cheap.
Viral marketing
Videos, quizzes ect, people send on the emails if the film looks good. (simple process)
Most effective means of advertising, more than press reviews ect.
Most spoof trailers are produced by the marketing company to generate more interest in the film.
Digital marketing
Piracy has escalated over the past few years, this will decrease the amount of piracy happening in the film industry.
20% of all DVD sales in the UK are pirate copies.
Piracy is damaging the film industry.
Marketability: audience? devising a strategy.
How much money in marketing? What can the movie take?
Speaking to media partners; radio, newspapers, TV, cinemas?
Premiere.
Online websites, media, newspapers.
Choose the right target audience.
Positioning and audience
Genre of film? Speaks to which age group?
Target film using director and actors to certain people.
Target audience
Smaller films focus more on their target audience.
Gather ideas from past films, but there is also an element of gambling.
45+ age group - make decisions from TV, needs to be reinforced to make them go.
Teenagers - may just turn up at the cinema and watch whatever is on at the time, less fussy about what they see.
Marketing plan
Advertising - more expensive adverts in magazines ect. publicity of the film, stories about the film aka media coverage.
Outdoor advertising - adverts on buses, billboards.
Word of mouth - free advertising, make or break a film.
Internet - emails and virals.
Screening programmes.
Competition
Films need to stand above other films released at the same time.
Why do the audience want to see your film?
Oct/Nov: good time for cinema going, bad weather, people more inclined to see a movie, good release time.
Weather plays a part in advertising.
Big outdoor posters in the summer mean more people will be more likely to see it as they spend more time outside.
Word of mouth
Critical to any movie, but mainly to smaller productions.
Can make a film either fantastically strong or very bad.
Companies work with media partners to show advance screenings.
People listen to what their friends think more than film reviews, if they say the film is good more people are likely to go and see it.
The life expectancy of a film is shorter if there is bad word of mouth.
Budget
Covers films prints and technical elements.
Advertising costs: making trailers, posters ect.
What is the target market audience? Where will they see adverts?
Radio advertising is cheap.
Viral marketing
Videos, quizzes ect, people send on the emails if the film looks good. (simple process)
Most effective means of advertising, more than press reviews ect.
Most spoof trailers are produced by the marketing company to generate more interest in the film.
Digital marketing
Piracy has escalated over the past few years, this will decrease the amount of piracy happening in the film industry.
20% of all DVD sales in the UK are pirate copies.
Piracy is damaging the film industry.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Distribution.
What is distribution?
What is a distributor?
Distribution and Marketing.
What is film distribution?
Describes everything that happens between making the film and people watching the film.
All the deals that happen are used to promote the film.
Above the line - everything the distribution company pays for eg. trailers, poster, billboards... ect.
Below the line - all the free publicity eg. interviews with the actors, fan sites and reviews.
Is it all fair?
Big companies control their own distribution and others.
Films are loaned out to cinemas and release deals are done that secure access to a certain number of screens.
UK film market - increase in the quantity of screens showing British films has not led to an increase of British films being shown.
Five major distributors in UK film industry (all are American companies):
1. United International Pictures (Universal is included in this)
2. Warner Brothers
3. Buena Vista
4. 20th Century Fox
5. Sony
Problems smaller companies face
Every film shown in cinemas needs a print, and a separate print for each cinema it is being shown in, which then uses the prints to project the film via a reel.
Smaller companies can't afford to make as many prints as larger companies can, therefore less cinemas will screen the film and less people will watch it, minimising profit.
UK Film Council is financially supporting British films by using Digital Screen Network.
The dominance of Hollywood
Marketing - Pirates of the Caribbean 2 made over £50 million in the UK box office and 1.5 million DVD's were brought after 10 days of release, despite bad reviews. Good marketing gave the film success.
The Dark Knight
First big blockbuster to use viral advertising to that extent.
Cost £185 million to make.
On 20th July 2008 The Dark Knight was shown on 4336 screens in the UK.
Compared to This Is England which was shown on 62 screens on 29th April 2007.
The piracy problem and film distribution
Piracy is a major concern of all film distributors, with Hollywood investigators claiming a 10% increase each year in revenue lost to illegal distribution.
The UK has the highest level of DVD piracy.
The UK Film Council reminded the public that they're hurting the small production companies by piracy.
Can digital film and projection stop this?
Digital distribution advantages
It promises to transform the film industry.
Downloading films via broadband means companies don't have to spend money on prints and cinemas ect.
It has the advantage of every film being identical versions as things can't go missing or get damaged, so you will still have the same high quality not matter how long you have the film for.
More controlled and has better security, almost impossible to pirate films.
Simultaneous global distribution via the internet will stop the 'time gap'.
What is a distributor?
Distribution and Marketing.
- Tony Angelletti - 'audience has the greatest power.' '...if the audience likes a particular superstar, then Hollywood is forced to use them.' Summary: the audience is in control of what the film industry makes.
- Toby Miller - 'budget of a film often sees 50% going on promotion.' 'consumer can exercise authority is absurd.' Summary: Hollywood control the films that we want to see.
What is film distribution?
Describes everything that happens between making the film and people watching the film.
All the deals that happen are used to promote the film.
Above the line - everything the distribution company pays for eg. trailers, poster, billboards... ect.
Below the line - all the free publicity eg. interviews with the actors, fan sites and reviews.
Is it all fair?
Big companies control their own distribution and others.
Films are loaned out to cinemas and release deals are done that secure access to a certain number of screens.
UK film market - increase in the quantity of screens showing British films has not led to an increase of British films being shown.
Five major distributors in UK film industry (all are American companies):
1. United International Pictures (Universal is included in this)
2. Warner Brothers
3. Buena Vista
4. 20th Century Fox
5. Sony
- Roughly 9 of out 10 films are distributed by the above companies.
- Distributors are directly linked to Hollywood production companies who make the films, and the exhibitors who prioritise Hollywood films for profit.
- Blockbuster films are distributed via 'blanket release' meaning the other films are competing for attention.
- Blanket release - the film will be shown everywhere, covers the other films being shown at the time, considered to be 'an event' as there is such a big hype about it.
- Half of the British films being shown in Britain do not reach the whole country due to this.
Problems smaller companies face
Every film shown in cinemas needs a print, and a separate print for each cinema it is being shown in, which then uses the prints to project the film via a reel.
Smaller companies can't afford to make as many prints as larger companies can, therefore less cinemas will screen the film and less people will watch it, minimising profit.
UK Film Council is financially supporting British films by using Digital Screen Network.
The dominance of Hollywood
Marketing - Pirates of the Caribbean 2 made over £50 million in the UK box office and 1.5 million DVD's were brought after 10 days of release, despite bad reviews. Good marketing gave the film success.
The Dark Knight
First big blockbuster to use viral advertising to that extent.
Cost £185 million to make.
On 20th July 2008 The Dark Knight was shown on 4336 screens in the UK.
Compared to This Is England which was shown on 62 screens on 29th April 2007.
The piracy problem and film distribution
Piracy is a major concern of all film distributors, with Hollywood investigators claiming a 10% increase each year in revenue lost to illegal distribution.
The UK has the highest level of DVD piracy.
The UK Film Council reminded the public that they're hurting the small production companies by piracy.
Can digital film and projection stop this?
Digital distribution advantages
It promises to transform the film industry.
Downloading films via broadband means companies don't have to spend money on prints and cinemas ect.
It has the advantage of every film being identical versions as things can't go missing or get damaged, so you will still have the same high quality not matter how long you have the film for.
More controlled and has better security, almost impossible to pirate films.
Simultaneous global distribution via the internet will stop the 'time gap'.
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