Monday 1 December 2014



“Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practises” to what extent do you agree with this statement within the media area you have studied?

Marketing and distribution is a massive part in making whatever size film successful. I would even go as far as saying it is the most intregal aspect of a film being a gross success. Some films distribution is significantly larger than others as they are hoping to reach a mass market of people in a short space of time. For example the Grand Budapest Hotel was only originally released in 4 cinemas in new york meaning the craze was a slower build compared to say marvel who when releasing there films they distribute them to multiple cinemas globally at once. In terms of how these contrasting parent companies retrieve there profit from the cinema it is different. 20th century fox (Budapest) received huge amounts of money from the limited cinemas the film was originally released  wehereas Marvel gained there profits in small pieces from hundreds of cineamas globally.      

Films must be marketed into their genre well and major institutions usually have dominance over the film industry because they all generally like to make the most common type of film genre , e.g action/adventure, and as over 50% of people prefer this genre this is an instant way of marketing as its already in the public interest.There have even been many cases where blockbuster films have had terrible critical acclaim but have still made profits. This is due purely to the marketing and distribution of the film, other factors which could have lead to people seeing the films despite the poor to average reviews could be if the film attained any A list actors. By having A listers in the film itself this can be used as a way of marketing.


 Following on from my previous point of how films can be marketed from simply using a list actors i have selected the film   ‘world war z’ to represent my point. My average review of the film and a terrible collected opinion in the critics eyes left the film in pieces. However the marketing managed to cover this up so the film made huge profit, and furthermore with a key actor like Brad Pitt , that has already marketed well already . This proves that even if the production practices are poor the film can succeed with marketing and distribution. So therefore i would agree with the question and say especially with the hard pushing of the film the Marketing was a very key part of the films success in generating revenue.

However to offer a unbiased example in contrast to previous points  which received limited marketing in comparison to blockbusters whilst being a huge success would be the kings speech.  The kings speech, owned by the weinstein company, had a budget of a mediocre £8,000,000 and managed to generate a staggering $414,000,000.  This could be down to the nature of the film and the relevance within English heritage. Colin firth was the lead actor in the film, and prior to the 'kings speech' would arguably have not mean classed as A list although being a recognisable name. The film was so critically acclaimed that it won numerous awards, most notibly an oscar, and generated a box office revenue beyond director Tom Hoopers dreams. The reason i believe the Kings speech was so successful despite the lower scale marketing was due to them perfectly crafting it towards there market audience. I would depict that elderly people were the identified audience for the film with the topic being rather a mature and historical topic. One way in which  they marketed the film towards the older generation was through a use of promotional posters. The way they set up the poster was with the 3 main characters facing the camera whilst using a serious look. This immedietly shows people that the film is of a serious nature ands not set up for comical purposes. The use of gold writing of the "The Kings Speech" again emphasises the professional nature of the film. In fact the the layout of the words was in the same presentational layout as the "keep calm and carry on" reference. This is relavent as that phrase was frequently used on posters during the war and would catch the eye of older people immedietly who are viewing the poster. Cleverly they also created posters for the younger generation 

                      

1 comment:

  1. Josh, this essay is too light on facts. You MUST add key facts to secure the marks. TGBH may have been released on only four screens but how much money did it take per screen? You also need to include details about how the film was marketed. look back at all our class work on marketing and add that detail to your essay.

    An easy site to use is the YouGov profiler which tells you exactly who watches what and what their interests are. Take the time to research the films we've studied and their specific audiences.

    Go back through your essay and ensure you incude facts which link to the question

    Marketing techniques (at least 3 per film) for every text mentioned
    distribution strategies (how many screens and how much box office taken)
    specifics on critical opinions (either metacritic scores or quotations from critics or nominations received)
    For every film provide the year, production studio and distribution studio.

    Currently this is well below the standard needed.

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