How does Hollywood Produce, Market and Exhibit its Films to Ensure Success
Hollywood has a massive studio system; its six main studios are 20th Century Fox, UIP (Universal/Paramount/UA/MGM), Buena Vista (Disney), Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures. These all together make the big six. They have the power and the money to make high value films; they can also exhibit the films themselves if they want to. Hollywood has a massive output rate for films of 120 per year; the most popular types of films they produce are blockbuster and high concept films, high concept films are higher budget films where you can get better things like actors, effects, editing, it is also used to make sure that the film looks right, that it makes sense.
Production:
The production of the film in Hollywood is a lot faster than the ones in Britain, this is due to the fact that they have the money to get better effects, better editors, better actors and a better director, these add up to a lot of money, for example, “Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides” had a very high budget, this was of $260million – $300million, this money is spent on the marketing, the actors etc. The higher the budget the better the actors, the better the effects, the better the director, better locations, a better script and the better the overall outcome, it also allows you to bring in newer technology. In some sense you need to spend money, to make money. The better the film the more the audience will want to come and see it, this is taken into account when producing the film, you need to pick a specific market and then work around that, for example, “Cloverfield” used a viral campaign as it was very much a film targeted towards that market of people, this was very effective due to the fact that the film relates to there interests. Avatar which was the highest grossing film ever which was 70% digitally created took up the space of 3 football pitches to create, this was so that they could use the green screens which they have to create as sense of realism within the film, they needed to try and create an alternate world and they did that successfully thanks to the huge space they had available to them, another reason why they had to do this is due to the fact that the filming crew needed a lot of space due to the type of 3D recording device they used. It consisted of a massive frame and a lot of cameras were used, this when overlapped allowed for the amazing 3D effect, the 3D section of this film were provided with $300million, this may seem excessive but it was necessary due to the amount of money that the technological advances cost. The idea of the 3D frame was thought up by James Cameron, he was the director of the film also, so not only is he a director but in this case he is a creator. Although they had all of this space, they still used different areas of the world to create the film, such as California, Hawaii and New Zealand, these travelling costs are where all of the money from budgeting would of gone to, not only did they have to travel, they had to pay for the transport of the equipment which they used, they also had to pay for the actors, but most were reasonably unknown. A fact of “Avatar” is that James Cameron claimed that he had thought of the idea for “Avatar” during the creation of his previous success Titanic, but he said that the technological foundations of that time were not able to complete the task in which he saw the film would have to create.
From all of the information you can see that Hollywood production have a higher budget than British films, this means that they have better special effects as well, these things put together, better actors, better locations, better technology and better effects generally mean that the film will be better, this means that when the release day comes there is a higher chance of better gross. This is able due to the big production companies which are based in Hollywood, (The big six), this is why the Blockbusters are created.
Distribution:
The distribution from Hollywood’s big six film premier’s is very simple, this is due to the fact that most of them own there own cinema businesses, although this is true, they still need to pay for the premiers, and the transfer of the film, they have not yet managed to come up with a technological way of sending the film to different countries, this would save a lot of money, but as of yet it is not possible, another thing which needs to be taken into account is the fact that not all cinemas have screens which are 3D compatible, for example, it would be very difficult for any lone cinema company it is very difficult to convert there screens to 3D, it costs around £80,000.00 this may not be much for big Hollywood cinema companies, but for a individual cinema, it is almost un-thinkable. This restricts the amount of places which films such as avatar, with the highly technological 3D which they used, there is pretty much no-way that an individual cinema company would be able to screen this film. The cost to go and see the film must be carefully considered by the company which makes it and distributes it, this is due to the fact that the production of the film costs, as said before, the film such as “Cloverfield”, that films distribution was very much broadcasted in the viral way, the blogs which were set up underneath the characters age, this is very clever, this is due to the fact that it is viral, and it can be used to drop hints of the films name, this wasn’t released until a little while before the actual release of the film. This also fits into the marketing of the film which is part of what the distribution consists of. The marketing of this was mainly viral, it consisted of some Billboard signs, they did not give away anything from the film and gave the film a mass sense of mystery, such as the fact that the poster provided only showed the decapitated Statue of Liberty, this provides many option through the Mise-En-Scene, its dull, the statue etc. it could signal the fact that there is war, invasion etc. There viral blogs are controlled by the actors who play the characters in this, this is a genius idea due to the fact that they can interact with the people who are following the blogs. Where as the distribution of Avatar was very much a normal one, it allowed for the money which they were provided with to be spent on improving the film, however the marketing of the film is still the most important process due to the fact that this is when the film is going to be spread across the world, it is there to get the number of people who turn up to the film up, this means basically that they need to spend money in order to make money, so the better the marketing, the better the turn out, and the better the profits, for example, Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides marketing all began with the main character and a massive Disney Convention announcing the next film, also a lot of the marketing was related to the last films, it was in a saga so they could rely on the loyal followers to return and watch the new film. This method of marketing is called the publicity stunt. All of this increases the profit which they make when they exhibit the film.
Exhibition
The exhibition of the film consists of the premiers and the screenings of the film in various different countries, most films have different release dates, but some for have them on the same day in different countries, for example, “Avatar” by David Cameron was released in 16 different countries on the same day, this costs a lot of money but allowed them to get a clear view on whether the film would be successful, and in Avatar’s case, it was very successful. Different countries have different audiences so it was clear that Avatar was a very successful film as it got good ratings from all of the different countries it was in. The exhibition links to the distribution in the fact that sometimes the film can not be exhibited in the way that is needed; this is down to cinemas not being 3D compatible, if they cannot get the 3D experience available then sometimes the number of people coming to watch the film decreases due to the fact that they wanted to see it in 3D.
The premiers which are created for the films can be incredible, for example the Warner Bros. premier for Happy Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 was held in the two different film capitals of the world, Hollywood and London. Both of these are highly populated areas meaning that they attract a lot of attention from press and followers of the film. This is a good idea due to the fact that the more people that come, the higher the chance of merchandise is sold there, the more the word of mouth is spread across the world. This all relates to the fact that the more money which can be input into the film, means that the better the outcome can be and the better the profits can be made.
Also in exhibition, the way in which people can see the film is important, people have different thoughts to what they enjoy there surroundings and what the experience of the film is like, for example, some people enjoy the big screen and the loud noise, whereas some people will prefer to wait and buy the DVD and watch the film, also another very big problem with the film exhibition is piracy. People can just wait a day and then they will be able to view the film online, this is in need to be tackled and put a stop to.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the way which the films are set out by Hollywood in my opinion, is great, they make the entire experience in the cinema amazing, they allow for you to get in the film and it means that I personally enjoy it more, however other people have different opinions, but I like the surroundings, the darkness in the cinema allows you to focus on the screen, even if you are surrounded by other people, and the cinema allows for the sharing experience.
Overall I believe the money which the big six can put into the films mean that they are more exciting than the British films, however, British films, with the low amount of money which can be put into them mean that they are more realistic, in some cases this is good, but in some cases, the out of reality effects which are added by the amazing editing which can be bought in the American production gives a better experience for the viewers.
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