This blog explores US influence (financial + cultural), Anglocentric (ie, primarily English) representations, digitisation, ownership, industry developments, audience, media theories, tracking key news + events, with Film/Media A-Level/undergrad students + educators in mind. Examples often include Sheffield's Warp (Indie) and London/LA-based Working Title (NBC-Universal subsidiary), ie This is England/Four Lions v Bridget Jones/Green Zone! Please acknowledge the source/blog author: Mr D Burrowes
NBC-U are clearly comfortable with taking risky punts and developing new distribution outlets - just look at their rather ingenious Prima venture, seeking to extract considerable revenue from high-end home cinema.
NBC Universal said it was attracted to the opportunity to tap into
BuzzFeed’s 200 million unique users and the 1.5bn video views they rack
up each month. “They reach a massive, loyal audience and have proven to be among the
most creative, popular and influential new media players,” said Steve
Burke, chief executive of NBC Universal. “BuzzFeed has built an
exceptional global company that harmonises technology, data and superior
editorial abilities to create and share content in innovative ways.” For NBC Universal it is two deals in two weeks following an equivalent $200m investment in Vox Media, which owns eight brands including technology site The Verge and news site Vox.com. In May, Vox expanded its portfolio with the takeover of Re/code, the well-regarded tech news site founded by former Wall Street Journal staffers.
The marketing for a film about 80s/90s old school gangsta rappers has been exemplary, creating a much stronger than usual excitement around a biopic.
At the heart of this has been a shareable font/logo that has taken Facebook and other social media by storm, and pushing the film's marketing to audiences it might otherwise have struggled to reach.
So, when considering digipak and magazine ad designs, don't underestimate the power of a downloadable and editable font/logo... and the very real power of audience interaction.
Couple of articles highlighting the limitations of online censorship in even the world's most OTT censorship regime, useful for illustrating the wider point of the difficulty in enforcing film censorship in the web 2.0 era, and the convergence of film/video and social media. Gauntlett's point on the blurring of audience and producer is also evident from these examples.
First up, a 1 min sex clip, shot in a clothing store changing room, has caused government apoplexy but been viewed millions of times, sparked a selfie craze outside the store, and highlighted the limits of government/censor power.
China’s young people have spoken. And what they want is sex http://gu.com/p/4am8j
Uniqlo sex video: film shot in Beijing store goes viral and angers government
http://gu.com/p/4ayf4
Secondly, China has backed high end, tentpole level film production, producing films to take on US hegemony domestically and internationally which propagandise Communist Party rule and Chinese nationalism to some extent.
The latest example, Cairo, looks at a 1943 Allied conference in Cairo which saw China proclaimed as one of four global powers (with Russia, UK and USA). Chairman Mao features prominently. There's just one problem...
He wasn't there - his nationalist opponent was, and it would be years before the Communists seized power.
This has sparked what Stuart Hall would recognise as widespread 'oppositional reading', with this counter-hegemonic response even extending to some of the state media, and creating a mocking meme reflected in satirical tee-shirts and online Weibo (Chinese Facebook/Twitter equivalent) posts placing Gollum and suchlike at the conference.
'The text' becomes an absurd notion when audience interaction created such a multi-layered meta-text, warping and contesting the encoded ideology of the original.
Both these examples also showcase the increasing social and cultural power flexed by a large youth generation much more tech-savvy than the older generation who dominate state power and policy.
Bloggers ridicule Chinese film placing Mao Zedong at key wartime conference
Despite the down at heel, working class focus of the franchise, interesting to see Warp linking up not with a tabloid but rather the broadsheet Guardian, with its ABC1 readership.
Click on 'read more' for article link and to see the trailer
British and American media are largely hostile to or dismissive of Russia, keeping the Cold War antagonism very much alive. We don't hear so much about the film-making from a country that has provided major elements of the media language of film.
Challenging the Hollywood hegemony is a colossal task, and I doubt $500m will go far ... perhaps of equal significance is the talk of setting limits on the amount of non-Russian film in Russian cinemas. America has invaded small nations in the past for such quota systems, seeing Hollywood as key to soft power globally.
In Russia's pseudo democracy (you can judge whether the UK or US polities are much healthier), its not surprising that the interests of the state are so explicitly linked to this new lush, which came about after Putin asked for private finance to build up Russia's film industry:
The Russian state has become increasingly interested in the film industry in recent years. In 2014, the culture minister called for a cap on foreign movies, and in March his ministry released a list of movie themes which it would support. These included family values, military glory and “Crimea and Ukraine in the 1,000 year history of the Russian state”. It’s also a big business – Stalingrad, a war film, earned over $50m worldwide last year.
We naturally focus on the BBFC or equivalents such as the MPAA when considering regulation of film. Here's a good reminder that the film business is part regulated by the likes of the ASA too.
This is also an intriguing case as it marks an exception to the prevailing regulatory presumption that media content considered, generally without evidence, harmful to children, should face restrictions on distribution and exhibition.
A Scary clown in a film poster attracted multiple complaints, but the distress caused to some with a fear of clowns (coulrophobia) was not enough to justify banning the poster from public sites.
Poltergeist posters cleared despite more than 70 complaints over clown image http://gu.com/p/4ajq2?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
After a torrid 2014 in which it failed to have any of the year's top ten hits (managing only the 11th biggest take), Universal is breaking several records in 2015.
The article also contains useful analysis about which parts of the week are most couple oriented and which are key for female-targeted movies...
Universal claims UK box-office record as Amy Winehouse doc stuns in week two http://gu.com/p/4ajyy?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
A placeholder post for now, added to a growing list of I'll come back to this... Until Avatar 2 hits, a more up to date case study of a tentpole to supplement the Working Title/Warp Films focus would be useful, and the Star Wars juggernut is perfect for this, an ongoing narrative of globalised hegemony, marketing muscle and dense distribution, with note perfect audience 'interaction'. NB: The linked article quotes Kevin Smith, so naturally enough features strong language!
Sith happens: Kevin Smith makes light of Comic-Con's space issues http://gu.com/p/4aja6?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
I've blogged in some detail on the highly converged 'Marvel universe', with characters criss-crossing cinema, TV, games and an even wider world of UGC.
Another Disney acquisition demonstrating the importance of good production practices as much as distribution might and marketing nous is the Star Wars franchise that creator George Lucas threatened to run aground with the weak prequels and CGI messing with the original trilogy.
I don't think there's ANY franchise to rival the excitement this one generates, and its a near certainty that the box office charts will be headed by not just the new trilogy but the additional spin-offs, such as the story of Hans Solo, and the raid that got the Death Star plans before that climactic Skywalker shot.
Even the awful prequel trilogy racked up $2.5bn. It would be little surprise for the first new movie to equal that alone - this is a movie many fans will pay to see repeatedly.
Star Wars: the marketing force awakens http://gu.com/p/4aggz?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
The article covers many points
- the lack of a genuine Brit star to succeed Grant, with possible contenders shunning the genre
- the UK industry once more operating as a mini-Hollywood, churning out multiple genres and franchises
- the rise of alternatives to the all-powerful Working Title, including a specific mention of Warp
And more...
What especially caught my eye: having noted that even the rom-com king's return to the fray saw Richard Curtis post fairly modest box office ... put into further context by the extraordinary killer stat that the last $100m+ rom-com was in 2011!!!!
That was a Jennifer Aniston vehicle, an actress ironically central to the narrative of the genre's box office decline!
Not love actually: why Britons ended their affair with the romcom http://gu.com/p/4ab37?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
UPDATE: Another iconic horror franchise has moved to TV after years of speculation about a movie reboot. Bruce Campbell's counter-culture icon Ash is strapping on the chainsaw and chopping out cheesy one-liners once more ... on the 'small screen' (there's a term that feels a little odd these days!).
NB: the trailer embedded in the following is VERY gory. Nice to see alcohol brands sidestepping regulations prohibiting the targeting of youths by placement with online trails for a 15-24 (substantial older secondary audience notwithstanding) show, Jack Daniel's king bed ad in this case.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/videos/3352696/ash-vs-evil-dead-trailer-premiere-sdcc/
UPDATE2: Horror TV series (NB: 18-rated) Hannibal has been cancelled after 3 seasons by its US network ... and may continue as a feature film.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3352934/hannibal-continue-feature-film/
An immensely successful franchise that launched a new wave of ironic, parodic, postmodern 90s slashers (Scary Movie used Scream's original working title and directly parodied the entire plot - legal as both were Dimension Films productions), Bob Weinstein claims that it has permanently exited the big screen.
Note his explanation, a bit of a bombshell coming from a key player in Indie cinema globally - TV is where the teen audience are.
That's a great, short quote to wield in an essay!
I agree with the writer that it's highly unlikely that Scream won't return to the cinema as a remake or sequel, but that's a hell of a sign of the uncertainty facing the industry. Lets not forget either that TV also faces a crisis from digital disruption!
It seems so...
This is fairly new technology; Sony has been an earlyadopter, but a new rival has eschewed Wi-Fi connection for a physical, cabled link to the iPhone, removing the lag and unreliability of Wi-Fi, bringing the immense processing power of contemporary smartphones to play as a controller for a separate lens that's far beyond any integrated cameras at this time.
Not recent news, but just encountering this now by clicking through a few times from an article in today's paper' ... on about the 5th article in, spotted this...
Bath Film Festival had added an additional F rating to 17 of the 42 films it was screening, denoting a strong female influence as lead actor, director or writer (primarily, other times were considered too).
Many of these would easily failthe BechdelTest!
Given just how bad the industry is overall in representing femalekind, or giving influential behind the camera roles to women, I have to wonder what impact this might have if the BBFC took it up. You could ask yourselves which of the films we study would rate this.
Ideas can rarely be viewed in simple black or white, good or bad terms though ... BridgetJones'Diary, with its female director, original writer (of the novel) and lead would certainly get this rating ... but its at best questionable whether this is a positiverepresentation of women.
Rather than add yet another links list, I'll embed various vids I've been looking at here.
Naturally, as censorship is the subtext of many, you need to be aware that some will contain strong language and/or explicit imagery, so consider where you're viewing any of these, being mindful of younger students in particular.
I did a simple 'BBFC' search on YouTube; I've only looked at the first few results pages (so far) - if you come across any useful additions, please pass on the link as a comment.
Interview with a BBFC 'Examiner'/Censor
The BBFC's use of language is questionable, and Foucault/Fairclough would certainly recognise their attempts to control and define the discourse through changing the 'C' to classification from censorship, and re-naming censors 'examiners'.
Anyway, this is an interview with A BBFC 'examiner', Emily Fussell.
History of the BBFC Part 1
There doesn't appear to be a part 2; a fellow busy Media teacher created this.
'Ramblaholic' on Tesco withdrawing a DVD (Hospital) after complaints
A talking head vodcaster, he's not as libertarian as the MelonFarmers site, but still largely critical of censorship.
You can also find him here having his say on a 2014 BBFC report which suggested a tougher regime for horror.
VSC's BBFC and PEGI Training Video for Retailers
Another great example of the impact of digitisation! The BBFC have been increasingly open and made much more publicly accessible ever since James Ferman eventually stepped down, but I don't recall seeing this on their site!
Die Hard With a Vengeance (2009): The cuts to receive a 15
**clearly an example of 18-rated material**
This is useful as an example of the impact of digitisation; it wouldn't take much effort/wit to get round the BBFC's cuts (to be fair, the cuts the distributor made to get a more commercially favourable rating!) with videos such as this available.
Cheshire Cats Studio: BBFC/MPAA/Bechdel Ratings are ... bad
Some strong language used.
I've only skimmed this so far; a panel discussion largely presented as a Flash animation, and clearly not in favour of the ratings systems! With 21k views, another useful example of the impact of digitisation?
GoAnimate Video on the classifications
Haven't viewed yet...
Video Nasties 1hour doc
**features strong, explicit material**
This is very useful, but is clearly intended for a mature audience, so caution!!!
The syllabus asks you to reflect on your own experiences, and the A2 exam requires analysis of all alspects of production work, including its reception. Well, lets take a moment to consider YouTube as part of this. The IGSMediaStudies alone has had over 50,000 views since I set it up 5 years ago, and thats a TINY fraction of the overall views student work has had when you consider that ONE film piece on ONE of several student channels had over a quarter of a million views...
IGSMediaStudies uploads have been viewed worldwide...
This blog itself seems to have picked up an international readership...
Top 10 countries by views as of 25th May 2015
These have been viewed on gadgets as much as on computers...
I'll add further links to the one below when not on my converged smartphone! Hollywood has to keep on its toes as TV tech keeps rising, even if 3D TV has essentially failed, with smartphone and gadget camera specs also continuing to rise, and Macbook/iMac screen resolution hitting 5k, boosting the potential of prosumer tech such as Final Cut Pro X!
That's a new term to me: four-walling, the practice of Indie producers renting a cinema primarily in the hopes that their screening will attract a newspaper review.
In the US its not uncommon to do this for a full week's run, though the practice in the UK seems to be for a single screening - kind of a Gant Rule effect I suppose!
Coz Greenop used this approach to great effect with Wandering Rose, the screening leading to a deal with Curzon Cinemas. I think Harry MacQueen did likewise with Hinterland [needs checking]. Remember too Warp using cinema ads trumpeting the cinema release date of Le Donk, which was really a DVD release - that helped get those vital newspaper reviews, much harder for a straight-to-DVD release to achieve.
In this web 2.0 (3.0?) age, can the dinosaur print media really be that important?
Yes ... and no. One of my favourite phrases! As with so much, there are two sides to this...
Look at '71. The National Media Museum box office told me, when I raised with them the very sparse crowd for the opening night screening, on a Friday, that it would pick up dramatically once the Guardian review had been digested.
The no part flows from the same example. The ABC1 Guardian readership may be more likely to pay attention to the paper's film coverage than, say, a tabloid's C2DE readership - that's speculation on my part.
What isn't is the indisputable fact that newspaper readerships are older than the core cinema audience, a trend which is accelerating.
Haven't covered yes and no, there is another angle to this - its not just about any immediate pick up in audience, its the possibility of featuring 'pull-out' phrases from reviews (and thus the publication names) on posters, DVD sleeves, in pitches to distributors, and on CVs when looking to finance and cast future productions.
Its easy to simplify digitisation as a killer of old media, but that's never been the case; the disruptive power of digitisation more often leads to a symbiotic relationship. So, the Guardian's '71 review was arguably secondary in impact to its leading the paper's weekly film vodcast, an example of convergence.
Who knows, someday YOU might be four-walling ... just don't forget to send me a ticket!
'Four-walling': how film-makers pay to see their work on screen http://gu.com/p/496yf
Working Title is part of a vertically integrated conglomerate, NBC-Universal, itself part of a much larger parent company, Comcast. NBC-U turns over an incredible $25bn a year and combines production through such subsidiaries as Working Title, distribution through Focus Features, StudioCanal and Universal International Pictures, as well as exhibition arms ranging from the US TV network NBC to the subscription streaming site Hulu. Horizontal integration and the synergies from this are part of their strategy, with the films fuelling interest in the Universal theme parks for example. Working Title have been part of horizontal integration strategies ever since they expanded into the American market and sold off 67% of their shares to PolyGram (later bought by NBC-U). One of their earliest global hits, 1994’s £3m Four Weddings and a Funeral which grossed an incredible global £150m, had an OST (soundtrack) on Island Records … a subsidiary of PolyGram!
IN THIS POST:This links into several posts on convergence and ownership issues, and explores just how converged a company WT really is ... and the influence of ownership on this. I briefly raise points discussed in detail in previous posts.
I'm working on a fresh guide on convergence (and the wider issue of digitisation). Instead of putting all the sources I'll use into one over-long post, or adding yet another links list, you can find here, with summaries and some notes, a list of further resources. Convergence is also dealt with in many journal articles and book chapters!!!
When I put together guides I'm inevitably summarising, reducing, a wide range of material; if you want to look deeper, this (and the Library/classroom resources!) is a good starting point.
The link above requires a login (ask myself or Librarian). Much of the analysis below is my own, but linked to Hendry's points.
Nice example of how large conglomerates integrate seemingly contrasting brands:
According to one definition, brand = product + personality. Knowing the brand means that the audience can feel reassured when they access a product produced by a familiar, wellloved brand. Consider the ‘personalities’ constructed by two very different institutions: Disney and Marvel. Both are associated with blockbuster film, but our expectations of their products may be quite different.
UPDATE, 2015:Rather than add another post, I'll add to this one which looked at the example of Magic Mike as an exemplar of an emerging female gaze. That was rather limited to the notion of objectifying; I've added more below on an article for Media Magazine by Sean Richardson in which he challenges us to think more carefully about how a female viewer (de)constructs and receives media images. Yes, media and not least cinema remains somewhat patriarchal overall, but it is just too simplistic to view media entirely through the prism of sexist objectification.
UPDATE 2: TODD HAYNES ON WHY IT TOOK HOLLYWOOD LONGER TO MAKE A MAINSTREAM LESBIAN MOVIE THAN A GAY MALE MOVIE...
The director, Todd Haynes, agreed that same-sex female relationships had
been even less well-served by mainstream movie-makers than those
between two men. The reason that the likes of Brokeback Mountain and
Milk had preceded Carol was, he suspected, “because male audiences will
not be excluded [by them]. They are the prime audience Hollywood are
marketing films for.” (From a feature on Cate Blanchett, star of Carol)
The Female Gaze: Rethinking Representation
Following quotes are from an article in the always excellent Media Magazine (subscription needed - ask the Librarian or me for login details). Sean Richardson wrote in April 2015 on this topic, starting with a simple statement on the impact of male gaze:
Research suggests that advertising campaigns for a female audience are dominated by heterosexual Caucasian size 0 to 2 models. This is a fact, despite what we might think or want, in a multicultural, complex world. Increasingly, accusations have been made by the likes of Naomi Campbell and Dame Vivienne Westwood that representations of women in advertising are too white and nearly exclusively under size 6.
Anything but a fan of Freeman (I'd usually approach her writing with the appetite I'd have for a Marmite cake...), the 80s movie headline drew me into this, an excerpt from what appears to be her autobiography (correction: turns out to be a book on 80s movies).
It turns out to be a very interesting piece, discussing:
Female, teen and tween viewership (yes, uses and gratifications ahoy...), not least of sexual scenes or storylines
How contemporary films appear to punish female teen characters for sexual activity
Studios customary cutting of any counter-hegemonic messages (including, in these examples, abortion)
The role that sponsorship or tie-ins or product placement can have in ensuring conservative messages prevail (ie, reinforcing the studios' conservative instincts, the point above)
A study, and research institute, launched by an iconic actress who began to worry about the messages subliminally sent to her own young children, especially noting how women were given less space and visibility on screen
NB: The full article referred to below, and the Tumblr blog it is about, contains some quite frank sexual terms, reflecting the nature of much of the verbal abuse faced by female film-makers.
Quite a racy title, but this has generated a lot of attention:
Nicole Kassell first heard about the Tumblr blog Shit People Say to Women Directorslast week, when a female film-maker friend she was dining with mentioned it on the assumption she already knew of it. “I did go look at it and proceeded to get very depressed,” says Kassell, director of the films The Woodsman and A Little Bit of Heaven and episodes of TV shows such as Better Call Saul, The Killing and The Following.The site, which launched on 22 April and is causing a storm among film industry insiders, especially women, is a catalog of anonymous stories about the sexist things that happen to women working on film sets. [Shit People Say to Women Directors blog spotlights Hollywood's blatant sexism.]
Use the tags to find more linked content on this topic. There are also further articles, such as this one, which draws together research showing that female directors seem to get inferior distribution deals to their male peers.
Another critic (Jason Wilson) rather irked at the hegemony of superhero tentpoles. If you use the superhero tag in particular you'll find several linked articles analysing the rise of these films and this me-too strategy.
A quick summary follows of key points you can utilise to show your understanding of how (British and global) cinema functions ...
