CONVERGENCE Scream franchise moves to MTV

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!

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3350829/will-scream-5/

CONVERGENCE Smartphone and DSLR converging?

It seems so...
This is fairly new technology; Sony has been an early adopter, 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.

http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/dxo-s-new-plug-in-camera-turns-your-iphone-into-a-dslr-nearly--1297226

F for Feminist rating?

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 fail the Bechdel Test!

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 ... Bridget Jones' 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 positive representation of women.

Bath film festival goes Wild with F rating for feminist films
Here's another intriguing one - a female only audience stipulation refused by a cinema -
Centre cancels 'illegal' women-only screening of film by Jewish director.

DISTRIBUTION Will Netflix kill the theatrical window?

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/jun/05/the-film-distributors-association-has-turned-100-so-whats-the-current-life-expectancy-for-cinematic-releases

BBFC: YouTube resources

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!!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJst2A2gx8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wit2OpjaqgM

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjGPvOV3wv4

4D breezes in with San Andreas

As inevitable as razor blade manufacturers adding another blade to hype a new product, news of 4D on the horizon.

As with 3D, its not a new idea; there were experiments with this in the 1950s!

I've seen '5D' cinema vans/trailers at a seaside resort in Latvia too (3 years ago).

Will this take off? Eventually, I'm sure it will, but not until costs drop significantly...

http://www.cinemablend.com/m/new/San-Andreas-4DX-It-Worth-Trip-71650.html

CONVERGENCE WEB 2.0 IGSMediaStudies + student YouTube channels

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...

CONVERGENCE 4K TV, 4K Blu-Ray, 5K Macs

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!

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/hdtv/is-the-tv-resolution-revolution-finished--1294168/2

DISTRIBUTION FOUR-WALLING Getting newspaper review still vital?

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

VERTICAL, HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION an illustration: Warp, Working Title, Marvel, Avatar

Some of NBC-Universal's film subsidiaries

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!

CONVERGENCE Working Title TV

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.

Screenshot of the Wiki.

WHAT THIS WIKI SCREENSHOT TELLS US...
Great academic research, eh?!
This tells us three key things before we consider more recent developments:

2015 exam materials

I'll add all updates here between now and Friday
Starting with an overview of whats expected


More coming below, plus anything new on TV Drama/Representation

NEW POSTS: 
WT TV AND CONVERGENCE
PAUL AVATAR CORNETTO TRILOGY audience, marketing, distribution, digitisation

CONVERGENCE A list of resources

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.

Rob Carlton (senior OCR examiner) Medi@CHS blog
Rob is a useful source, as someone involved in the syllabus design for OCR, and his school blog has lots of useful links.


Hendry, Steph (2015) "Two Key Concepts: The Relationship Between Audience and Institution", in Media Magazine, April 2015.

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.

Female gaze?

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.

WOMEN underrepresented even in crowd scenes

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

Hadley Freeman: why I owe it all to 1980s movies, ().

OWNERSHIP, EXAM How ownership impacts range of products available

JAN 2013: What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products available to audiences in the media area you have studied? 

THE EXAM THEMES:


SOME POSSIBLE ISSUES TO ADDRESS:

• Indie v conglomerate/subsidiary
• Budgets; tentpole dominance (Elberse v long tail)
• Co-productions norm at every level

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY Tumblr blog reveals film biz sexism

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.

DIGITISATION, GLOBALISATION, CONVERGENCE Superhero hegemony in brief

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 ...

AUDIENCE BBFC 18 rating usually a disaster but not Fifty Shades

I've raised this point in several blog posts, and frequently in lessons, so a short post to emphasize quite an important point. As teens and tweens are the key cinema-going audience, producers and distributors will generally seek to avoid 18-ratings (the US, MPAA, equivalent of R means that the biggest DVD retailer, Wal-Mart, won't even stock it).

There are always exceptions, and Fifty Shades of Grey was one where anything lower would have been distinctly off-putting, given audience expectations of realistic sex scenes:

Whatever happens, Fifty Shades looks absolutely certain to overtake The Wolf of Wall Street (£22.7m lifetime) to become the biggest ever 18-certificate title in this market. This is a movie where the 18 certificate can be considered in no way a hindrance – in fact, audiences would have been rightly suspicious of a Fifty Shades film that won a 15 rating. Usually, film distributors push for the lowest possible rating, but it’s easy to envision Universal asking the question of the UK censor: what exactly do we need to include to secure an 18?
(Charles Gant, Feb 2015)

There are very few 18-rated Working Title films; contrarily, there are very few PG or 12 Warp films. Working Title generally aim for a mass, mainstream market, and thus mostly avoid 18-ratings. They sacrifice realism to do so, something Warp are less willing to do. If WT present an idealised representation of the UK, Warp tend to present a grittier, rougher representation, with the very title of Meadows' This is England arguably a direct riposte to the Notting Hill, Bridget Jones (etc) depiction of a twee middle-class Britain, as viewed by Richard Curtis (and savagely satirised in the Curtisland animation).

3D Sky's not the limit for 3D after all

Launched with an Avatar exclusive, as brazen an example of both vertical and (with heavy plugs in The S*n for instance) horizontal integration, Sky has announced its shutting its 3D channel.

That's great news for the cinema industry, a strong sign that there are limits to the appeal of home cinema.The writing's been on the wall for 3D for some time now, but Sky is finally acknowledging the fact that, really, we just don't want to wear 3D glasses in our living rooms thank you very much.So Sky will pull the plug on its dedicated 3D channel this June. It will move its 3D content to its booming On Demand library section, giving it a much better home. That is, until Sky rolls out its 4K content and we forget this whole 3D thing ever happened. [http://www.techradar.com/news/television/tv/sky-just-pulled-the-plug-on-3d-tv-1292274.]

That's rather good news for the cinema industry at least, a sign that home cinema does have its limits.

INDUSTRY GENDER 2015 box office looks pretty in pink

Which is a terribly strangulated, stereotyped way of saying that a major exhibitor (owner of a chain of cinemas, or theatres as they're termed in American jargon) sees a much more female-friendly slate of releases as leading to potential record-breaking box office take in 2015.

2015 will be 'year of women' at the movies, says cinema trade group chief.

CONVERGENCE All the world's a Marvellous stage/silver screen

See Marvel section below for analysis; image source.

Age Of Ultron marks Whedon’s swan song in the Avengers director chair but it’s hardly the end of the saga. The two-part Infinity War story has been set in stone for 2018 and 2019, along with eight other Marvel titles. DC, looking to get its comic-book universe up and running, has also announced a hefty release schedule. In tandem with a fresh batch of X-Men sequels, Spider-man spin-offs and Fantastic Four reboots, that’s at least 25 new superhero movies over the next five years.  - Bernstein, 2015.  See later sections below for analysis of the Marvel universe, UGC, web 2.0 and extended narratives...

I'll add to this shortly [done!]; having blogged on convergence (TV-film) this morning, this caught my eye, and made me think of theatrical adaptations of Bridget Jones, Billy Elliot and such. This can go the other way - West Side Story being an early example, Les Miserables  a more recent (Working Title) example. WT have a long track record of exploiting IP (intellectual property), especially novels, for adaptation (Atonement, BJD...).

Do you believe in fairies? Does Harvey Weinstein?
The famously fractious producer has spent millions of dollars and run through a couple of casts and creative teams in a diehard attempt to transform the 2004 Miramax film Finding Neverland into a Broadway show. - Soloski (2015) - Finding Neverland review – Gary Barlow's dull songs sink muddled show.

Once more, if we consider Working Title and Warp, we can see how a process evangelised by some (take a bow Dan Gillmor, or Chris 'long tail theory' Anderson) as democratising, levelling the playing field, actually seems to favour the conglomerates (...take a bow Andrew Keen, John McMuria, maybe even Anita 'blockbuster [ie tentpole] strategy' Elberse)!

CONVERGENCE Toronto (TIFF) to add TV

See previous post for more, including analysis of how Kickstarter fits with this topic. There are further posts on convergence, including this detailed guide to convergence + digitisation.

“Film and television have been converging for years, with many filmmakers gravitating to television to experiment with that medium,” said Cameron Bailey, artistic director of the festival. “Primetime will highlight these developments internationally, spotlighting the growing intersection between these two moving-image cultures and industries.”

Benjamin Lee (2015, Guardian): Toronto film festival announces new focus on television.

As well as previous posts specifically on this topic, there is much more on convergence to be found on this blog!

The blurring of the line between TV and film has been increasingly evident: Shane Meadows following up This is England with two (soon to be three) C4 series, and Fargo one of many films adapted for TV series (Conal was yesterday recommending Daredevil, a fairly atrocious movie transformed into a critically acclaimed series). 

REPRESENTATION Curtisland - Monkey Dust cartoon

NB: Whilst animated, this does contain some fairly adult humour

Often mentioned, this animation sharply satirises some of the widely perceived issues with Richard Curtis' Working Title productions (it extends to Red Nose/Comic Relief Day, which RC also came up with).

'CURTISLAND' EXPLAINED IN 11 SCREENSHOTS...

Glamorous (A-list/star) American (bimbo; RC's female representation is also questioned) + English middle-/upper-class fop; a black youth runs in the background...

INDIE Hooligan film scene flourishing on DVD sales

Andrew Pulver: Gangsters, geezers and guns: the men behind Britain’s booming low-budget crime-flick industry (Guardian)

FILM COMPANIES ALWAYS START WITH A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE IN MIND...

Note the (highlighted quotes) point that the distribution company always have a figure in mind when approaching the distribution and marketing of a film; right along the chain of the film cycle (production, deistribution, exhibition/consumption), having a clear, specific concept of the target audience(s) is crucial. Boiling this down to a singular image of a person who embodies the characteristics/demographics of your audience - as I recommend you do within a treatment - is also industry practice:

Darren, sales manager at a plastics firm in Milton Keynes, is a force to be reckoned with in the British film industry. In part, he’s the reason why British crime cinema – low-budget, morally dubious and about as disreputable as it’s ever been – is the genre that refuses to die. At least, Darren would if he actually existed. Darren, it turns out, is a theoretical construct; an audience archetype identified by Jezz Vernon, managing director of distribution outfit Metrodome, the people who released recent examples of the form such as The Guvnors, St George’s Day and The Fall of the Essex Boys.

“We always talk about the buyer of a film,” says Vernon. “For someone like Darren, there’s a certain boredom about his existence, and the attraction to gangsters or football hooligans has a certain aspirational element to it. It might sound worrying, but we liken it to music: the mainstream in UK music has always liked poetic thugs, from Byron to Liam Gallagher. People like the paradox; both the masculinity of it, and the denial of it.”

MAKING FILMS FOR/REFLECTING THE NEGLECTED WORKING-CLASS

Franchising: the curious case of WT's Cornetto Trilogy

IN THIS POST ...
- A look at what we mean by franchising, with examples from Working Title
- The concept of hybridity, and why producers and distributors combine genres
- The example of the Corentto Trilogy (for both hybridity and franchising): the budgets, box office, trailers + links for each
- Analysis of how these might reflect WT's production strategies:

-  strong long-term creative relationships
- emphasis on popular genres; hybridity
- 15-ratings
- franchising
- intertextual references (postmodernism) 
- star strategy
- narrow representation of Britain?
- enviable international distribution ... lost?
- closing WT2: whither the WT low-budget films? 

HEGEMONY OF THE FRANCHISE
Franchising, alongside the tentpole strategy (itself rendering four quadrant audience targeting virtually mandatory for would-be blockbusters), has become a predominant model for film producers, one encouraged by distributors looking for easy-to-market titles with built-in recognition and existing audiences, and exhibitors looking to reduce the element of gambling involved in selecting titles for their busy multiplexes.

This post will consider the Cornetto Trilogy...

The big story for the past decade, building on the Michael Bay template of CGI spectaculars, with narrative of secondary concern, has been the seemingly endless line of Marvel and DC Comics superhero comic book adaptations, with 2013 no exception and no sign of any let up in this flow. There are some who loudly decry this trend (eg), notably Alan Moore. If not these then other sci-fi/fantasy epics, from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter and now The Hunger Games and The Hobbit, alongside animated titles such as Shrek, Toy Story and Monsters Inc, have formed the cinema diet for the bulk of the movie audience, with some horror, comedy and rom-com hits breaking through and an occasional straight or period/costume drama. Split sequels with single book adaptations running to two films is another growing trend.

Indie report on the 2013 UK top ten

Of the 2013 UK box office top ten, only 3 weren't part of a franchise - and the past tense is significant as The Croods will definitely and Frozen ('original' but based on Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen) will most likely have sequels:

Iger [Disney CEO] also revealed to Fortune that a stage version of the film, which features voice overs from Broadway stars Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad, is currently under discussion at the House of Mouse ....
In addition, movie audiences may soon be treated to a sequel of the Nordic-themed saga, following strong sales of licensed toys based on the film.[BroadwayWorld.com]
The Croods received generally positive reviews, and proved to be a box office success, earning more than $587 million on a budget of $135 million,^[4] and launching a new franchise, with a sequel and TV series already put in development.^[9] [Wiki]

WT's relationship with NBC-Universal reduced to first look

UPDATE, MARCH 2015: Seems apparent that this has severely dented WT's ambitions; they'll now have to be smarter and try to create hits (it seems) with sub-$20m budgets, a long way from the tentpole level of Green Zone: About Time ($15m), Theory of Everything ($12m) - the Oscar bait strategy of the latter (with top class production values) has worked well.

I might later consolidate several past posts on this, but for now: WT has an ongoing production deal with Universal running to 2015 (the arrangement was due to end in 2013). Signed in April 2012, the new deal sees a significant change which gives WT back some of the freedom they lost when initially hooking up with Hollywood majors back in 1992 (Polygram, who sold out to Universal in 1999), but means they're not so sure of getting distribution for WT productions in future:

Universal Pictures has re-upped Working Title Films partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner through 2015. This comes after the studio re-upped Imagine Entertainment in January, keeping the studio’s most tenured production companies in the fold. Like Universal chairman Adam Fogelson and co-chairman Donna Langley did with Imagine, Working Title’s deal has been scaled back; instead of exclusive, it is now a first-look deal. The Working Title pact was due to expire next year. Working Title’s films at the studio have grossed $4.25 billion since they began with Universal in 1999, and Bevan and Fellner bring a British sensibility and a supply of prestige to the studio. [emphasis added]

DISTRIBUTION Director sues to enforce final cut right

Abel Ferrara threatens to sue over US cut of Welcome to New York (Ben Child, Guardian)

We'll be hearing next week from a local filmmaker who's seen his debut feature radically repackaged by an American distributor. That may end up proving commercially useful, but, like the article below (and the book on Harvey Scissorhands Weinstein that I've frequently recommended), its a good reminder that distributors can get hands on with production, albeit post-production, as much as producers, through marketing, can have a hand in distribution (self-distributing is a further relevant element here).

The maverick film-maker Abel Ferrara is threatening to sue the US distributors of his controversial film about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, Welcome to New York, to halt the release of a version made without his involvement for the American market.

EXAM: Use of Examples

What type of point should we make to pick up marks for 'Use of Examples'?
There are a wide range of facts, figures and details we can utilise...

MARKETING Do viral campaigns REALLY work?

Another Vaughn flop sparked off this article...

They can do, but often fail to boost box office, even if the campaign materials have been enormously popular, according to Ben Lee. He cites the now classic case of a vibrant, highly engaged social media campaign that failed to stimulate comparable box office...

But although studios continue to distract attention from the movies themselves with such trickery, the proof is in the rather deflated pudding. In the summer of 2006, the most talked about film by far was New Line’s high-concept thriller Snakes on a Plane. As soon as it was announced, the film became online catnip, and fake trailers, artwork and fan fiction flooded the web. The official campaign capitalised on this outpouring with reshoots to include fan-created dialogue, a competition for bands to send in music for the end credits, and prerecorded messages from star Samuel L Jackson that you could send to your friends’ phones. But the buzz failed to turn into box office, and the film opened to a disappointing $14m in the US.
While adding some colour to a mediocre film’s campaign helps to increase awareness and online conversation, it’s failed to translate into an increase in box office. A study last year by Nielsen showed that the younger, more digitally aware consumers who would be the core audience for online stunts are losing interest in the cinema, with a 15% decline in their attendance year on year. It’s also worth remembering the importance of simplicity. Google conducted a survey which found that a film’s official trailer is three times more important than any other information source when it comes to influencing moviegoing decisions.

Lots of other useful examples in the full article!

Great publicity campaign, shame about the movie.

China beats US monthly take. Birdman 125% Oscar bounce

The box office columns continue to be a rich source of context and analysis. This column in global box office highlights two industry trends - the Oscar bounce (Birdman grew by a sensational 125%, with the distributor TRIPLING the screen count), and the inexorable rise of the Chinese film market. February 2015 saw the monthly Chinese box office beat America's for the first time, with the annual take widely predicted to exceed America's $11bn by 2018, with huge implications for production (casting, settings, varied cuts as with World War Z for different markets...):

China’s hesui pian – its New Year films – have become hotly contested fixtures, as shown by the news that February was the first ever full month in which the country’s box office exceeded the US’s: $650m to $640m. This happened largely because China’s key release window coincides with a month of no great consequence in the American box-office calendar (a big July, containing Independence Day, can bring in $1.3-1.4bn). But February’s figures are still a minor watershed in the lapping of the box-office tides, a sudden toe-wetting promising the big wave to come. And that is where Chinese annual takings finally wash over the $11bn mark the US has been hovering around for much of the past half-decade; even taking the most conservative Chinese annual growth rate (30%) of the past few years, that is due to happen in 2018.

Will Smith losing freshness fast as Focus dissipates at global box office.