1. OCR AS Media Studies
The Exam: 2 hours long inc. 30 minutes for video extract to be shown
• Section A - TV Drama Representation from video
extract shown 4 times (first time, no note taking)
(50marks - 45mins)
• Section B - Institutions and Audience (50 marks -
45 mins)
• We are doing film!
2. The Spec
• the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice;
• the importance of cross media convergence and synergy, in production, distribution and
marketing;
• the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production,
marketing and exchange;
• the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences;
• the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences;
• the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by
international and global institutions;
• the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider
patterns and trends of audience behaviour.
3. Exam Questions
1. What significance does the continuing development of digital media
technology have for media institutions and audiences?
2. Discuss the issues raised by media ownership in the production and
exchange of media texts in your chosen media area
3. “Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and
distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production
practices”. To what extent do you agree with this statement, in the media
area you have studied?
4. To what extent does digital distribution affect the marketing and
consumption of media products in the media area you have studied?
5. “Cross-media convergence and synergy are vital processes in the successful
marketing of media products to audiences.” To what extent do you agree
with this statement in relation to your chosen media area?
6. “Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their
products and services to national audiences.” To what extent do you agree
with this statement?
3
4.
5. Marking
Out of 50 you’ll get:
20 Marks for Analysing, Arguing
and Explaining
20 Marks for Use of examples
10 Marks for use of terminology
6. 6
Fox Searchlight Pictures
1. Who runs News Corp?
2. How much are they worth?
3. Name all the films FSP specialise in.
4. Our Media is dominated by what?
5. Who are the two largest conglomerates?
6. How do these corporations affect us and why?
7. Name a controversy of News Corp.
8. What type of integration do FSP normally work in?
9. Name a ‘flop’ from FSP.
10. Why would it not be such a problem for them?
11. What type of marketing do they use?
12. Who actually released The Black Swan?
13. Name a below-the-line marketing strategy.
14. Name an above-the-line marketing strategy.
15. What is different from old audiences to today’s audience 2.0?
16. What did Jim Carrey do for Black Swan and how did it help?
17. How do FSP keep a strong online presence?
18. Name ways the industry promote themselves.
19. What has helped Black Swan been successful?
20. How are audiences targeted more directly nowadays?
21. Name the two new major media conglomerates that all major studios practically have to work with.
22. What has the world turned into due to the internet?
23. What camera was used to shoot some scenes in The Black Sawn and why?
24. Name four new technologies that have changed the film industry.
25. How do you consume films now?
26. How do you think films will be consumed in the future?
27. How is it possible that we won’t need to (indirectly) pay for films in the future?
8. Background
• Fox Searchlight pictures’ whose parent company
is 20th Century Fox, which is part of the ‘Fox
Entertainment Group’, a subsidiary of News
Corporation (owned by Rupert Murdoch). The 2nd
largest Media conglomerate in the world!!
• News Corporation is a huge Media conglomerate,
a mass-media multinational company.
• Their assets are worth over 56 Billion dollars.
• Despite their owner being a global mass market
corporation Fox Searchlight specialise in British
films, Horror films, Dramedy and non-English
language films.
9. Concentration of media ownership (also known as
media consolidation)
Concentration of media ownership is a process whereby progressively fewer
individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media.
Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation, with
many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very
small number of firms.
Globally, large media conglomerates include Viacom, CBS Corporation, Time
Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony Corporation of America,
NBCUniversal, Vivendi, Televisa, The Walt Disney Company, Hearst
Corporation, Organizações Globo and Lagardère Group
As of 2012, The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in
the US, with News Corporation, Time Warner and Viacom ranking second,
third and fourth respectively.
In nations described as authoritarian by most international think-tanks and
NGOs like Human Rights Watch (China, Cuba, Russia), media ownership is
generally something very close to the complete state control over information
in direct or indirect ways.
This affects us culturally and politically. It also represents ‘Britishness’ in an
American way, which many British people don’t feel is a true representation of
themselves.
10. News Corp Controversy
New Corp are know for being a biased Media
organisation. They have given donations to the
right wing American political parties - the
Republicans who are ‘America’s Conservatists’.
They have also had controversy surrounding
them with their news outlets. ‘News of the World’
was closed in 2011 after phone hacking was
used by their journalists.
So, unlike the BBC, News Corp, it could be
argued, have subsidiaries which promote the
leaders ethos and have an agenda much like
other propaganda.
11. Cross-Media Convergence and Synergy (different to technological convergence)
Production – Being part of a conglomerate means that the money for
productions is available for Searchlight. Bigger budgets can also attract
larger Stars, utilise the newest and best technology for special effects and
shooting.
Films are generally developed by a smaller production company (often set
up just for the film itself) who then seek more finance and or distribution with
Searchlight as they have a film with British content or ‘indie’ content or a
non-English language/horror/dramedy film that has done well outside of
America.
In many cases FSP can ‘pick-up’ a film that has already been developed
(script, budgeting, stars attached) and has a lot of potential or they can help
distribute a film that has done well in other regions already and is a ‘sure-
fire’ hit (it may have won film festival awards previously or ‘opened’ a festival
with it’s premiere).
Ultimately, it means working with other companies through synergistic
horizontal integration as oppose to the old style of vertical integration where
every aspect of film making was done by one major company.
12. Cross-Media Convergence and Synergy (different to technological
convergence)
Marketing and Distribution – FSP sometimes only distributes films. They
would agree to distribute the film before production in many cases and the
money they pay for the rights to distribute the film counts towards the
production budget. This can make some producers unstuck when they
deliver a film without music copyright permissions or a film that is in anyway
different to what was pitched by FSP.
However, when FSP markets and distributes a film they have the financial
backing of a major conglomerate and can adapt their budgets in
accordance with how well the film does in the first few weeks at the box
office. Hence why ‘The Black Swan’ was able to be marketed to a mass
audience after they had planned a limited release at first to a niche
audience.
In contrast, if a film fails at the box office and isn’t received well (e.g. The
Good Thief – made for $25,000,000 only to make $5, 756,945 after it only
made $131,580 on its opening w/end in the U.S on 9 screens, despite
having ‘good’ reviews and a satr Nick Nolte) the loss that FSP takes can be
absorbed by News Corp or the next ‘hit’ that came in as a low-budget film
(such as The Black Swan (13 mil – 329 mil) and makes a mint!
13. 13
Online + Offline tools ! These strategies saturate the market. Above-the-line marketing
costs are very expensive and Hollywood companies can afford to pay them.
Independent films don’t have the revenue to saturate the market in the same way.
360 degree marketing360 degree marketing
16. 16
Released by parent company with a larger
distribution network (once the film has proven itself
and already proving to be a hit, through test and preview
screenings)
17. 17
This is a quote from one of the marketing directors of Black Swan mentioning the impact the film has made:
Due to marketing departments having an increased say in what goes into a film’s promotion, it can be quite
difficult pitching alternative design ideas to a film studio. However, many within the industry are optimistic
about the impact that ‘Black Swan’ has had on this mindset and are looking to capitalise on its success.
This is a quote about how much a poster may actually affect the success of the film:
Promotion for the film is now in full swing, especially with awards ceremonies, today Glamour got an
exclusive, the international poster and it’s taking a different tack to the traditional and art-house posters we’ve
seen thus far. This one is simple but very effective focusing on Portman and her shattered existence as ballet
dancer Nina.
18. 18
Online buzz
Many assume that Darren Aronofsky and Fox Searchlight are racing to have Black Swan ready for either the Venice or Toronto
Film Festival in September, and more definitely award season. It appears that they have a cut of the film they are willing to show
select public audiences, as the first test screening occurred sometime last week. Someone named Money B claims to have
attended a sneak preview screening in Los Angeles.
“The film sneaked at the landmark in the westside pavilion and though I can’t spill the beans
about the plot, I will say that Natalie Portman has never been better. Man is Natalie Portman
good in it, yowzers. She epitomizes everything a movie star should be – just without the
attitude. In it she’s radiant, spell-binding yet vulnerable; you can’t take your eyes off her.” - A
leaked comment from a test screen audience member
Film news on
Orange
19. 19
Cross-Media Promotion (below-the-line strategies):
working in synergy with other companies for the benefit of both
For the
ladies For the gents
For the mass
audience on
Jimmy Kimmel
live
20. 20
More cross-media promotion in the form of reviews: good or
bad it’s all good for promotion. This includes TV review
shows, online reviews, magazine, newspaper reviews and
of course AUDIENCE 2.0 public reviews on blogs,
forums, youtube.
21. 21
Audience 2.0 - Unfiltered comments on FSP own youtube channel
with over 21million views of the trailer to date.
Hosting this on youtube means it can go viral on social networking sites
and get ‘shared’ directly or ‘liked’ by the target audience who are the
only ones who would share it with friends/peers with the same taste.
Paid for (expensive FB ads also get straight to the target audience and
only them as FB knows all about YOU!)
22. 22
Audience 2.0 and ‘We Media’
Parodies are made of trailers and this has proved to be beneficial to the
original as it makes it more popular.
Plus other popular tv
shows doing parodies
inc. Jim Carrey on SNL.
23. 23
FSP - All films have official websites, FB and Twitter accounts.
Audiences can ‘interact’ with the film before the release.
25. 25
Premiere, Press conference, three famous stars inc. an academy award nominee and a huge French
star, controversy due to the lesbian scene (targeted at men) and self-harm as well as (big issues for
woman, as well as the ballet content), well known Director, official selection at various film
festivals. Numerous awards have given the film longevity inc. the Oscar boost.
All of this mass marketing means that it is almost impossible to avoid
not knowing about this film if you go the cinema, watch Tv, use
social networking sites or read! Years gone by studios would have
promoted films through the traditional methods -posters, trailers, a
premiere, etc. Nowadays the internet has meant that the media has
proliferated (spread out across more mediums inc. hand-held and
converged digital devices) this has meant more synergy is needed
between companies, so they can work together and at times cross-
promote both their products. This also means audiences are targeted
more precisely, but can also ‘interact’ with the films content and
‘review’.
26. 26
Issues - These Media conglomerates now have to
work with the new Media giants Google and
Facebook. Due to the consolidation of all these
companies the Media is Americanised, which leads
to less diverse content. Leaving some audiences
with a lack of identity in their own countries, where
traditions and culture is waining.
27. 27
Distribution, Exhibition and Exchange
20th Century Fox is a global company and distributes films for exhibition and exchange world-wide.
They have done this for many years. Luckily, for smaller independent production companies the
internet has turned the world into a ‘global village’, meaning they can also distribute films world-wide.
Netflix, iTunes and Lovefilm all offer streamed and downloadable films. New technologies mean that
people can ‘rent’ films on their computers and after a period of time that film becomes unavailable ‘no-
more late fees’. Ultraviolet is a new way to ‘own’ films as well as ‘iCloud’ - making copies of the film
available on traditional and converged tech, due to broadband and wi-fi.
Release windows are changing. Films use to have a premiere - preview screenings - national release -
international releases (at various times) - DVD/VHS! Release - DVD/VHS to own release - TV
premiere. Thus prolonging the ‘value’ of the film in the ‘film value chain’. Due to audiences now having
‘home cinema systems’ they prefer to watch films in the comfort of their own homes and due to fibre
optic cabling they can stream or download films straight to their TV’s.
Many Indie films are now released online and sometimes funded online
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/zach-braffs-kickstarter-project-hits-445893 This explains
Zach Braff’s kickstarter project that has around 25 days left but has already gone over his asking total of
2 mil, so that he can have creative control and final cut of his film.
Piracy is a huge issue, but interestingly film pirates are also the highest percentage of people that buy
films anyway. Generally, because they are ‘cinephiles’ - film fanatics.
28. 28
New Technolgies in Production
• Epic, The Wolverine, Walking with Dinosaurs,
Turbo (co-production with Dreamworks
animation) - will all be released by 20th Century
Fox in 2013 in 3D. None in Fox Searchlights
showcase at the moment, due to the ‘Indie’ style.
• Many films by Fox searchlight are shot digitally.
The Black Swan had some scenes shot on a
Canon 7D dslr camera, meaning they could get
in tighter to the action and get more versatile
shots, due to its compact size and weight.
29. 29
Issues with Production
Appears as ‘Indie’ therefore feels ‘alternative’
or ‘diverse’, but has probably been
vetted/cut (therefore censored) in a way to
please the studio heads.
30. Successes Critical and Commercial
• Slumdog millionaire (Academy award for Best film)
• Juno
• 127 Hours
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Full Monty (3.5 mil – 257 mil)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Napoleon Dynamite (400,00 – 46 mil)
• 500 Days of Summer
• 28 Days Later (5 mil – 28 mil)
and…Black Swan (13 mil – 329 mil)
