Warp Films is an independent British film company that struggles to compete with large conglomerate studios like Disney due to a massive budget gap. For example, the budget for Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean was $300 million, compared to just £1.5 million for Warp Film's 2007 movie This is England. New technologies like HD filming and digital distribution have helped Warp promote and distribute films at a lower cost. However, conglomerates have more resources to combat piracy and reach a much broader audience with big-budget blockbusters aimed at all ages.

1. Liam Boreham

2. Often British media productions are made by smaller
companies, Warp films is an example of a competitive
independent film company. Often these indie
companies such as Warp struggle to compete with
the conglomerates budgets, advertising/ publicity
and distribution. For instance a Disney film like
‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ had a budget of $300
million as opposed to Warp Films 2007 film produced
by Shane Meadows, ‘This is England’ only budgeted
£1.5 million; portraying the major difference between
conglomerates and indie companies, money. Disney
owns the platforms which Warp would have to pay
millions to make their film a hit at the box office.

3. Warp films sometimes converge with other
media platforms to promote a production, for
instance, This Is England was shown first on
channel 4 allowing both smaller companies to
benefit from the production and views
essentially synergy is more difficult for indie
companies as conglomerates have more
money to produce the film and they can also
market their film through all of their
subsidiary companies.

4. New media technologies employed by Warp
films would be the transfer into HD filming
although they are not as good as the 22mm
reels which cost $20000 a reel they're still a
breakthrough in indie film making
technology. Warpfims.net is their site which is
made for viewers to give them a chance to
buy the films through downloads (to combat
the widespread of piracy/ illegal downloads.)

5. For Warp the spread of Technology has mainly
consisted in the development of the internet
access and more concisely social network sites
which are of course FREE. YouTube allows Warp
to freely market trailers, snippets or interviews
about the film thus essentially they are receiving
free publicity on one of the most popular
websites. This can be further promoted by the
correct use of social network sites Face book/
Twitter for instance they can develop a following
base and their direct their followers to their
YouTube channel which and if the viewers like
the trailers they may be tempted to watch the
film.

6. For Warp films technological convergence has helped
them massively as it allows them to be able to market
their products on most media platforms and most of
the time free of charge as the internet can be used. In
2013 there are many gadgets that allow the user to
watch films on either through the disc or on the
internet e.g. Smartphone's, mp4 players, portable
game consoles and laptops, however on the negative
side of this change in technology sees the massive
increase in technology. Conglomerates can attempt
to combat this for instance in 2006 Disney launched
an ABC PLAYER which allowed any programmes/films
that had been shown on the channel in the past 2
weeks to be viewed for free.

7. The conglomerates target audience is usually significantly
broader than that of an independent film company like
Warp films this cam be due to a number of reasons but
ultimately because of funding. Indie companies have
significantly lower budgets than the big 6 do thus they
have to make productions that are cheaper to make and
these are comedies or social realism. Normally as a result
of the genre being reasonably maturely themed the
certification is quite high, 18 or 15 thus immediately the
potential audience capacity is limited. Whereas Disney can
focus on big money films aimed at all target audiences
and make several hits a year, generating millions of dollars
gross profit.

8. As a Brit and a media student with an interest in the
film-making industry, I'm aware of the tribulations
British indie film companies have to go through to
create a film that will contend with Hollywood
Blockbuster. However I feel that the majority of the
films produced by the conglomerates are repetitive;
the same story line with stereotypical characters
repeatedly appears. As much as i appreciate the
rawness of the indie films and perhaps prefer the
content and realness of them, I also believe as sad as
it is that there is a strict structure you have to follow
to make a hit and indie companies don't have these
facilities i.e. the funding to incorporate star persona
which alone could create a ‘buzz.’