2. Who visits cinemas the most?
Figures suggest that the main going audience that watches films regularly are people aged from
16-24 years of age.
The box office doesn't really count tickets under the age of 15 because it is hard to gage the
results.
You could view this as being inaccurate when they figure out films revenue because the didn’t
take in to account tickets bought from ages 15 and younger.
3. How do cinemas make most of their
money?
Cinemas do not create much money in tickets due to the fact that most of the box office keeps
all of the profit. For example, if a huge blockbuster comes out onto film, the box office would
want to get as much profit as they could, cinemas would need to show this film due to the high
demand of people wanting to see the film.
Believe it or not, cinemas make most of their money on foods like popcorn!
One way the food and drink creates the most profit is that they cost pennies to make , this
means the price that they are priced at means they get a huge profit margin with the food and
drinks they make. With popcorn, there is a huge demand for it when people go to the cinema,
this why it is priced so steep. Also, cheap cinemas like Odeon cannot create much of a profit by
selling just tickets alone, this is why the food like popcorn can keep businesses like Odeon
running.
4. How do you get a new film into the
cinema?
Distributors - this is the way people distribute films to the cinema. Secondly, the smaller film
institutions go around and encourage cinemas to show their film. They do this because many
directors and productions create a very good film which is never published and showed in the
cinema! An advantage to cinemas is that if a small business presents them with a new film,
cinemas could say that the small company would have to pay the cinema for them to show the
film.
6. Independent films
The hugest drawback to independent films is they struggle to distribute their films, a lot of
independent films burn in the dust and they are never seen.
They are barely ever shown at the main, multiplex cinemas, if you wanted to go see it you would
probably have to look hard for it.
Independent films are always low budget, this means that they have limited star marketing.
When people see a film with huge Hollywood actors in, they already assume that the film is
going to awesome!
They are created by using lower production values. For example, independent films will be using
basic video recorders compared to all of Hollywood's technology.
8. Mainstream films are produced from
the high budget big six:
Walt Disney studios: Universal studios: Sony pictures:
Paramount: Warner brothers: 20th century fox:
9. These high budget film production companies dominate the market in Hollywood. They produce
most of the big blockbusters, one reason for this is that they have such a huge budget for all of
their films they make, this is a huge advantage compared to low budget companies.
10. Low budget film companies
DreamWorks: Lionsgate: MGM:
Low budget film companies do not have the same resources as the big six but that doesn’t mean
that they cannot create superb films which people love to watch timeless amounts. For example,
DreamWorks created Madagascar, an animated film on animals lost at sea when being deported to
the wild. This film is a classic and watched all the time by people around the world.
11. Low Budget VS High budget films
Paranormal activity VS fast and furious 7
12. 1)What are the main institutions used for each of the films? (in
terms of production and distribution?) Find their logo and add
it on.
Fast and furious7: The Fast and the Furious franchise was distributed by Universal Pictures, it
had a huge selection of Hollywood's actors/actresses including Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle
Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.
Paranormal activity:
Paranormal activity was filmed by Oren peli on an 11,000 dollar budget in his own home. This
was then produced by blumhouse productions and Solana films. This was then distributed by
paramount pictures.
13. 2) How much money was used to
produce each film? (The budget)
In fast and furious 7, the budget of the film was $190,000,000, the reason why it cost so much to
produce this film was because it needed a lot of special effects and the production was
expensive due to its high quality standard.
In paranormal activity, it only cost 11,000 dollars to make in a 15,000 dollar budget. Paranormal
activity was filmed by Oren peli in his own home.
14. 3) How much money was made from
each of the films?
Furious’ box office revenue was a staggering 1.58 billion dollars, this doesn't surprise me
because it is part of a huge franchise so many people would go to watch it because it is the
newest film out of the series.
Paranormal activity managed to gain a huge box office revenue of 193.4 million dollars. This is an
amazing profit margin because Oren Peli only needed 11,000 dollars to create the film.
15. 4) How well known are the production companies for
both the high-budget and low-budget film?
Fast and furious 7 was produced by universal studios and universal studios is arguably the most
popular film production company of all time. Fast and furious would have needed o be produced
by a big production company due to the sheer budget it needed to become the success that it is.
Paranormal activity was produced by two companies that I have never heard of before,
Blumhouse productions and Solana films. However, there filmed was distributed my paramount
pictures (one of the big six), Paramount pictures obviously saw the potential in this film.
16. 5) List the differences between the high-budget
film and the low-budget film in terms of the
institutions.
Universal studios do tend to spend a lot of their budget on lots of special effects. Secondly, they
have to pay a lot of money (wages etc.) on cast and directors to. They usually involve their
marketing with their Hollywood actors so more people would more likely want to go see the
film.
The institution of Blumhouse productions spend a lot of their budget on marketing, because
they are not well known, it will be a lot harder to get people to watch their film. Their cast are
usually unknown actors and Oren Peli directed paranormal activity in his own home.
17. 6) List any similarities that exist between the high-
budget film and the low-budget film in terms of the
institutions.
In my opinion, the similarities with both types of institutions is that they want to make the best
film they can with the budget they have. So both of the types of institutions spend most of their
budget on producing the film.
18. 7) What other films has the production company
made? Were these as successful? Why/why not?
Universal studios have created a wide range of films which have caught the hearts of many
people. They have created films such as Straight outta Compton, Minions, Train wreck, Ted2 ,
Jurassic World and Pitch perfect. These films have been very successful and bagged a huge boxes
office revenue.
Blumhouse productions have only really dealt with horror productions with miniscule budgets.
They have produced huge successes such as insidious, The purge and the sinister franchises.
Coincidently, the company has a 10 year first look deal with the studio Universal pictures.
19. 8) What genre of films does the company usually produce? Is
this important when considering who could produce your
film? Why?
Universal studios produce and distribute all kinds of genres, in the past, they have produced
action, horror , comedy and much more. They have such a huge diverse of films which means
they can distribute any film genre type which they think will be a success.
20. 9)What audiences do each of the institutions aim to appeal
to? Is this reflected through their film choice, or does this
vary?
I believe that Universal studios appeal to the 16-24 audience which the box office determines.
One reason why I think this is the case is because universal studios spends so much producing
the film, this means that they want to create as much profit as possible.
Individual low budget films have a typical stereotype of trying to attract an older audience. With
paranormal activity, I believe that Oren Peli just tried to target his film to everyone, he didn’t
realise his film would be such a success, this is why I believed he targeted it to everyone just so
he could get the money back to pay for the costs.
21. 10) Which institution do you feel outperforms the other and could claim
to be more successful, considering your research? Explain your reasons.
In my personal opinion, I feel that paranormal activity shocked the world with its miniscule low
budget success! One reason why I think It had done better is because it gained a much larger
profit margin, due to Paranormal activity only costing 11,000 dollars out of it’s 15,000 dollar
budget, it’s box office grossed $193.4 million, meaning huge amounts of profits gained.
Compared to fast and furious 7, furious 7’s budget was 190,000,000 million dollars, its box office
grossed around $1,513,932,194.
The one thing that I loved about paranormal activity is you gained a sense of realism due to the
unknown actors, It made you felt like you were experiencing it yourself. Although I loved fast and
furious 7 so much because of it’s fast paced action, paranormal activity is the winner for me in
my books.
