Star Wars: The Force Awakens research

The issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice

Whether it be film, music, TV, video games or even printed media e.g. magazines, books or newspapers, all forms of media need to be owned by a legal owner, as it allows different branching production companies to have the rights of different characters. For example, Walt Disney owns Lucasfilm, and therefor is able to have access to all of the worldwide gross that each film Lucasfilm produces, as well as having the rights to all of the characters involved in Lucasfilms.

 

Which is shown in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a film initially owned by Lucasfilms and Bad Robot- a production company owned by J.J Abrams, the director and producer of this film. However, Lucasfilms was later bought by Walt Disney, giving Walt Disney the full rights and an equal input into the film. This had a very heavy influence on the production of the film as due to Walt Disney being a bigger media company than Bad Robot and Lucasfilms, they were able to produce a higher quality film. This is due to the fact that Walt Disney is the 2^nd biggest media company in the world, which has a revenue of $52.46 billion dollars. This allows Walt Disney to produce a better film due to being able to spend a high budget on the film, also allowing different media companies to team up and group together to produce a film. This has a massive influence on the overall quality of the film, as due to having more money, they’re able to spend more money on casting ‘A list celebrities’, as well as spending money on good filming spots, good technology and other important aspects, essential in film producing and making. By doing so it allows all of these aspects to add up to improve the overall success of the film prior to it being released, which is one of the main reasons why Star Wars: The Force Awakens was such a success in the box office. Due to having the same cast enterior to the previous Star Wars films e.g. Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher as well as having up to date technology such as CGI and puppeteering to produce different characters in the film such as Maz and B-B8.

 

All of the different production and media companies are fighting and competing against each other in order to receive a greater amount of success, as well as a higher worldwide gross. Which means that certain production companies are able to produce bigger films. This makes it harder for smaller production companies to produce successful films as its commonly seen that bigger, well-known companies produce a better film than a smaller budget film, and as a result theyre able to gain a larger audience due to being recognized by the target audience, as well as gaining other audiences. This worked in Star Wars’ favor, as the recent purchase of Lucasfilms and therefor Star Wars as a whole allowing the success of the film to exceed. However, it is still possible for small budget films to achieve success. For example- The Kings Speech was a low budget film, costing around 15 million USD to produce, advertise and film etc. Nevertheless, it was a very successful film, doing well in box office due to the targeted audience. The King speech, achieved such success due to the brilliant marketing by Momentum, the British distributors attracted an American audience due to simply hiring a British cast, and including some ‘A list celebrities’ such as Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter. As a result, it achieved a great result, earning a domestic total gross of $135,453,143 USD. But it is highly unlikely that smaller production companies produce films that do well, as bigger production companies have lots of things that are stacked up to improve the success of a film.

This is demonstrated when Walt Disney bought Lucasfilms for $4 billion dollars, as it was a massive move, opening up lots of doors, allowing them to improve the Star Wars franchise. Due to having the ability and budget to do so. For example, there was new casting of characters, bringing about a female heroin and a new perspective on the Star Wars films.  This is portrayed in other Disney Films such as Brave and Frozen, where women take heroic roles. Nevertheless, Disney didn’t change Star Wars’ authentic feel as they filmed Star Wars: The Force Awakens on film instead of using a digital camera, which reestablishes the iconography, this is also done by bringing back iconic props such as the millennium falcon, as well as restoring the original cast.  

 

 

The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Picures. Walt Disney is a prodigious production and marketing company in the movie making industry, which means they have a high budget as well as a large amount of funds to advertize, publish and produce the film. However, smaller production companies such as Lucasfilm and Bad Robot submitted ideas and worked with Walt Disney to improve the film, due to George Lucas initially owning Lucasfilm, and writing all of the previous Star Wars films. Disney later bought Lucasfilms, therefor restoring the rights to the Star Wars franchise which allowed them to discharge George Lucas’ due to the previous three Star Wars films, not achieving the Worldwide gross that they were expecting to receive.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures are a huge company, which meant that they were able to advertise the film very easily. The large budget allowed them to advertise Star Wars: The Force Awakens in multiple ways, which catered to a variety of different audience types. The printed and online media advertisement (posters, facebook pages, adverts, trailers etc..) were catered towards teenagers and the elderly as these are the greater minority of people able to go to the cinema to watch the film, due to them having lots of disposable income and having more ‘free time’. For young children, that are too young to watch and understand the film itself, Disney brought out lots of merchandise and toys, which meant the children were able to feel like a part of the film itself, without having to watch it. Which gives the film a magical feel, as they’re able to buy lightsabers and are able to dress up in fancy costumes made by Disney and feel like a character in the film. However, Disney also catered to all audience types by producing a short trailer for not only an English audience, but also producing a similar trailer with Chinese subtitles for the large Chinese audience. This meant that people worldwide were able to have an insite into what the film will be like, building up excitement when they are able to see what the films going to be about and who’s starring in it.

 

 

The technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the level of production, distribution, marketing and exchange

There are a variety of different ways in which a film can be distributed and marketed. One of these is that marketing can be done virally instead of posters and trailers in the cinemas that attracts on a smaller scale. This type of marketing influenced Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Disney was branding the films by bringing toys to the marketplace before the movie was actually released. This got everyone excited, based on the fact that they could see the film being advertised in shop windows of big chain stores, prior to being released. This also got children understanding who the characters were, so that when the film was released they had a better understanding. However, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures made different divisions collaborate and then complement each-others marketing, as seen when they created new products e.g. Star Wars children’s toys and Star Wars collectables. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was also marketed using other forms of marketing such as film trailers. They used peering trailers for TV advertisement and other forms of media, which got people interested in the movie due to not having disclosure of the content and storyline, which drew people to the cinemas.

LEGO also helped market the film, by releasing new Lego figures and vehicles based on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as well as releasing a mobile app during the release of the film in order to gain publicity from a larger audience. By allowing big chain stores to collaborate, this promoted the film at a faster rate, due to them complimenting each-others marketing.

The internet has changed the way we watch films and consume them. This is because of the introduction of digital films, 3D DVD, Blu-ray, internet streaming and downloadable content.  Instead of going out cinemas now to watch a film, we now mostly stream it on our phones, tablets and laptops. This is because it is easier and sometimes works out cheaper. We buy DVD and Blu-rays, but now people are just renting the movie and then streaming it because of the convenience. This results in less people going to the cinema because they would rather sit at home and within a few clicks they are watching a movie. Star wars the force awakens was not only released in the cinemas in 2D and 3D, it was also released on Blu-ray Disc,  BD-50 disc, DVD, iTunes digital copy, Google Play digital and a release date for the Blu-ray 3D  is soon to be released. These are all legal copies which means that a wider targeted audience can purchase these films due to being a larger variety of type of the film that they want to purchase, it was also later released on Sky, which meant that the amount of time it was selling was prolonged due to people being able to rent or buy the movie on Sky. To compliment the release of the film on sky, Sky brought out a star wars themed Sky remotes, there was a remote that resembled each of the important star wars characters , which meant that more people knew about the film and how to find it. As if sky was marketing Star Wars themed remotes, they must be showing Star Wars movies on sky movies. This means that the lack of DVD players  in the 21^st century wasn’t an issue as although these forms of film copies were available for people who do have a DVD player or a TV that could play DVD’s, there was still an alternative option for people who didn’t, as they could just watch it directly from their TV without having to put anything into the TV. This meant that the film could be purchased anywhere, at home, in shops, online, in the cinema which meant that a larger amount of people knew about it as it was being marketed everywhere. Even though the release of legal copies of the film rocketed sales, the improvement of modern technology meant that illegal copies could be put online which allowed people to access them online for free. Sites like Putlocker and Movies123 released this film on their websites, whilst it was being screened in the cinemas and whilst it had not been released in digital for i.e DVD, Blu-ray etc.. This massively impacted the sales as people would rather watch it online for free than buy the movie.  

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was distributed digitally, the reason they did so is that although it was filmed o film due to them having the budget to do so, the digital format is easier and cheaper to distribute as sending an encrypted hard drive is easier than transporting and setting up multiple reels of film. There was also the fact that many film projectors have been replaced with digital counterparts, which meant that if it was distributed on film, a small minority of cinemas would be able to screen it, which would decrease the amount of money the film made, as a smaller minority of people would be able to see it.

4.The significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences

Over the last 10 years technology has been advancing at an increasing rate. Some examples of technologies that have help the development and advances to the film industry are:  1. Soundtracks - these are used to emphasise 'Mise en Scene', but then is sold to places like these so people have access to them. 2. Advertising - before companies used to print poster out so that everyone could see them on buses, taxi's, shop windows. Nowadays we use promotion, TV, instant video, radio, magazine, and apps to advertise the products so that it can generate some of its own hype for the movie as well. Film companies have had to alter the way they work because many people nowadays have 'smartphones'. This means that they can now stream content from the internet right to their phone. This advancement of technology, shows that because the demand for online streaming is increasing, people must enjoy watching the films in the comfort of their own homes instead of going to the cinema, which is why these websites are being made. Disney Motion Pictures had to spend more time and money making the trailer outstanding, as well as producing different trailers for different countries in order to attract more people to the cinema. Due to online streaming being an on-going issue for big production companies.  A completely different trailer was produced for China as China is an important and large country that is involved in the production of lots of technology, which means that Star Wars would want to be released in this country as it would attract a lot of people and money, as seen in the large box office figure of $800 million in China alone. Due to online streaming decreasing the amount of money Star Wars: The Force Awakens made-by a massive amount- many people have estimated that amount of money lost by online piracy and have estimated that the box office figure could’ve increased by at least $2 million dollars for Star Wars: The Force awakens. If online streaming wasn’t available it would mean that more people would see it in the cinema, however this is an issue many production companies are faced with.

 

5.The importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences

There was no CGI before 1973, but the introduction of this technology, this improved the film industry as it allowed film companies to add computer-generated imagery in film.  By having this technology the new Star Wars film was able to have a variety of CGI characters such as the character Maz. CGI has improved since 1973 rapidly, which meant that the characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens looked extremely realistic, giving them humanistic and alien like features. It’s more and more uncommon for films not to make use of CGI in one way or another, as it often saves on production costs. The internet is very important for the sales of films because it is changing the manner in which films are consumed and distributed, not to mention the types of films we watch and who is making them. Instant access, worldwide distribution and everyone with a cellphone are now all contributing to the sales of Star Wars: The force Awakens, as online advertisement and trailers meant that everyone knew about it prior to the release date. The internet is now the most democratised medium available. As it allows us to see things straight away, without having to do or go anywhere. In the comfort of our own home and recent forms of technology allow us to access anything online anywhere due to introducing 3G, which makes things more accessable. New formats e.g. web shows, podcasts and new ways of accessing video e.g. streaming, downloading means that the power has shifted from the industry to the consumers, which could be a positive or negative aspect due to decreasing the amount of money spent watching the films in cinemas of on DVD. Other important technologies include multiple-camera setups, non-linear editing, cable television, stereoscopic imaging (3D) and Motion Capture Technology as all of these forms of technology improve the experience of the movie, making it appear better.

 

6.The issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions-  the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions; (how do film companies try and attract their audience? Do they do different things in different countries?) How was the film marketed in the USA, Europe and the rest of the world (particular focus here on China).

There can be a number of issues when trying to target international audiences or British audiences. It is important to target a wide audience as this will make more profit, especially if the audience is particularly interested in the concept of the film and enjoy watching films from a specific director or production studio.  The first issue is that when distributing a film internationally, there will be a limited understanding of the context within in the film due to cultural differences. By bringing back the traditional cast as well as introducing new cast members this meant that only a small minority of people will know the a list celebrities involved in Star Wars. Star Wars the force awakens was targeted at not only already existing star wars fans, but new fans that have noticed the popularity of the film, due to pre-production and marketing techniques. The re-release of the previous Star wars films, meant that new star wars fans had an over view of what to expect with the new film. The new production company (Disney motion pictures who bought lucasfilms) used its wide audience and big company budget to guide a new audience to watch the film. This film was filmed in England, London in the Pinewood Studios as well as other countries which meant that it was not only aimed at a British audience but at a worldwide audience. This meant that a lot of people knew about the film. British film makers often make social realism films and aim them at local and regional audience whereas this would be enough for the major media players who tend to make high budget, high concept films distributed to a mass international audience. The variety of film makers, meant that there weren’t only British film makers but American, by having these film makers there were aspects of the film that catered to different audience types, making it an almost universal film.

However, by including stars like Harrison Ford it would attract a small audience, as only British and American audiences would know who he is and won’t attract anyone else.  Therefore, this is an issue for the British film institutions as they will be limited as to what size of audience they can appeal to.  The second issue is that it costs more to distribute a film internationally than it would to release the film primarily in Britain. However, this wasn’t an issue as Disney Motion Pictures had a high budget, which meant that they had the money to spend on the distribution.  Star Wars the force awakens was  released worldwide and was able to achieve attraction from a mass audience. This was because the film was produced by a large media conglomerate, Disney, who have their own distribution companies to release films more widely and easily. Even if Disney did not have these companies, the likelihood is that they’d still be able to distribute the film to same extent because they have the money to do so. The budget for Star Wars the force awakens had a budget of $306 million  and with this, the production company would be able to distribute the film internationally, and also without the need to worry about making losses in doing so because Disney are already an established and successful business and their films are often highly-anticipated and desired by mainstream audiences. However, for independent studios, it is more difficult to distribute to a wider audience without having to pay extra costs that may go over the budget of the film. The independent film Pride was unable to be distributed worldwide without having to turn to multiple distributors. For example, the distributor in the UK were Pathé, however Mozinet distributed to Hungary and Golem Distribución distributed to Spain. The reason why independent studios cannot distribute their own films and must turn to other distributors if they wish to release the film overseas is because they are not media conglomerates meaning that they do not have subsidiaries that deal with the distribution of the film. The third issue is that language can be a barrier and determines whether an audience actually watches a film. Money has to be spent on subtitling or dubbing a film and production companies need to consider whether is a film is worth the cost of allowing an audience to understand the film. Star Wars the force awakens was an English speaking film, however Chinese subtitles were added when released in china as well as 7 other countries, which meant that a lot of money must be been spent on adding these subtitles.

 

7.The ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.

My own personal experiences of the way in which media is changing vary from the differences in prices but also in the new technologies in which our generation is throwing at us. It’s not just in cinemas that we watch films anymore. When films first came out it was only at the cinema that people could consume film, then in the 1970’s it was widely available on VHS. VHS was then outdated by DVD and then it became available in HD (high definition) which has now become outdated by blue-ray. It isn’t just on the big screens of cinema that film is available but also on the big screens at home as televisions are getting bigger, so the film experience can now be replicated at home. Film has also moved onto the smaller screens of phones and mp4 players by downloads.  Due to this film has to attract its viewers again by issuing deals for example orange Wednesdays and student Thursdays. Now media companies are buying rights to show films on their television channels for example film flex and sky movies. All of this takes away cinemas viewers and can place them in the same cinema situations at home. Marketing of films has also changed our experience as we can almost be brain washed into watching “blockbuster” as they are everywhere, therefore Lucasfilms as well as Disney Motion Pictures can almost monopolise the market as smaller film companies can be overshadowed as they cannot afford to market their films with such authority. This worked in Star Wars the force awakens’ favour as Disney motion pictures was a big production company which meant that lots of people knew about it and therefor it was easy for a larger audience to be attracted, however it would be a bad thing for smaller production companies as there films wouldn’t do as well.