The Event Film

1
The Event Film

• Narrative V Spectacle

2
Corporate Era Hollywood

• Huge changes by the 1980s,
• as a result of these changes, HW ceased operating
  as a film industry and film stopped being its
  primary product
• instead of making films,
• shifted to the production of filmed entertainment
  
• home video market, cable TV, pay-per-view, pay
  cable
• Ie. broadening venues and formats for prod and
  distrib
• The story of HW in the 80s is the story of
• adaptation and assimilation alteration of its
  product
• Significance of the decade of change comparable
  to
• the 20s with the coming of sound
• the 40s with the loss of theatres

3
Home-Viewing

• By 1987
• VCR in most households and over ½ of major film
  companies domestic revenue was from video
  rentals and sales
• End of the 1990s
• DVDs had emerged
• Sharper resolution pictures better durability
• Interactive extras secure copy-protection
• Same of pics produced as in the Classical
  Hollywood era
• 450-500 yr
• But many films (up to 40) went directly to video
  or cable
• ie. no theatrical release
• Window between theatrical release and
  availability for video and cable shrunk
• By 2000, home video 20billion /yr worldwide
• 3 x North American box office income

4
Conglomeration

• Gulf Western owned Paramount
• was the prototype of the old-line conglomeration
  with business interests in far-flung areas
• cars replacement parts, sugar harvesting, motion
  pictures
• In the 1980s, the corporations were no longer
  traditional conglomerates but global media and
  communication giants
• in 1994,Sumner Redstones Viacom bought Paramount
  Communications for 10 billion and then
  Blockbuster Ent
• means that they can take a popular comic book or
  film character
• generate revenue streams by marketing it as
• a movie (Paramount)
• a cable presentation (Showtime and The Movie
  Channel)
• a book (Simon and Schuster)
• a video rental (Blockbuster)
• a theme park ride (Paramount Canadas Wonderland)

5
Case Study

• Batman (1989) Time Warner
• Quintessential New Hollywood product
• Domestic gross 250 m (theatres)
• DC comics character and Licensing Corp of America
• Owned by Time Warner
• HBO Cinemax delivered to homes by cable systems
• Owned by Time Warner
• Video and laser-disc distribution
• By Warner Home Video
• Soundtrack on CD in 2 versions
• both from companies owned by Time Warner
• In magazines like Time, Life,Entertainment Weekly
• Owned by Time Warner      
• 1995 Time Warner Turner Broadcasting agreed
  to combine
• Time Warner movies (Warner Bros), tv (HBO), and
  publishing
• Turner movies (Castle Rock Ent, New Line
  Cinema), TV (CNN, TNT, WTBS, Turner Classic
  Movies)  

6
Big Business Entertainment

• Most big budget movies
• sequels comic book adapts
• pre-existing audience
• lower risk profile
• Success today?
• box office is no longer enough now ancillary
  markets too
• DVD/Video rental, sell
• Games, Merchandising.
• Between 1980-1999
• Film budgets skyrocketed
• Cost of average picture made by major studios has
  risen
• from US9.4m to US51.5m
• and 4x marketing costs
• Marketing is now almost everything Used to be
  about stars fan mags

• Old Hollywood
• independent companies relied on stables of
  creative elements
• to produce films reflecting commercial and
  artistic convictions of studio heads
• New Hollywood
• Big business increasingly took control of the
  movies
• foreign ownership      
• merely the film divisions of multi-national corps
  that specialized in leisure-time products
• books, albums, magazines, theme parks, and toys

7
Old Studios New Studios

• 1981 UA merged with MGM
• 1990 bought by Sony Ent     
• 1981 - C20th-Fox was taken over by oil tycoon
  Marvin Davis
• 1985 50 shared ownership with Robert Murdoch
• 1982 Columbia bought by Coke
• 1989 Sony bought Columbia Tri-Star from Coke
  (3.4b)        
• 1966 - Paramount bought by Gulf Western
• 1994 Paramount merged with Viacom International
• Walt Disney - one of the few studio-era survivors
• 1984 creates Touchstone Pics
• Profits with Eisner
• In 98m 1984 to 650m in 1990

• DreamWorks
• formed in 1994
• 1st new studio in decades Spielberg, Katzenberg,
  Geffen.
• Best Picture winners Amer Beauty, Gladiator,
  Beautiful M
• Produces films, TV shows (Spin City), music
  includ soundtracks to own films  
• Miramax
• 1979 small, independent
• formed by Weinstein Bros
• Made name for itself in late 80s by making small
  independent foreign language movies that other
  studios refused to make
• 1993 Walt Disney acquired the studio for 65m

8
Corporatisationbenefits

• Increases stability and minimise risks
• Access to large amounts of capital
• Corps have other money-making avenues w/which to
  exploit films
• Secondary sources of income more important
• than the box-office receipts of the film
• Video, music soundtracks, video games
• Film is not a free-standing product but a
  franchise
• Sony make hardware (VCRs)
• dependent on sales of software (videos) and vice
  versa
• Synergy
• complementary activities can be brought together
  to create something more than just the sum of its
  parts
• Horizontal Integration
• Vertical Integration
• Hwood remains an integrated business on more than
  one axisalmost like orig vertical system w/
  studios moving back into exhibition in 80s

9
CorporatisationNegatives

• Decisions (because of costs) in hands of people
  making financial decisions
• not the filmmakers or producers
• Movies made only if they could guarantee
  financial success
• Pandering to well-known stars
• Not much attention paid to good scripts
• Increased emphasis on special effects and action
• Differentiate from TV and home video/DVD
• Attract foreign market release and sales
• Stars demanded higher salaries or age or profits
• Crowe got 20m for Master and Commander
• Budgets/actors/effects costs skyrocketed out of
  control
• Eg. Not all corps manage their studios well
• Matsushita hobbled MCA/Universals plan for
  expansion
• So sold MCA/Univ to Seagrams in 1995

10
Case Study

• Van Helsing (Sommers 2004)
• In its first stab at synergy since acquiring
  Universal
• NBC is planning a TV spin-off of monster movie
  Van Helsing, the Los Angeles Times reported
  (April 5, 2004).
• TV show Transylvania
• Video game for PlayStation 2 and XBox
• A Universal theme park attraction
• an animated DVD movie (starring Hugh Jackman)
• plans to put out a line of "Gothic-style
  clothing."
• The Times further pointed out that execs at GE,
  NBC's corporate parent, who are famous for their
  penny-pinching ways, are keeping a wary eye on
  the box-office performance of Van Helsing,
• the movie reportedly cost about 150 million to
  produce

11
The Event Film

• Blockbuster film
• A movie which is a huge financial success a
  box-office of more than 100 million upon release
  in North America (www.imdb.com)
• High concept" film
• "a movie's premise or storyline that is easily
  reduced to a simple and appealing one liner.
  (Russin and Downs)
• ie. Speed is Die Hard on a bus
• Most blockbusters are high concept Terminator,
  Con Air, Air Force One, Die Hard
• But not all high concept movies are big
  blockbuster-type movies
• The Sixth Sense, American Beauty, The Usual
  Suspects, and Goodfellas
• 1990s attendance up multi-screen cineplexes
• Unbalanced emphasis on opening weekend Puffed-up
  and/or fake reviews
• Belief high-budget films w/ expensive f/x meant
  quality
• Star salaries, agency fees, promotional campaigns
• Expensive digital special-effects Costly market
  research and testing
• Does emphasis on money and f/x mean narrative
  replaced by spectacle?

12
Narrative V. Spectacle

• King
• Some suggest that spectacle has become the
  dominant tendency of contemporary blockbuster
  prod. Narrative is usually identified as the
  victim. (179)
• Spectacle overshadows the narrative
• Big bucks on spectacle to differentiate product
• Action, stars faces and bodies, explosions,
  fights, big boats
• Hollywood owned by conglomerates
• films into other merchandising ops
• video games, theme-park rides
• Foreign market - visuals cross cultures and
  languages
• Spectacle can disrupt narrative
• story halts for extended seq of pure visual
  spectacle
• Then again seqs of spectacle may propel plot
  forward
• Think Jurassic Park and the seq in the
  truckfirst sighting
• Or Titanic how would the love story plot be
  advanced without the spectacle of the sinking
  ship?

13
A Titanic Spectacle

• Critics argue contemporary blockbusters are
• merely showcases for the spectacle
• Titanic surplus of spectacle
• 1st half romance 2nd half sinking ship
• 2 kinds of spectacle
• Spectacle of the ship Spectacle of the special
  f/x
• Money shots final scenes of sinking
• Scale/quality of the spectacle
• major factor in the advertising, promotion, and
  journalism
• Negative aspect of cost was used to hype up how
  spectacular the film would be!
• Most expensive movie ever made!
• Ques are contemporary blockbusters driven too
  much by spectacle and not enough by narrative
  and characterisation?

14
Critics

• Titanic is a good example of the kind of
  Hollywood blockbuster accused of offering nothing
  but the spectacular attraction of its special
  effects. (Geoff King)
• To the question of the daywhat does 200
  million buy?the 3-hour-and-14-minute Titanic
  unhesitatingly answers not enough Instead, what
  audiences end up with word-wise is a hackneyed,
  derivative copy of old Hollywood romances, a
  movie that reeks of phoniness and lacks even
  minimal originality. (LA Times)

• James Camerons 194-minute, 200 million film of
  the tragic voyage is in the tradition of the
  great Hollywood epics. It is flawlessly crafted,
  intelligently constructed, strongly acted and
  spellbinding. If its story stays well within the
  traditional formulas of such pictures, well, you
  dont choose the most expensive film ever made as
  your opportunity to reinvent the wheel...
  Movies like this are not merely difficult to make
  at all, but almost impossible to make well.
  (Roger Ebert)