How are movies made?

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How are movies made?

• And how do they make money? What do you know
  about the business of Hollywood?

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From the Studio to the Cineplex

• Distribution, Promotion, Exhibition

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Basics of Distribution

• Distribution the practice and means through
  which certain movies are placed in theaters, in
  video stores, or on television and cable networks
  (usually released with target audience in mind)
• Distributor company that acquires the rights to
  a movie from the filmmakers or producers and then
  makes the film available to audiences by renting
  or selling the film to theaters or networks
• Premier of Feature Film (primary attraction,
  90-120 minutes)
• Saturated Release as many locations as possible
• Wide Release couple thousand theaters
• Limited Release few screens at first (platforms)

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The Trust and Studio Beginnings

• Edison (1908) moves in to dominate, deal with
  Eastman to provide film only to Trust
• The Trust Motion Picture Patents Co., buys up
  all patents to control technology, buys
  distributorships
• Vertical Integration control all levels
• Production making of movies, sold by the foot
• Distribution deliver films
• Exhibition display films
• Independent producers go to Hollywood, Mexico,
  Florida, Cuba to avoid patent lawsuits

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Zukor (bypass) and Fox (lawsuit)

• Defeated Edisons Trust, then produced their
  own oligopoly with other means of control
• Invented the Studio System (1920s)
• Assembly-line process, latest techniques
  feature film every week
• Created stars (Zukors Famous Players Co.., Mary
  Pickford 15,000 a week)
• Helped create directors as auteurs, studio
  heads
• Block booking take hundreds of movies, some
  marginal or new, to get Zukors big stars (CAA)
• Exhibition Zukor owns 300 theaters, movie
  palaces

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Big Five

• Paramount
• Warner Brothers
• 20th Century Fox
• RKO
• MGM
• Little Three Columbia, Universal, UA
• Big Business 1946, 90 million go to movies each
  week (out of 141 million pop)

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After dissolution of studios

• How do you solve the changes in the business? How
  can the studios make money again?

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The Lesson of the 70s Make Blockbusters

• Jaws, Star Wars set the model for blockbusters
• Distribution Timing summer/holiday saturation
  release
• Second Release release to more or smaller
  theaters to build buzz or make (form of
  platforming)
• Repeat Viewer most hits make money off these
  ticket sales (Titanic)
• Rise of Super-agents return to a kind of block
  booking (packaging small films with prestige,
  feature productions)

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Film Marketing and Promotion

• Marketing identifying an audience in order to
  bring a product (movie) to the attention of
  buyers (viewers) so that they will consume
  (watch) the product
• Promotion specific ways a movie is made into an
  object that audiences will want to see
• Promo Tactics star system, tie-ins, greater
  realism, textual novelty (e.g. innovation)
• Tie-Ins ancillary products such as CD
  soundtracks, toys, and t-shirts that are used as
  marketing and promotional tools (Jurassic Park)

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Star System

• Most common marketing and promotional component
  that advertises a film as a vehicle for one or
  more well-known actors
• Famous Players fans request for star names in
  earliest years
• Blockbusters tied to star system and agent
  packages
• Center of action, bring accumulated history and
  significance of past performances to each new
  film
• Acquire status that transforms individual into
  mythical qualities
• Promotion, publicity, commentary construct star
  images or personas

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The Independent Road

• How do you market and promote without the
  advertising machine of Hollywood?
• Cultural Promotion validated as important or
  meaningful by academic or artistic accounts and
  authorities ?

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10 Tips to Market Promote Your Independent Film

1. Understand Your Target Audience
2. Analyze Your Hooks
3. Create a Concise Logline
4. Utilize Free Media
5. Stage a Publicity Stunt
6. Hold a Premiere
7. Work With Sponsors
8. Enter Appropriate Film Festivals
9. Solicit Reviews
10. Use the Internet

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Advertising

• Central form of promotion that uses such means as
  television, billboards, theatrical trailers (a
  brief preview of a few scenes from a film shown
  before a feature film or as a television
  commercial), and print ads to bring a film to the
  attention of a potential audience
• High Concept Promotion uses short phrase that
  sums up a film by highlighting its main
  marketable features through its stars, genre, or
  other identifiable connections (parodied in The
  Player as psychic political thriller with a
  heart)
• Use of succinct descriptive terms to position a
  movie for particular expectations and responses
  A picture, B movie, blockbuster, art film
• Word of Mouth conversational exchange about
  movies, buzz can be a big deal
• Fan Magazines and promotional websites (Blair
  Witch)

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Snakes on a Plane Test Casewhat do you know
about the promotion, advertising, and
distribution of this film?
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Snakes on a Plane

• http//www.snakesonaplane.com/
• Samuel L. Jackson only signed on for this film
  because of the title. It was later changed to
  "Pacific Air Flight 121", but Jackson demanded
  they reverse the change (imdb)
• In March 2006 New Line Cinema, due to massive fan
  interest on the Internet, allowed for a 5 day
  reshoot to film new scenes to take the movie from
  PG-13 to a R-rated film (originally the film
  wrapped principal photography in September 2005).
  Among these additions is the Jackson character's
  line, "I want these motherfucking snakes off this
  motherfucking plane," a line that originated in
  an anticipatory internet parody of the movie.
  (imdb)
• Film's title originated at an after-work happy
  hour among Hollywood colleagues to see who could
  come up with the most awful pitch for a movie.
  Producer David Berenson, who worked for
  DreamWorks at the time, gave his pitch for this
  movie based on a script called "Venom.

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Examples?

• Take a look at a couple of posters/adsto whom do
  you think they are marketing the film? How are
  they marketing it? What ideas, feelings, concepts
  are they using to market the film to that
  audience?

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Transformers - Their war. Our world.
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Pans Labyrinth Innocence has a power evil
cannot imagine.
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Exhibition and Movie Experiences

• From Movie Palaces to iPods

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Changes in Exhibition

• Exhibition the physical environment in which we
  view a movie, the temporal frameworks describing
  the duration of the movie and when we watch it,
  and the technological format through which we see
  the movie
• Nickelodeons store fronts, carnivals, fairs,
  etc.
• Movie Palaces 1920s on, Radio City Music Hall,
  etc. (70mm)
• Suburbs and Drive-ins Postwar, teen audiences
  (3-D)
• Megaplex the mall
• Home viewing VCR, DVD, cable (television pan
  and scan for academy aspect ratio of 1.331,
  not widescreen 1.851 or 2.351)
• Sociology of Exhibition Space highlights social
  dimension of watching movies with like social
  group and group experience changes individual
  experience of film viewing (our attention, our
  excitement, etc.)