week 4 Flashcards
Key elements blockbusters
Product elements:
● products that feature a strong brand + big budgets (this enable the offering of familiar heroes, spectacular historic/futuristic settings, special effects)
● High concept nature: products whose value proposition contains a unique idea that can be comveyed briefly.
Communication elements:
● Blockbuster are heavily promoted and advertised before the release to realize the
product’s potential, promoting its early awareness and interest.
● Communication must align with the high concept, so easy to grasp iconic images
(Jurassic Park) -easily recognizable and highly memorable
distribution elements:
Blockbusters must be distributed easily and quickly to a large audience.
Jaws: simultaneously on 490 screens across North America.
The Niche concept
consumers and can enthuse them upfront.
* these conditions are not met by many entertainment projects that feature complex storylines, unconventional rhythms, or lack brand power
These are the niche concept movies
* No mass advertising
* Little budget
* Directed to a specific audience, based on genre
* Marketing happens once the product has become available
* The goal of communication is not to create pre-release buzz, but to enable the
consumers who experience the product to transport the impact of that experience to others who have yet to consume the product.
* Distribution in few theatre, bookstore…
Escalation approach: the idea is to build on the initial reactions of the target group and then expand the customer base, over time.
Success triad (criteria)
There are three success criteria: critical evaluations, financial performance, and movie awards.
⁃ these three are not single criteria but rather three sets of criteria.
Critical evaluations:
done by critics each year (these ratings take the form of stars).
They are concentrated at two distinct periods in the life of a cinematic product:
1. Judgments will be based on a preview immediately prior to the official release. (They appear in newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet)
2. Critical assessments are released once the film has reached the distribution in DVD stage.
Financial Performance
-It can refer to gross box office earnings or it can be confined to the earnings in any given week, most commonly the film’s first weekend gross.
-Alternatively, the criterion might involve not earnings at all, but rather the total length
of the theatrical run
* The actual profit is not discussed, as it is determined on a film’s budget, which is seldom made available.
Movie awards
-In 1928 the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences began the Oscars (lots of other awards came after).
Various honors cluster into four award dimensions:
1. dramatic cluster of directing, writing, acting, and film editing.
2. visual cluster of cinematography, art direction, costume design, and makeup.
3. technical cluster of special visual effects, sound editing, and sound mixing
4. music cluster of score and song
Interrelationships
Critical evaluations + financial performance
-Usually, a positive critical assessment = positive box office success -some have found no relationship and others a negative one.
* the connection between reviews and revenues is moderated by other variables, such as star power and genre
Critical evaluations + movie awards
-The correlation between these two criteria is consistently positive
* awards in the categories of directing, writing and best pictur correlate highly with critics’ ratings
* correspondences are smaller for the categories of acting, film editing, cinematography, and art direction.
Movie awards + financial performance
-It is believed that awards help enhance a film’s box office returns.
BUT the financial impact of the Oscar is concentrated in the nomination rather than in the award itself = the actual victory adds
little or no increment to earnings
* Thus it can happen that the box-office is not higher even when many awards are given
FILM INDUSTRY
Began 1891 (film cameras, kodak)- in France (Paris). First movies: cameras directed to the audiences. -America had only two genres (action and comedy).
- Europe was at war (that’s why Hollywood was able to develop).
* great diversity in landscapes too
* Great weather in Hollywood.
-They had many different landscapes, from East to West (at first they were filming in New York, but then the copyrights became stronger, so directors lefts and went to Hollywood).
The aim in the US was to make money: the films were drenched in commercial ideologies, which made them so appealing to pop culture and made them become so successful (car chases)
European movies were focused on political ideologies, personal experiences.
Germany 1920s -Their movies were focused on expressionism: external representation of the inner life of the protagonist.
In Spain, they were influenced by Dali’s superrealism.
In Russia, they focused on symbolism and sending messages to audiences.
The Studio System
Hollywood used a specific set of features
* Appeals to popular culture, often at the expense of high culture.
* Star system: they created star image rather than acting abilities. They came up with personas and new names, the contracts were constraining and controlling. Stars had to do everything the studio said.
* everyone has a specific role, the crew was strongly designed.
* They anticipated the taste of the audience.
* They produced movies cheap and fast and with quality.
MPPDA, pillars of the studio system
To uphold the studio system, the MPPDA was established (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America), which later became the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) -they controlled and manipulated the press.
- The main aim of the MPPDA was to construct and maintain a positive image of the film industry- to eliminate competition and promote wholesome content.
The three pillars of the studio system were production, distribution and exhibition.
1. Producers make the movie
2. Distributors finance and spread the movie
3. Exhibitor shows a movie to the audience in a cinema
Studios controlled all these three pillars until these were broken up into three segments in antitrust laws of 1948.
To uphold the studio system, the MPPDA was established (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America), which later became the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) -they controlled and manipulated the press.
- The main aim of the MPPDA was to construct and maintain a positive image of the film industry- to eliminate competition and promote wholesome content.
SOUND IN MOVIES
In 1927, the first film with sound was released, The Jazz Singer.
- Diegetic sound incorporates all noises that have a source on screen.
- Non-diegetic sound is all noise that does not have a source onscreen and has been
added (soundtrack).
New rules in movies
In 1934 Henry Forman said Movies had an impact on children (without any research). Thus Hollywood gave itself rules (motion picture production code) MPPC:
* No cheating was allowed
* No Homosexuality, no nudity
* No interracial relationship
* Condemn the gangsters
* No blood, no sex
This started the golden age (1930-60). 500 films per year, huge concentration of talent and finances in Los Angeles. Economies of scale were greater than ever.
-American films were distributed everywhere.
In the 30s most Western movies were in the cinemas.
Hollywood aimed to appeal to everyone, as long as they were white. Native Americans were second class citizens. Studio gave the public what they wanted through their own movies.
COMPETITION WITH TV
In the 50s, TV was super successful.
In 1959, 50 million television sets were there in the USA.
TV bought almost all the movies and aired them everyday: this was hurting the studios. -Thus: - 1955. They went for a cinemascope (bigger screen), .
ERA OF EPICS: these were very successful movies (1955-1965).
- Enormous amount of extras on screen.
- Biblical
- Sappy, historical (Cleopatra).
Public needed change! Action, blood, sex: they did not want to see epics anymore.
But the Hollywood studios could not show these and believed the cultural changes would not change the audiences (they kept making the same shit).
-Independent filmmakers that didn’t have to adhere to the codes, started producing movies to appeal to the masses (bankrupt of Hollywood’s business model).
STIMULI
- They started having ads in movies (must be below a discriminative threshold, we shouldn’t perceive it but still be affected).
- Supraliminal stimuli = are above the objective threshold but ignored by the perceiver.
● unconsciously influences attitudes, thoughts and behaviors (you hear the song but don’t perceive the music as being so manipulative)-
NEW HOLLYWOOD
Halfway was suffering, so through the 70s, Hollywood hired new talented filmmakers (Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg): this was the Hollywood renaissance.
-They started producing different films and then the first Blockbuster came.
BLOCKBUSTERS
JAW: changed the way movies were made and marketed (first movies were not advertised on tv, Jaw was the first one).
It had a wide release, targeting many screens, instead of low distribution across a few cities. It was released in the summer- usually published in the winter- (they believed it wasn’t great)- but the air conditioned cinemas allowed this to be even biggerAnother potential threat appeared on the market, home video systems. -Hollywood studios used it as an alternative distribution channel:
Windowing is a marketing strategy that is designed to maximize profit by making a product available to consumers in different formats in succession, meaning that a movie would be exclusive to cinemas for at least six months and then be realised on video and much later then sold to TV.
