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From Megapics to Indie Flicks: Film within the Media Environment. The New New Hollywood (Same as the Old Hollywood?). Began semester looking at how, after WWII, Hollywood's pre-War mass audience became increasingly segmented.
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From Megapics to Indie Flicks:Film within the Media Environment
The New New Hollywood (Same as the Old Hollywood?) • Began semester looking at how, after WWII, Hollywood's pre-War mass audience became increasingly segmented. • The studios focused on making fewer, but increasingly larger, event films: blockbusters. • While the rest of the film "market" was divided into audience segments: low-budget genre films, art cinema, & various independent productions. • Even after the Paramount Decision forced the studios to divest their theaters (exhibition), they still controlled distribution.
The New, New Hollywood (Same as the Old Hollywood?) • In many ways, this situation remains the same today, only more so. • Blockbusters are now Megapictures. • Independent and foreign films and some low-budget genre pictures play mainly to segmented, “niche” audience groups. • But distribution (and most financing) remains largely in the control of the major studios. • And the studios, now part of huge media conglomerates, are more powerful than before the Paramount Decision. Some even own theater chains again.
Film within a Media Environment • There has, however, been a major shift in cinema, in how films work, at least in Hwd. • Increasingly, films are no longer just films. • Not just that they are increasingly seen on video, or that they are shot digitally. • But now, a film no longer considered as a single product (much less as a work of art). • Rather, part of a larger marketing strategy, which profits not just from theatrical box office, but from a wide range of ancillary media and products.
The Economics of Filmmaking • The goal of Hollywood filmmaking is no longer simply to make money at the box office. • Domestic theatrical revenues are an ever smaller part of total revenues for films. • Rather, the goal is to make films that can generate revenues from multiple media (video, television, music, theater, books, computer games) and licensing of ancillary products.
Media Conglomeration • Generating profits from multiple revenue streams has become increasingly important as Hollywood studios have become part of larger media corporations. See p. 682 for listing. • Moreover, each media form serves to cross-promote the others: what is called Synergy. • This cross-marketing also extends to other companies, who advertise the film in exchange for "product placements" within the film or by advertising "tie-in" products based on the film.
The Concept of "High Concept" • To market across a range of media--film, games, books, toys, etc.--it helps to have a basic marketing "hook" or concept. • The idea of "high concept" refers to films based on a single, simple "concept" that can be easily understood and therefore easily marketed. • "High concept": often described by quoting Spielberg's line that if a movie can be summed up in 25 words or less, it usually makes a good movie. • Or by examples like "Die Hard on a bus" to sum up Speed.
But often, high concept films are those that can be reduced to a single marketing image, which can shared across various media.
Making Films Financially "Safe" • Early "high concept" films such as Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance, and Top Gun became blockbusters by marketing their concept. I.e., w/out major stars (at the time) and huge budgets. • But increasingly, Hollywood has come to base marketing on: • "Bankable" stars (and directors) • "Pre-sold properties"--already well-known from some other medium: tv shows, comic books, computer games-- or "sequels" and "franchises" where the stars and/or characters are readily recognizable. • Marketing special effects, (esp. CGI), fast cutting, and other spectacular visual effects. Recently, 3-D.
Megapictures • Thus, the cost of making these sorts of films has gone up and up. • From $14 million a picture average in 1980 to $60 million a picture average in 2000, with many going far over that: • Titanic estimated at $200 million, Avatar at $238 million, Spiderman 3 at $258 million. Some guess $300 mil for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. • Moreover, marketing costs (esp. for tv ads) have soared even more. Often, amounts to half or more of what a film cost to make. With less expensive films, the marketing costs can easily exceed what the film itself cost.
Megapictures • The increasingly extravagant spending on megapictures has three main driving forces: • 1) As we have discussed, the desire for the blockbuster "home run" (Titanic is model here: 600 million domestic; 1.2 billion foreign; and unknown amounts from video & other markets). • 2) The idea of the "tentpole": a successful megapicture is the necessary pole supporting all other media products & revenue streams. • 3) The money that comes from pre-selling foreign rights & non-theatrical revenue streams allows studios to spread their risk.
Megapictures and Indie Films • Starting in the 1980s, lower-budget Indie films began to have sustained commercial success in the U.S. • Much like "alternative" music, Indies gained appeal from their opposition to the conventional big-budget Hollywood movies. • But Indie films were made possible by some of the same factors that led to megapictures. • That is: video, cable tv, and foreign pre-sales helped finance the Indie film movement.
Stranger Than Paradise • Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise (1984) was almost the perfect inverse of megapicture. • Shot in long takes on grainy black & white film, with black between scenes, with no stars, no effects, and almost no story, for $110,000. • It gained critical success (won prize at Cannes); platformed release gained word of mouth, and eventually grossed $2 million.
U.S. Independent Films • Indie movement allowed filmmakers to make films that, because of their low-budget and video sales, could afford to gain acceptance through critical/public word-of-mouth. • It also allowed some films from many who had been denied access to Hollywood--women, African-American, Chicano, Asian, gay/lesbian. • Often, these filmmakers brought new perspectives/approaches to their films based on their own cultural/racial background. • Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991) is a good example.
U.S. Independent Films • Unfortunately, independent films suffered in some ways from their own success, particularly when Quentin Tarantino's $8 million Pulp Fiction grossed $200 million in 1994. • This raised the bar, so that the moderate successes of Jarmusch, Dash, & others, while they paid huge percentage returns, became less enticing to independent distributors. • Since the 1990s, most independent production companies have been forced (mainly to gain distribution and financing) to become part of Hollywood studios.
Digital Cinema • The distinction between megapictures and indie films can be seen in the technologies they use. • Many independent filmmakers have made use of inexpensive digital video. • At the same time, George Lucas, using a much higher level of technology, has moved toward a completely digital cinema. • Digital cinema holds the promise of making the premise of indie filmmaking come true: that anyone could make a film.
Digital Cinema: Issues • But even you are able to make a film, who will see it? • In other words: the issue is still distribution. • Control of distribution remains how corporations control what films are seen. • Digital/online distribution holds the promise of escaping corporate control, opening doors for low-budget & independent filmmakers, • But It is also difficult to gain attention in a crowded, “cluttered” media environment. • Thus far, the “films” that have attract attention are either humorous (or sometimes scandalous) videos, or • Products of corporations who can afford to market their products. • Thus, filmmakers should pay attention to alternative means of distribution and marketing.
