“I think I have worked out what God is punishing us for. Everything.”
A Field In England was directed the small time independent director by Ben Wheatley and released in 2013. It follows a group of deserters from a battle in the English Civil War who are captured by a sinister Irish alchemist and his assistant. After eating some wild mushrooms the captives fall prey to wild hallucinations as the alchemist forces them to find a treasure he believes is buried in the area.
There wasn’t much about this psychedelic film that I actually enjoyed, apart from some of the scant visually appealing cinematography; there were a couple of beautiful shots with some rather nice lens flares and silhouettes. I also liked the attention to detail with the costumes and props used, with them being very fitting with the time period in which the film is set. However, apart from that I found the rest of the film pretty awful. Although the plot could be guessed at, it was confusing throughout and was never actually confirmed in any way, and certain parts, such as the trip that one of the captives, Whitehead, had just went on for far too long! Plus the random freeze-frames added nothing to it whatsoever. In my opinion the best part was near the end when they started shooting each other and it started to get vaguely interesting. It showed that the director could at least create half decent visual effects.
A Field In England is useful to our studies as it can be used in our exam as a case study because of how Wheatley chose to distribute his film, which was made with a lot of help from Channel 4. What Wheatley chose to do was give A Field In England a ‘day-and-date’ release; it was released in 17 select theatres across the UK whilst simultaneously being released on Channel 4’s film channel, Film4, and also on select VOD (Video On Demand) providers. This makes it perfect for use as a case study because of this peculiar release.
In Section B of our Media Studies exam, titled Institutions and Audiences, the question we will be given will concentrate on the topic of film, and will be based on at least one of three topics:
media ownership
new technologies
digital distribution
When answering the question we will have to focus on the topic it is based on to answer it and use films as case studies (all from within the last 5 years) to back up our points, one of which will be the film A Field In England (Ben Wheatley, 2013).
We have been given a list of past exam questions, and each of these can be clearly seen to be divided into at least one of the three topics:
Media Ownership
June, 2015:
To what extent does media ownership have an impact on the successful distribution of media products in the media area that you have studied?
January, 2013:
What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products available to audiences in the media area you have studied?
June, 2012:
“Cross-media convergence and synergy are vital processes in the successful marketing of media products to audiences.”
To what extent do you agree with this statement in relation to your chosen media area?
June, 2011:
“Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices.”
To what extent would you agree with this statement, within the media area you have studied?
January, 2011:
Discuss the issues raised by media ownership in the production and exchange of media texts in your chosen media area.
January, 2010:
“Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences.”
To what extent do you agree with this statement?
New Technologies
June, 2014:
The increase in hardware and content in media industries has been significant in recent years. Discuss the effect this has had on institutions and audiences in the media area you have studied.
June, 2013:
Evaluate the role of digital technologies in the marketing and consumption of products in the media area you have studied.
June, 2010:
What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media institutions and audiences?
June, 2009:
How important is technological convergence for institutions and audiences within a media area which you have studied?
Digital Distribution
June, 2014:
The increase in hardware and content in media industries has been significant in recent years. Discuss the effect this has had on institutions and audiences in the media area you have studied.
June, 2013:
Evaluate the role of digital technologies in the marketing and consumption of products in the media area you have studied.
January, 2012:
To what extent does digital distribution affect the marketing and consumption of media products in the media area you have studied?
January, 2011:
Discuss the issues raised by media ownership in the production and exchange of media texts in your chosen media area.
June, 2010:
What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media institutions and audiences?
January, 2009:
Discuss the ways in which media products are produced and distributed to audiences, within a media area, which you have studied.
There are 50 marks available for the question we are given, and the same mark scheme is used every year. Here is the description of a Level 4 (top level) answer:
Explanation/analysis/argument (16–20 marks)
Shows excellent understanding of the task.
Excellent knowledge and understanding of institutional/audience practices – factual knowledge is relevant and accurate.
A clear and developed argument, substantiated by detailed reference to case study material.
Clearly relevant to set question.
Use of examples (16–20 marks)
Offers frequent evidence from case study material – marks awarded to reflect the range and appropriateness of examples.
Offers a full range of detailed examples from case study and own experience.
Offers examples which are clearly relevant to the set question.
Use of terminology (8–10 marks)
Use of terminology is relevant and accurate.
Complex issues have been expressed clearly and fluently. Sentences and paragraphs, consistently relevant, have been well structured, using appropriate technical terminology. There may be few, if any, errors of spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Red State is an action/crime/thriller/horror movie that was written, directed and distributed by Kevin Smith, a small scale independent director who made the lime light with his first movie Clerks. The movie follows 3 teenagers who, with the promise of their first sexual encounter, are lured online by a woman to her caravan in a trailer park. But unbeknownst to the boys it is a trap, and they find themselves kidnapped and at the mercy of a lunatic preacher who plans to kill the boys for their sins, which leads to a desperate bid for their escape.
After creating Red State, Kevin Smith decided that he would auction off his film to a distributor in an auction at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, but upon speaking at the festival, he announced that he had decided he wanted to go a different route. Smith had decided to buy the film himself and chose to self-distribute it using his podcast, SModcast Pictures, and its audience. He also chose to travel across the USA and showing Red State in select theatres across the country as he went at inflated prices, with a Q&A session with himself and the actors afterwards.
This is an odd case of film distribution because the majority of films are usually produced and distributed by the ‘Big 6’ companies, meaning that small independent directors and distribution companies are usually easily forgotten or just not noticed. Big successful film companies tend not to invest in small scale and budget films, such as Red State, because they’re usually a risk and not likely to make much money. No matter how much money is spent actually making a film, extraordinarily large amounts of money are usually spent marketing and distributing it; for example, the ‘Lionsgate 20’, a phrase coined by Kevin Smith describing the average $20 million spent by the company marketing and distributing a film. Small scale independent movies are the reason why festivals such as Sundance were created, so that they have a chance at being bought and distributed by big companies, and allowing the film’s directors to have a chance at being noticed and gathering an audience. This is what happened to Kevin Smith in 1994 when he went to the Sundance Festival with his first movie, Clerks, which was bought and distributed by Miramax Movies. Because of this Smith slowly built up a fan base, which allowed his following movies to have a chance of at least making their money back.
Clerks was a black and white film made on a budget of $20,000 dollars, a minute cost compared to the often nine figure budgets of movies made by the companies such as the ‘Big 6’. It follows a group of teenagers working in a convenience store in New Jersey, and was filmed in a store where Kevin Smith had a part times job whilst he was at film school.
Red State, if it had actually been bought by a distributor, would have most likely not made much money at all. If it had had the ‘Lionsgate 20’ spent on marketing and distribution on top of the $4 million spent on production, it would have had to make at least about $50 million dollars to actually make a profit; it didn’t really have the potential to make that kind of money. Kevin Smith knew this, and was part of the reason why chose to distribute the film himself.
What does film, production, marketing, distribution and exhibition look like now?
The ‘Big 6’ film companies make a portfolio of films each year, some of them big, some small, and some tentpole releases. These 6 companies, as well as other film companies, have a predicted idea of what the income of films with certain audiences will be, so they know roughly how much money they’re going to make for each film, although this isn’t always necessarily correct as there will always be anomalies.
The ‘Big 6’ have so much money that they can afford to invest in multiple projects; if one film flops and isn’t particularly successful, unless its a tentpole release, then they can afford it and their profits aren’t especially affected. The biggest fear for companies is that tentpole releases are going to flop because so much is resting on them and the companies could go bankrupt because of the amount of money invested in the films. Its like gambling, the risks are big but so are the rewards; if you win, you win big. However, just because a film doesn’t make back its money at the cinema, it doesn’t mean its a flop. Films always eventually make their money back, wether its initially through theatrical exhibitions, through DVD sales, rentals or foreign markets; all of these contribute to a films income. It is partly because of this income and need to earn back their money that film companies are opposed to piracy; its stealing their intellectual property, the films that they make money out of. However, the impact varies because if its a successful film and its pirated, people will still have gone to the cinema to see it and the company would be in profit, rendering the effect of the piracy moot; more often than not its just the principal of having their films stoles that annoys companies.
The majority of films shown in cinemas are American films from predominantly the ‘Big 6’ studios; they make sure to fill the cinemas and screens with their content because that is where they make the most money. Film companies collude with each other to make sure none of their films come out in the cinema at the same time if they’re similar because they won’t be as successful as they would be if they were released separately at different times of the year. For example no action film aimed predominantly at teenage boys will ever be released at the same time as any Star Wars movie because of how successful the Star Wars franchise is; the other film wouldn’t stand a chance because everyone would go to see Star Wars. To make sure that this doesn’t happen the ‘Big 6’ divide the year up between them as to when their films are released. These companies are so powerful and rich and have so much influence that they can do this. They actually have the power to change laws, for example when Jurassic Park was released in 1993 the companies involved (predominantly Universal) pressured the companies that place ratings on films to make it a PG to make sure a wider audience was able to view it, therefore making more money; realistically the film should’ve been a 12. This power and influence is great for the ‘Big 6’ but not so much for smaller independent companies.
Its not just cinemas that the ‘Big 6’ have this kind of power. In shops such as HMV or supermarkets all the big DVD/Blu-Ray displays are full of films created by the ‘Big 6’; only they can afford to pay the kind of money that can make this happen. Its the same with things like film advertisements and posters on the sides of buses anyhow most of them are advertising films by the ‘Big 6’; on the the ‘Big 6’ can afford to pay the money that the bus companies want to make this happen.
However, the ‘Big 6’ aren’t the only film companies out there; there are lots of other smaller and less successful independent studios. But whatever company is making a movie, lots of money is needed, for everything from hiring equipment, to booking locations and paying actors; all the logistics. To make a film investors are needed to finance it. Not many people actually want to invest in films as its usually a very risky business. As a director hoping to make a film you’ve got to really sell it to your investors as something thats going to be successful and make lots of money.
If you’re making a film then once you’ve convinced an investor to fun your idea then you get on with the easy part, which is actually filming your project. After that the hardest part of the process comes when you have to distribute it. Usually all the cinemas are full with movies from the biggest and most successful film companies so there isn’t much hope of trying to distribute it there. The best hope is to either sell your film to a small distributor who has the ability to give your film some coverage in the cinema, or to sell it to a big company who can distribute it for you. Although if an independent film maker sells their film to a large successful company then that company will most likely invest a very large amount of money marketing a distribute it (the “Lionsgate 20”). This means that the film not only has to make the original investment money back, but also the money spent on marketing an distribution, and some for profit, meaning that the amount of money that the film needs to make is often more than 10 times what was actually spent on it in the first place. Some films created by small scale independent film makers simply do not have this money making potential, so are essentially doomed to fail from the off.
Theatrical exhibition – a public showing of a film, usually at a cinema or picture house
Non-theatrical exhibition – a showing of a film not in a cinema, for example on DVD
Distribution – the process of making a film available for viewing by an audience
Horizontal integration – where a production company expands into other areas of one industry
Vertical integration – when a production company has direct control and ownership of the means of production, distribution and exhibition of a film
Guerrilla film making – a form of independent film making without the support of large companies, with low budgets and using whatever resources are available
Symbiosis – when two production companies work together on something that benefits them both
Synergy – when two or more cooperations or companies work together to create a combined effect greater greater than the sum of their seperate effects
Technical convergence – the process that as technology changes, different technologies merge into new forms that incorporate and bring together and bring together different types of media and applications
Technical disruption – an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, eventually disrupting an existing market and value network and displacing an earlier technology
Media ownership – a company or organisation which owns the media
Concentration of ownership – a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organisations control increasing shares of the mass media
Targeted advertising – a type of advertising whereby advertisements are placed so as to reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, psychographics, behavioral variables
Un-targeted advertising – advertising that isn’t aimed specifically at anyone
Media conglomerates – a company that owns numerous companies in various mass media
Cross-media ownership – the ownership of multiple mediabusinesses by a person or corporation
Cross-media convergence – when companies coming together vertically or horizontally (or both)
“The Big Six” – the 6 biggest and most successful major film companies:
Disney
Warner Bros.
Universal
20th Century Fox
Paramount
Columbia
“Tentpole releases” – a movie that supports the financial performance of a movie studio
“The Lionsgate 20” – a phrase mentioned by Kevin Smith, a small-scale American director, during his introduction speech at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival for his movie Red State. When talking about “the Lionsgate 20” he was referring to the approximate budget ($20 million) that the Lionsgate film company adhere to when making a film. This allows them to earn their money back after the release of the film and hopefully make a profit too
The internet was and still is the most disruptive technology for everyone in every field everywhere, and no one saw it coming! Nobody expected the internet to just pop up like it did, and businesses had to learn how to adapt quickly to continue operating in a new connected world. Due to its success and effectiveness the internet is not getting close to the highest entertainment factor, close to TV. YouTube YouTube is a website that allows to user to view videos and media via instant streaming: real time delivery without having to wait for downloading. YouTube videos are ‘instant on’ meaning they can be watched instantly, so negating the need to download videos. It is crowd operated, meaning it is run by anyone who uploads videos. Piracy Piracy is much more abundant now than it was due to how easy it is to actually pirate a movie online; anyone can do it. There is an anonymous perception about piracy because ‘everyone does it’. Distribution
Theatrical distribution Cinemas are usually the first place that new films are available to see (apart from the really bad ones that go straight to DVD), and these new releases usually exclusive in cinemas for a certain amount of time, especially big blockbusters. “Tentpole releases” (films that the fortune and fate of entire companies rest upon because they’re most likely going to be successful) are always favoured for a theatrical debut to try and make the most money out of them. Theatrical and cinematic releases of films rely on people wanting the ‘experience’ of going to the cinema; new films can be watched in HD on a big screen, creating a spectacle, and there is a sense of scale as well as impressive surround sound. There are also other elements such as 3D that are used to try and enhance people’s experience further.
Retail After their exclusive time in the cinema films are then released to the public on DVD and Blu-Ray. Although with online streaming and downloading becoming ever more popular people still choose to buy hard copies of films for various reasons: DVDs are great for gifts and presents, and much more meaningful than a download code for a movie, and collectors and enthusiasts also choose to buy hard copies of movies. DVDs and Blu-Rays often have the added value of “special features”, things that people will never actually end up watching but create an incentive for them to buy the film rather than downloading it online. DVD’s and Blu-Rays also have the added bonus of being instant; as soon as you put a DVD on the film will start to play and there is no need to download anything which will take time, and the film will never stop for buffering or because of a bad internet connection.
V.O.D. (Video On Demand) There are various companies that allow an access of movies by either rental or subscription:
Rental- – iTunes
– Sky Movies
– Virgin Media
– BT Vision
– Xbox Store
– Playstation Store Subscription-
– Netflix
– Amazon Prime
– HBO Go
– Mubi
– YouTube Red
– Now TV
– Sky Movies
– BFI Film Player
– Curzon On-demand There are various advantages of subscription V.O.D., such as its cost effective, its instant, the ease of use, its usually tailored to your interests, and the idea of “all you can eat” with movies; you can watch as many movies as you want or possibly can as long as you’ve paid your subscription.
Subscription TV Subscription TV, such as that provided by companies such as Sky and Virgin Media, can be accessed via either satellite or cable. These often have movie channels with relatively, but not extremely, recent films available to watch.
“Free-to-air” TV Free-to-air, or freeview TV, has channels which show relatively decent movies several years after their release when the public demand for them isn’t high, which makes it cheaper for the company. Some channels, such as Film4, are also movie production companies, and use their channels to help distribute their films.
Due to the various ways of accessing movies now days there is an abundance of choice, but there is still the same amount of time and disposable income that there always was, meaning more choices have to be made about how and where we watch films. There are also other forms of entertainment now available to the general public, which are vying for our attention.
When films first started to be made it was decided that 24 fps (frames per second) was the optimum number of fps for fooling the human brain that something on film was real and moving. Around the late 1800s people were able to record a series of events on film which could be played back rapidly to create a moving image. Louis Le Prince, heralded the “Father of Cinematography”, was a French inventor who shot the first ever moving pictures on paper film with a single lens camera. One of his films, the Roundhay Garden Scene, a short silent actuality film (films with no narrative, just real life events) shot in 1888, is believed to be the oldest surviving film in existence.
Once the ability to record moving images on film was realised, touring groups, like a circus or carnival, travelled around the country with short film clips and a portable projection unit and screen to show these moving images to people. These became very popular as this was a complete novelty to people. The clips were usually very short, as lots of frames were needed to make a short film even a couple of minutes long. The films and their novelty became so popular that theatres adapted to become picture palaces and changed their stages incorporate permanent screens and projectors for viewing films. These were the first cinemas. One of the first public screenings of film was on the 28th December 1895 when the Lumiere brothers showed a short presentation of 10 films at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. After the creation of cinemas, instead of travelling theatres doing the rounds and travelling the country showing films to people, it was reels of films that were taken around the country from town to town and shown in cinemas. This was the earliest form of film distribution.
By 1920 film was black and white and completely silent, but it was pretty much what it is today; it was shown in 24 fps on translucent celluloid film. The average length of films then was about 20 minutes long, but they got longer and longer over time.
Disruption in film
Sound and Radio Radio had been around for a long time by the time film came about, even longer than photography in some forms. It became very disruptive to the film industry when, after WW1, nearly everyone could afford a radio in their homes. Radios made people crave sound, something that silent films in the cinema didn’t have. Because of this people preferred to listen to their radios than go to the cinema, so to counter this films had to adapt, and they did this by trying to make films with integrated and synchronised sound. The earliest sound films started being made around 1927; The Jazz Singer was one of the first films with synchronised sound, or ‘talkies’ that was available to be seen by the public.
Colour Colour was the next thing that people craved in film. People and companies started experimenting and competing to try and find the best way of recording and making films in colour. By the 1930s colour was a standard element of films, especially after Technicolor was invented in 1916. Some colour pioneers, such as Claude Friese-Greene, discovered that some colours could be captured on film easier than others, such as the colours green and red. In 1926 Friese-Greene travelled the UK in a green car (so it would show up better on camera) filming his journey as he went.
Television The invention of television didn’t have much of an impact on cinema at first because they were very rare and expensive, and it took a long time before everyone seemed to have one; it wasn’t really until the 1950s that they became prevalent and widespread.
RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947.
All early film was recorded in an aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1, which was almost square due to the size and shape of the frames on the film. Televisions used the same aspect ratio and format, meaning that people essentially had the cinema in the front rooms of their homes, resulting in cinema attendances plummeting. To counter this and bring back cinema goers, cinemas had to change. Televisions didn’t have scale, they were small and square, so cinemas changed the scale of the screens to make them wider, creating widescreen. The aspect ratios for the first widescreen cinemas were either 1.66 : 1 or 1.85 : 1, but the aspect ratio was increased and widened further to 2.33 : 1, which was CinemaScope. All three of the aspect ratios still exist and are used today; the two smaller widescreen ratios are often used for showing the trailers at cinemas, and the large CinemaScope ratio is used for the actual movie being shown.
While all this happened, televisions stayed the same size and shape: square and small. It wasn’t until relatively recently that the aspect ratio of televisions was widened to 16 : 9, with the creation of flatscreen televisions.
Cinemas and film companies began to experiment further to entice more people to watch films on the big screen and to make more money. They tried things such as 3D films, which was first seen in the 1950s of which Alfred Hitchcock was a big pioneer, and although it has been improved drastically from what it was it is still being used today. 3D suddenly became popular again in 2009 upon the release of James Cameron’s colonial Sci-Fi movie Avatar, a film designed to shown in 3D; until then 3D had been a relatively niche concept that wasn’t often used.
Companies also started combing the experience of 3D with other methods that would effect your senses, such as smells to replicate the ones in the film or chairs that blew air down the occupants neck to make them feel like there was something behind them as the watched the movie. In the 1950s companies also attempted Cinerama, where 3 synchronised projectors in a cinema would project 3 different pieces of footage on to a large curved screen to create the feeling of immersion.
YouTube
Piracy
Subscription-
There are various advantages of subscription V.O.D., such as its cost effective, its instant, the ease of use, its usually tailored to your interests, and the idea of “all you can eat” with movies; you can watch as many movies as you want or possibly can as long as you’ve paid your subscription.
Jake Carder's AS Media Studies Blog 