Oddly enough, Focus Features and Focus Features World Wide, which for the purposes of this analysis will be lumped together, remains one of the few art house/independent movie studios that is owned by one of the major six studios. Ironically, this distinction also lends Focus Features a distinct advantage. Typically, the independent film industry requires a studio to distribute/produce a certain number of projects in order to fund initial overhead or licensing costs. This puts a significant financial strain on the smaller market firms and increases risks. While, the project quota remains true for Focus, it is by choice and not by financial necessity. Focus is able to utilize its parent company, Universal’s wide reaching distributive and marketing scope, making Focus’ project performance less variable while fixed costs remain low. However, this corporate structure poses obstacles as well. Independent film studios put a considerable amount of resources into finding or developing content of acceptable quality. This never ending hunt must be balanced against stringent financial targets imposed by Universal. Seemingly, these do not mesh, but due to Focus’ business model, which takes a calculated approach to releases and relies heavily on festivals to generate buzz. By releasing movies in only a moderate number of theaters first, it allows Focus to use their budget for marketing more effectively. Surprisingly, Focus is able to operate almost completely separately from Universal relying on its growing library sales, and international distribution rights to cover its annual operating expenses, including overhead, development, production, acquisition, marketing and distribution costs. More specifically, Focus’ international sales “arm” gi...
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...elieve this trend could be the most damaging to Focus in the long term. As a firm that has demonstrated its success in a grey area of the film industry, with little real competition it seems damming to squeeze more out of it. I therefore recommend, Focus concentrate its resources on developing and finding content, plus bolstering its reputation as a director/actor friendly studio as Schamus intended, rather than exploiting perceived demographic demands.
Works Cited
Finding Focus. (n.d.). : ICG Magazine / Showcasing the members of the International Cinematographers Guild. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from http://www.icgmagazine.com/wordpress/2011/01/11/finding-focus/
Orden, E. (n.d.). How le Carré Flick Devised Its Plan. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203436904577149031020170576
Movies today are extremely expensive to make and are typically financed through either film studio contracts or from investors willing to take a risk. In order to be successful, movies need to be marketed and distributed either under contract by the film studios or by companies that specialize in such services. The aspects of financing, marketing and distribution of films have changed between the studio and independent systems over the years as the evolution of the film industry took place.
In cinema, lighting, blocking and panning drastically influence what an audience will notice and take away from a scene. Orson Welles’s 1941 Citizen Kane has numerous examples of effectively using these aspects within mise-en-scène, cinematography and editing to portray the importance of specific events and items in the film. The scene where Kane writes and then publishes his “Declaration of Principles” (37:42-39:42) in the New York Daily Inquirer after buying them focuses on important elements of the film, aiding the audience by combining lighting, blocking and panning to define significant roles and objects that further the movie as a whole.
To date, Warner Bro’s has over 6,500 feature films and around 3,000 television series that contains more than 10,000 episodes (“Company” par 5). Every great movie company has a background story to their success. What were then four brothers traveling with a movie projector turned into a successful movie company that has entertained crowds for generations (“Company” par 7). The vitaphone, the talkie, and the first four-legged movie star were introduced during the 1920’s, and helped define the Warner Brother company (Company par 6). Warner Brothers, a company created by four brothers during the 1920’s, revolutionized the film industry by modernizing the concept of cinematography (Company par 6).
As can be seen in exhibit to solution 2, we have estimated the per-film value of each production company. MCA Universal, Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Co are the only production companies that provide a positive per film value, with values of 9.89, 1.92, 12.56 million respectively. This value is calculated by dividing the net present value of all the movies by the total number of movies. We also calculated the average value of each production company based upon their share of the total number of movies produced. The companies with positive values were MCA Universal, Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Co is also the only production companies that provide a positive per film value, with values of 1.40, 0.37, 1.40 million respectively. These values are based on the average value per film multiplied by the company's average share of the industry.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
The Studio System Key point about the studio system could be: Despite being one of the biggest industries in the United States, indeed the World, the internal workings of the 'dream factory' that is Hollywood is little understood outside the business. The Hollywood Studio System: A History is the first book to describe and analyse the complete development, classic operation, and reinvention of the global corporate entities which produce and distribute most of the films we watch. Starting in 1920, Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount Pictures, over the decade of the 1920s helped to fashion Hollywood into a vertically integrated system, a set of economic innovations which was firmly in place by 1930.
The most important part of Disney’s long-term success is due to its key strategic choices and incorporation of various diversification strategies. Disney created value mainly through “vertical integration” of its business lines, especially through the concept of forward integration. For example, Disney integrated production of movies and the final distribution in cinema’s or on television, especially through its acquisition of ABC in 1995 (1, p.6/7). Through this acquisition, Disney was able to extent its boundaries quickly and gain access to a wider lev...
Modernization in the 1980s paved the way for the Hong Kong New Wave, as the studio system set up in the 1950s was dismantled, the film industry experienced more freedom. Since decolonization was heavily present 75% of Hong Kong’s box office revenue were home grown movies, while the meager 15% was left for the foreign market. As one can see the political context of Ho...
[2] Poggi, Jeanine. "Blockbuster's Rise and Fall: The Long, Rewinding Road." The Street. N.p., 23 Sept. 2010. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
In this essay I will look at the Film Company and distributor Universal Studios, also known as Universal Pictures. I will analyse the logo, branding, and marketing within the corporate company. Overview of Universal Studios. With a long history in the film making industry, Universal Studios is the largest film studio in the world, with 9000 employee’s. The company produced ‘ET: The Extra Terrestrial’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ which are two of the highest grossing movies of all time.
As they are such a large production company their styles of films range. The success of each production company allows there to gather an audience faster and of a greater
During the process of globalization, countries are about to understand others’ culture as well as to realize how one’s culture compares and contrasts with other. Media globalization stands for the process in which film companies deliver images of national cultures to the whole world. In fact, the process of globalization increased the number of global cinema audiences; their aesthetic is having a profound effect on the way that Hollywood films are being made. Traditionally Hollywood is unfair and pernicious in its portrayal of Asian, but things get changed. According to recent figures from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to almost 70% of the studio’s annual revenues from box office now come from international markets. Potential overseas customers nowadays determine the style, cast and characters image of a film.
In Hollywood today, most films can be categorized according to the genre system. There are action films, horror flicks, Westerns, comedies and the likes. On a broader scope, films are often separated into two categories: Hollywood films, and independent or foreign ‘art house’ films. Yet, this outlook, albeit superficial, was how many viewed films. Celebrity-packed blockbusters filled with action and drama, with the use of seamless top-of-the-line digital editing and special effects were considered ‘Hollywood films’. Films where unconventional themes like existentialism or paranoia, often with excessive violence or sex or a combination of both, with obvious attempts to displace its audiences from the film were often attributed with the generic label of ‘foreign’ or ‘art house’ cinema.
The entertainment industry holds the immense potential for growth and development. The industry is constantly evolving and Walt Disney emerge as a global leader and recognized as the world’s second largest media conglomerate in the terms of revenue after Comcast. The Walt Disney Company is a multinational entertainment conglomerate headquartered at California, United States. The company integrated its products into five target segments are as follows: (1) Media Networks (2) Parks and Resorts (3) Walt Disney Studios (4) Disney Consumer Products (5) Disney Interactive. The company has strong diversified product portfolios and generate high returns and revenues from all the target segments but the media networks contributes
The Law of Comparative Advantage was introduced by David Ricardo in 1817 in his book ‘Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’. According to this classical theory, a comparative advantage exists for a country when it has a margin of superiority in the production of a certain commodity over others. Comparative advantage results from differing endowments in the factors of production like technology, natural endowments, climate, etc. among different countries. Therefore, each country exports the commodities which it can produce at a lower opportunity cost or, in other words, lower marginal cost of production and imports the rest. This would ultimately be beneficial for all countries engaging in free trade as each would gain through its specialization