EVALUATION QUESTION 2 audiences and distribution

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?


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What I cover in this post:

• Different ways films can engage with audiences
• Uses and Gratifications theory (applied to 2 case studies, Tyrannosaur and Jurassic Park)
• Stuart Hall's theory of readings
• Intertextuality
• how different films achieve distribution
• Our target audience (and how we target them)
• different types of distribution (conglomerates vs. indies)
• digitisation, disruption and convergence
• Web 2.0
• How we would distribute our film

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Creative use of technologies:

This is my creative input, the points covered are:

• how different films achieve distribution
• conglomerates vs. indies
• different types of distribution (wide release, self-distribution, film festivals, digital, theatrical)
• how budget/funding affects distribution (government agency finding/subsidy vs conglomerates, cultural value)

For creative use of technologies I recreated an episode of the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", where I appear on a celebrity edition as the director of an upcoming indie film The Journey.

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2A How does it engage with audiences?

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Eval Q2 - audience from harriet Barlow

Web 2.0
Web 2.0 describes how the internet has become driven by users, converging the line between producer and consumer. An example of this is user-generated content, like the fan-art that was made for the Cornetto Trilogy, or the poster for Hinterland which was also fan-made. This web 2.0 theoretically allow indies more of a chance at achieving successful distribution online, by setting up twitters, instagrams and being able to engage with audiences directly.
We did this through our Instagram page, and the different software/online resources which we used throughout, shown in this vodcast (also used in the evaluation question 4):



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OUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Gender/Age
Primary target audience: males, 18-25
Secondary target audience: females, 18-25

Initially we wanted our film to be a 12+, but we did some research on the BBFC
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BBFC Indie Social Realist Ratings from harriet Barlow

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Because nearly every indie social realist film we looked at received an 18 or 15 rating, we would hope for a 15+, but it is likely that our production would also be pushed to an 18.

To put this into some context, these are some of the rating Big Six/Subsidiaries received:

Conglomerate/Subsidiary BBFC from harriet Barlow

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As the main character is male, uses and gratification theory would suggests that a primarily male target audience would be interested in this film as they would either identify with the protagonist, or aspire to be like him.

The other central character is his partner, Cathy, and she is a significant enough character to draw in a secondary female target audience.

Ethnicity
We have an ethnically diverse cast (Caucasian, Chinese, Indian), and as caucasian is the hegemonic demographic targeted, we wanted to both represent and target multiple ethnicities. This is something we found to be conventional of the social realist genre (My Beautiful Laundrette, Slumdog Millionaire), and helps to widen our target audience.

Sexuality

Initially we wanted to have non-heteronormative representation (taking influence form My Beautiful Laundrette), with the protagonist, Tanay, being with another man, but due to casting issues and a need to film we had to scrap this idea and include heteronormative representation.

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2B How might it achieve distribution?

"Film distribution is the process of making a film available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing strategy for a film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing, and who may set the release date."

(Wikipedia)

Some of the different types of distribution:

• Theatrical
• Television
• Personal home viewing (DVDs, Video on Demand, Download e.g. iTunes)
• Self-Distribution

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Eval q2 - distribution from harriet Barlow

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The Big Six/Big Five:
Although this is debated (Disney recently sealed the deal with 20th Century Fox now owning it, but Lionsgate is sometimes included) the Big Six are all present in the top 10 distributors of 2018 list. They are the largest conglomerates of the film industry in both production and distribution.

• Buena Vista (Walt Disney)
• Warner Bros.
• Universal
• Sony/Columbia
• 20th Century Fox
• Paramount

top 10 distributors of 2018

Their films typically use the tentpole model (costing more then $100m), and the majority of their films are extremely commercially successful - you can see that collectively they own about 80% of the market in shares.

Wired episode with Ryan Reynolds

Marketing campaigns are often extremely expensive, and the star names which usually feature in their films are a large part of this (star billing): trailers are made for national and international audiences, cast and directors appear on chat shows, but cheaper more inventive methods are also used by conglomerates similar to indies. Youtube videos, with cast members are often a popular way of raising awareness of a star featuring in a upcoming film: for example Ryan Reynolds appeared in an episode of Wired a little before Deadpool 2 started being talked about .In the game celebrities see the web's most searched questions about them - these videos are cheap to make and don't take much time to produce/consume.
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Indies:
Indie companies like Warp don't even make it near the top 10 lists when it comes to distribution, but there are ways they achieve distribution:

• Arthouse cinemas
• Direct to Itunes
• Direct to stream
• Straight to DVD
• Self-distribution (e.g. through social media)

The main reason indie films often don't even get a wide release or even a theatrical release is due to budgets being too small. Even though the BFI offers out grants to many indie films for production and distribution, it is difficult to generate interest in small budget films when films like Black Panther, with extensive SFX and large action sequences, are also showing in the cinema.

Some other reasons though may be more to do with the actual content of the films: controversial topics that may include darker themes are not as commercially viable as films do not have political or controversial themes, making it difficult to generate interest in a film, drawing in only niche audiences.

This is England - an example

This is England takes the point of view of a young boy who joins the skinheads in the 80s. There is cussing throughout (C-word and F-bombs), and the climax involves a violent race-based assault. Although the message of this film is condemning this kind of violence, the brutality of it would be too difficult for a 4 quadrant audience to digest.

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Digitisation, Disruption and Convergence:

• As technology is constantly advancing, production, distribution and exhibition are becoming increasingly cheaper and more accessible to more people - expensive reels no longer have to be bought to make films, and even our production has been made digitally.

This allows films with micro-budgets to have a greater chance at distribution - Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee is an example of this, with a micro budget it still managed to have a theatrical trailer and then a straight to DVD release. Professional equipment used was extremely limited.

An example which took it even further is Hinterland, which had a budget of only £10k, filmed using a 15 year old camera and then released in indie cinemas with director Q+A sessions. The film was never released on DVD, but given a simultaneous release on iTunes. The film definitely achieved some successful distribution, as it made it onto a top indie films of the year list.  

As it is so easy now for anyone to make their own films relatively inexpensively and self-distribute them, the term convergence is used to reference this: the line between producer and consumer is blurring as cheaper technology becomes available.

The importance of Netflix and Amazon Prime in this disruption cannot be overlooked, as they offer films directly to audiences, without theatrical releases, and are still massively successful. This threatens theatres, as if people are able to watch Oscar winning films such as Roma at home on Netflix, there will become increasingly less need/want for people to go to cinemas.

Although this disrupts conglomerates, it can be beneficial for indies, who are able to market and sell their films completely online, like the example of Hinterland, which did have a mall theatre run, but the majority of its marketing was one online through twitter.

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How we would distribute our film:

Self-distribution would be a good method for the distribution of our film for some of the following reasons:

• Do not have the budget for a theatrical release
• No star billing
• Digitisation has made it easier for creators to use innovative methods to cheaply promote their films
• Darker themes as possibility for a high age rating significantly lower audience interest, making it more of a niche audience film

As we have a micro-budget for our production, it is unlikely that a large distribution company would be willing to help distribute our film. Due to the accessibility of social media however, getting in touch with a film festival has been shown to be possible, which would get the film viewed by critics and journalists who could generate discussion of the film in the press. We created twitter and instagram pages to promote our film, similar to Hinterland or the Cornetto trilogy, and the example of Coz Greenhop showed how successful a method this can be in generating interest in a film.

Making deals with arthouse cinemas to do director Q+A sessions which would be mutually beneficial, accompanied by a simultaneous Video on Demand/iTunes/digital release of the film has shown to be a successful method in promoting a film and achieving distribution (Wandering Rose, and Hinterland).

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(SAM'S WORK)
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This is Sam's online job interview covering the same topic
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GENRE EG5 '71 (Warp, 2015)

'71 is a 2014 British historical thriller film set in Northern Ireland. For our mock exam we analysed the opening of this film under timed conditions in a style similar to the summer exam format - I have embedded the essay (after typing it up) at the bottom of this post as it has lots of relevant points (many of which have been extracted and put in the bullet point format throughout this post).

'71 poster

PRODUCTION CONTEXT/HISTORY
PRODUCTION: Crab Apple, Warp, Film4, BFI, Screen Yorkshire, Creative Scotland

DISTRIBUTION: Studio Canal; 11 territories

BUDGET: £8.1M

BOX OFFICE: $3.2m
BBFC: 15

This production is a Warp production, but it had a much higher budget than the majority of their films. It did receive grants form the BFI and Film4 - typical of indie productions. This ensures that films with more diverse/controversial representations are still made and the industry is not monopolised by conglomerates.
This film lost a lot of money, and it was a big risk for art to have such a high budget in the first place.

The hybrid aspect of it being a historical thriller/action/social realist film did give it a higher chance at being commercially viable than the majority of Warp films, and though Studio Canal is a well-established distributor it did not put much of a gamble into the film and marketing was limited.

The film did have a week long theatrical release in America (to qualify for the Oscars), showing the ambition o this film in comparison to Warp's other productions, but the amount of territories it was related in was still a low number in compassion to WT films (and there was no distribution in China).

No. of territories (BoxOfficeMojo)

Company list (distribution) (IMDB)

The 15 rating form the BBFC is interesting, as This is England got rated an 18 mostly due to cursing and the violent scene at the end (which is relevant to the moral values the film condemns), but '71 has extremely graphic and violent scenes throughout (when his friend is shot in the face when they arrive in Belfast, when a bar is later blown up with a child inside, the homemade stitching done o the protagonist etc.). This is an examples of how more commercially acceptable films are given more chance for commercial success than more controversial ones.

Although the film was ultimately a commercial/financial flop, it was nominated for BAFTAs, BIFAs, and O'Connell won the EE Rising Star award. This shows how although the film was not a financial success, its' critical reception proved it to be a success in ways that many other Warp films are.

IDENTS/COMPANIES

• Studio Canal
• distribution and production company (mostly distribution)
• Subsidiary of NBCUniversal (one of the Big Six)
• co-production financing (that way risk is spread if the film is a flop)
• can be part of meaning (has worked with WT and Warp)
• shows range
• Film4
• tv channel (UK)
• denotes low budget
• BFI (British Film Institute)
• gives grants to low budget indie films they think require subsidy (which do not need to be repaid)
• government funded
• previously known as UKFC (UK Film Council)
• Screen Yorkshire is a regional branch -  the film was not shot on location, and the extensive creation of the streets with houses in varying states of destruction show where much of the budget was spent.

TITLES

• informational words are smaller than company names
• small serif font (white on black)
• signifies serious drama 
• 'presents'
• production and distribution
• co-production between Crab and Warp
• the Warp logo is also on screen - larger contributor

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MISE-EN-SCENE FOR EXPOSITION

• blood, sweat, costume, hair
• all wearing green military costume
• all sweaty (including those not fighting)
• all crew cuts (functional, military)
• creates high level of verisimilitude
• on the bus:
• is not a sports car
• signifies poverty
• man wearing a flat cap and smoking
• connotes Yorkshire
• signifies film is set in the past (cannot smoke on busses now), hence the name '71
• in the café
• is not a fancy 5 star restaurant
• run down, cheap looking place
• signifies poverty
• Is very similar to the sudden cut to the unappetising, greasy food in Withnail and I 
• Though not in the opening, when the locals bang their metal bin lids on the ground
• metal bins are now out of date, so signify the time period (maintain verisimilitude)
• preferred reading: it was a warning that police/army were approaching
• signifies target audience (older, native to the uk/Ireland)

EDITING

• fight scene:
• no ELS (establishing shot)
• fast-paced editing, short takes
• action genre
• cuts closer to protagonists face and cuts to see his reactions
• anchors protagonist
• centrally framed protagonist
• Training montage:
• quick fade from black (ellipsis)
• longer takes
• hand-held camera
• documentary style of realist genre
• sticks to 180 degree rule
• morning scene:
• almost a match cut done through the audio (the sound of the gun is similar to the lights turning on)
• fade-up from black
• shows ellipsis
• Café scene:
• fast-pan to reveal brother's face
• shot reverse shot in the conversation
• continuity editing
• 180 degree rule is used
• match on action with the fork and food

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CINEMATOGRAPHY

• fight scene:
• no long shots (M/MCU)
• no fade-up
• cuts straight to action
• impact
• shows brutality
• whip-pan and hand-held tracking shots (realist)
• Barthes action codes
• low-key lighting
• brutal/grim
• natural lighting?
• shallow field of focus
• protagonist in focus (and foreground), but can still see detail in the background
• anchors protagonist
• cuts back to protagonists reaction (and centrally framed)
• Training montage:
• ellipsis (there is an overall ellipsis, not just here)
• tracking shots of protagonist
• cuts back to protagonist
• anchorage
• morning scene:
• begins with tracking shot of superior officer
• becomes MCU
• long take
• lighting as man steps forward (lowkey and shows shadow on half his face)
• signified as villain?
• establishes power dynamic
• protagonist is in the edge of the frame
• sets up equilibrium with protagonist having very little power within his situation

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SOUND; GENRE SIGNIFICATION

• Fight scene:
• audiobridge over titles
• sound is unclear: basketball? fighting? shouting and hitting noises
• creates narrative enigma (Barthes)
• audio does not fade up - cuts in
• impact
• brutality
• diegetic sound
• ambient sound (crowd shouting and hitting)
• only coherent speech is coming form the coach
• Northern accent (Yorkshire)
• all for verisimilitude
• Morning scene:
• audiobridge fade-up
• music is sinister
• foreshadowing

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CENTRAL PROTAGONIST/NARRATIVE

• Anchorage:
• the camera repeatedly cuts back to the protagonist to show his reactions
• the protagonist is the first character we see in an MCU
• As the fight scene comes to a close there is a tracking shot of the protagonist, form an MLS to an MCU of his face, showing the blood and sweat on it (verisimilitude)
• Todorov's narrative theory:
• the protagonist's equilibrium is established almost entirely through the editing of the opening:
• he is established as the protagonist by repeatedly cutting back to show his reactions
• in the training montage, there is always an establishing shot of the area, with the troops training, then it cuts to a close-up of the protagonist's face - this shows him as indiscernible from the rest of the men (a 'cog in a machine')

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MOCK EXAM ESSAY


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GANT RULE

(SAM'S WORK)

This Gant Rule was made up  by someone called Charles Gant a box office analyst. He believed that the box office of a film will be successful when it makes ten times as much in the US as in the UK. One good example is Maze Runner (2014). It made  £4m in the UK and $40m in the US.

However, this is not always the case, some movies can do incredibly well in the UK but flop in the US. This was the case for Bridget Jones's Baby because that made $60m in the UK but only $24m in the US. Why might this be? Well Bridget Jones does not have a wide American appeal and has a lot of jokes or references that only people from the UK will understand. This was a crucial reason as to this was a flop in the US. 
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(MY WORK)

Our film would likely be an exception to the Gant rule, as an international, American audience would be unlikely to be able to pick up on the preferred reading, accessible mostly to a uk audience, similar to Bridget Jones Diary. Furthermore, achieving distribution internationally is difficult for indie films, as they have to make individual deals with distribution companies (e.g. tyrannosaur)

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE

"Audiences are both a product of social context … and a response to a particular media provision"-Denis McQuail

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Gender/Age
Primary target audience: males, 18-25
Secondary target audience: females, 18-25

Initially we wanted our film to be a 12+, but we did some research on the BBFC
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BBFC Indie Social Realist Ratings from harriet Barlow

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Because nearly every indie social realist film we looked at received an 18 or 15 rating, we would hope for a 15+, but it is likely that our production would also be pushed to an 18.

To put this into some context, these are some of the rating Big Six/Subsidiaries received:

Conglomerate/Subsidiary BBFC from harriet Barlow

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As the main character is male, uses and gratifications theory would suggests that a primarily male target audience would be interested in this film as they would either identify with the protagonist, or aspire to be like him.

The other central character is his partner, Cathy, and she is a significant enough character to draw in a secondary female target audience.

Ethnicity
We have an ethnically diverse cast (Caucasian, Chinese, Indian), and as caucasian is the hegemonic demographic targeted, we wanted to both represent and target multiple ethnicities. This is something we found to be conventional of the social realist genre (My Beautiful Laundrette, Slumdog Millionaire), and helps to widen our target audience.

Sexuality
Initially we wanted to have non-heteronormative representation (taking influence form My Beautiful Laundrette), with the protagonist, Tanay, being with another man, but due to casting issues and a need to film we had to scrap this idea and include heteronormative representation.

Socioeconomic Status
The majority of social realist films are produced by indie companies, and therefore do not have the budget to afford mass mainstream marketing campaigns, leading to exhibition in mainly arthouse and indie cinemas (independent deals), and sometimes film festivals. The average film-goer does not really attend these, as most people go to mainstream cinemas. The main people who attend arthouse cinemas are looking for out of the ordinary films and experiences, or are academically inclined critics, or are in the industry themselves, making the films challenging content more accessible to them as they can employ advanced media language. Even though uses and gratification theory suggests that the social classes being represented in films make up the audiences, this is not always the case for social realist films, as they usually receive major critical praise from high-standing critics, as they include more sophisticated themes/ideologies/representations than many mainstream films. This suggests that ABC1 audiences would find appeal in them, though C1C2DE audiences could still find appeal through identification.
(source of information)

Counter-Hegemony
Gramsci was a 1930's Italian Marxist who argues that the ways in which the elite bourgeoisie dominates wealth and power is not only through legislative and physical force, but through culture, by distributing hegemonic ideologies and representations, leading to wider cultural acceptance of what is being propagated. However, as this is inherently unstable, it can be challenged by counter-hegemonic texts, such as ours strives to be.

As we have included counter-typical representations of ethnicity (and wanted to include non-heteronormative representation) our film opening could be argued to be counter-hegemonic. As it is produced with a micro-budget by an indie company, it is not a product of the elite (The Big Six). As covered in other posts this does affect our ability to effectively distribute our film to a wide audience, so our product would likely appeal to a niche target audience, and is, essentially, a binary opposite of the films produced by conglomerates and many of their subsidiaries.

Moodboard

INITIAL AUDIENCE RESEARCH: Survey

Question sheet

This week we did a survey to see if out target audience (primarily male aged 15-24) would be interested in our film idea:

• We showed them clips form 7 social realist films
• Cathy Come Home, Tyrannosaur, This is England, '71, Billy Elliot, Submarine, Slumdog Millionaire
• We gave them a question sheet about the clips
• Asked them to fill in their age/gender (almost all of them were a part of our target demographic)
  

  

  The questions were presented to ppts in a table
  format, but these were the questions

WHAT WE FOUND

• Name the film: 
• they couldn't name most of the films
• most recognised Billy Elliot and Slumdog Millionaire, which makes sense as these were the 2 most commercially successful.
• Genre:
• we suspected a teenage audience would use the word 'drama' to describe most of the films, with hybrid exceptions '71 and Submarine probably being labelled as action/romcom. 
• This was true for the most part, though 2 recognised the social realist theme. 
• Slumdog Millionaire was thought to be a Bollywood production by a few of the participants (which makes sense as the majority of Indian films are Bollywood films), but the majority labelled it as rom-com/drama.
• Would they want to see more of the films: 
• almost no one said they wanted to continue watching Cathy Come Home or Tyrannosaur, 
• more girls than Boys said they would want to continue Billy Elliot (probably because the ballet plot line is too 'girly'). 
• '71 was the most popular among participants that they said they would want to continue because of the genre, but Slumdog Millionaire was also a popular choice.
• Had they seen any other films/tv shows that seemed similar:
• Only a few participants named similar films/tv shows they had seen
• This is England, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Book Thief and Inglorious Bastards were some that were mentioned 
• But most said they had watched similar things
• this is positive feedback as it shows that though our target audience may not have been familiar with the clips we showed, they do have some interest in the genre
• Had they been to the cinema to see any films like these:
• only 1 participant had been to the cinema to see a social realist film (Slumdog Millionaire)
• This makes sense, as discussed in other posts low-budget indie films which tend to be more likely to explore heavy social realist themes are less commercially successful than studio/comedy films and therefore have a more difficult time with theatrical distribution
• Even The Journeyman, which we are taking lots of influence from, was screened at an indie film festival (The British and Irish Film festival)

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GENRE EG1: Tyrannosaur

(SAM'S WORK) - input by me in green
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Budget: £750k
Box Office: $299k (Worldwide) / $22k (US)
Ratings: 84% (RottenTomatoes) / 7.6/10 (IMDb) / 3.5/4 (Roger Ebert)
Production Companies: Film4, UK Film Council, Screen Yorkshire, EM Media, Warp X, Inflammable Films
Director: Paddy Considine

IDENTS:

No Idents.

TITLES:

• serif font
• white font on black background connotes seriousness and drama
• different sizing between the titles and names to distinguish the different roles 
• the main title is centered and all capitals
• animated titles, fade in and out
• different positioning of titles
• for aesthetic purposes
• duration of title sequence: 00:00:03 - 00:02:04
• numbers of titles: 12
• In the other Paddy Considine film we looked at (Journeyman) there were also no titles before names (other examples had "with" "starring" "introducing" etc.)

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Tyrannosaur credits from harriet Barlow

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SOUND:

• soft guitar sound with notes that are a few seconds apart has an impact on our mood
• it connotes drama / seriousness
• get the serious feel
• makes us calm
• ambients sound of radio to add verisimilitude
• the incidental acoustic music is very conventional of social realist films
• it kicks in just after he has kicked his dog - this encourages the audience to empathise with the protagonist, rather than see him as a villain

1st SHOT:

• establishing shot
• starts with a close up of a male character
• narrative enigma because it's not very clear how the male character looks like due to shadows 
• using natural lights
• lowkey lighting

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CENTRAL PROTAGONIST + NARRATIVE:

• the male character is in every shot
• tracking shot when he is walking back home while having his dog in his arms
• shot variety of him
• he is always in focus
• it cuts back to him
• anchors he is going to be the central protagonist
• he is coming from the working class ( track pants, white and dirty shirt, drunk, is desperate for money)
• The music allows the audience to empathise with him, rather than see him as the villain who just kicked his dog to death in a drunken rampage
• This is quite a controversial and dark theme, something more commonly found in social realists
• the protagonist is an anti-hero: complex an din shades of grey, not a 2 dimensional stereotype
• this is similar to what was found in the New Wave movements

MISE-EN-SCENE FOR EXPOSITION:

•  small room 
•  squeaky floor
• bland colours
• anchors poverty
• The beer cans are used to confirm that he is drunk

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TRANSITION TO MAIN FILM:

• The equilibrium is disrupted when the central protagonist kills his dog
• Todorov's 5 point narrative theory:
• establish equilibrium
• the protagonist is a violent, alcohol drinking, swearing unemployed man
• disrupt equilibrium
• when accidentally injures his dog and realises he has to kill it so that it won't be in pain anymore, he later has a breakdown, and realises he must change something in his life, but has little power to change much
• the rest of the theory is not seen in the opening, but is present throughout the film

Fail or Success?

From the ratings I can tell that the movie was quite a success. Paddy Considine even got an award for the best film and best debut director award. Olivia Colman who plays Hannah in the movie got an award for the best actress.

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However, the movie didn't do well in Box Office. One reason is because it only got a limited screening in America in just 5 theatre. Also, Warp managed to get Tyrannosaur quite widely distributed on DVD and not so much in cinema which the Box Office doesn't count the sales of DVD's.
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It only grossed £299k (only the Box Office worldwide), whereas, the budget is £750k. The movie received a positive reviews and currently has a score of 83% on RottenTomatoes. Stuart McGurk of GQ magazine even called Tyrannosaur  "The best British film of the year". This is very rare for Indie movies to win awards and get good reviews from companies such as GQ or RottenTomatoes. This also indicates that the movie was a success. But still in the UK the movie doesn't sell well due to it's genre "a brutal, frank, and ultimately rewarding story of violent men seeking far-off redemption". 

For our film opening I took influence of the background music. It's a guitar with notes that are several seconds apart. For the font I like the serif font, it connotes seriousness. However, I am definitely including the white font on black background that anchors seriousness and drama.