Hollywood Media Synergy as IMC

Abstract: contemporary marketers and brand managers can learn from the media synergy strategies developed by Hollywood studio executives in the past several decades – where media products are deployed to promote one another.

Hollywood’s penchant for sequelisation of blockbusters one form of media synergy. Theme park rides, sound tracks, novel tie-ins and videos games are important and profitable forms of convergence.

ARTICLE: After the never before seen success of Star Wars, 1977 and its sequels and prequels, Hollywood focused more attention of marketing and developing big-budget sequels and synergistic media tie ins.

Mark Crispin Miller (1990) is one of the first critics to analyse Hollywood’s move from vertical integration to horizontal integrations, and films which are easy to deploy amongst various media platforms, as well as looking at how easily they can be made into a sequel (sequelisability) and how easily they can be cross-promoted.

In Hollywood terms, a franchise films is any film that is itself a sequel, or a title that has one or more sequels that follow from it. Sequelitis (in the mid 1990s Hollywood trades began to utilise this term to describe the increasing ratio of sequels – often dubious ones).

Sequels began to account for over 25 per cent of domestic box office in 2003. David Bordwell.

Sequels tend to be thought of as “brand extensions” as they can drive revenues beyond raw box office – DVD sales, toy merchandising, soundtrack tie ins, videogame tie ins. The six conglomerates depend on “sequelised fare”.

This is a 4-S Hollywood Megafranchise model. These are ones such as Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Shrek, LOTR, Pirates of the Caribbean. There generally deploy four key elements to ensure their continuing success, through the four titles. They have theme park rides, videogames, books and soundtracks. The importance of videogames to contemporary media should not be underestimated. They are one of the most important forms of media cross promotion with movies.

Tim Bevan

Tim Bevan CBE is a producer with Working Title. He worked as the producer on Anna Karenina.
In the development of Anna Karenina, he and the development team watched all the previous adaptations of Anna Karenina, and they felt that there was room to make a newer, more modern version. They read the novel, which Bevan described as a "1000-page tome" and then decided that the focus of their adaptation should focus around the theme of love with the stories of Anna and Vronksy, and Kitty and Levin.
He claims that the decision not to shoot in Russia is owed to the corrupt politics and a "third world" approach to media in the country. He did admit however, that originally he did not think very much of Joe Wright's idea to shoot the film in the theatre setting.
The budget for the film was around £36 million, and it was shot in 12 weeks.
He told us that the decision making process for a film focuses a lot on the other ones that are going to be released around it. In order to make a smaller, more niche film like Anna Karenina, Bevan says, a big film needs to be in production to ensure fiscal security.
Bevan told us that it was known that Les Miserables was always going to have a big audience due to the fact that the stage show itself was viewed by 60 million people over it's time.

Is British Film Dead?

This 2005 article by Johnathan Gems states all the reasons why the British Film industry has died.
He complains about how the UK Film Council boast the success of their 'British' films, when none of the films are actually properly British, being made by four foreign studios: Pathe, Warner Bros, Disney and Universal.

Gems talks of 'Hollywood Accountancy', which is essentially a way of Hollywood companies doing things legally that would be illegal in any other business, country or industry. This is due to the fact that Roosevelt changed laws for Hollywood back in 1939, promising them that they could have financial-control exemptions if they produced anti-German movies. It has still continued to this day, meaning that money is no issue for many studios.

The British Film Industry relied heavily on the Eady Levy. This levy worked like this: in exchange for access to the domestic market in the UK, foreign distributors paid the Government a small percentage of the income they received from selling their films to Britain. This money was then passed on to British distributors. Although it was a relatively small amount, the income from the levy was often the difference between a distributor failing or staying in business. However, it was abolished.

Gems believes that the British Film Industry does not exist, despite what 'government ministers and quangos like the UK Film Council' say. He states that the British Film Industry has not existed for more than 30 years.

The main issue with reviving a British Film Industry is that the Treasury, Depart of Trade & Industry and the Office of The Prime Minister all are against protecting British films because of the commitment to a 'free market'; that is, allowing foreign companies to remain prevalent.

Gems talks of how the 'Hollywood Six' control 84% of our domestic market, and how French company Pathe controls roughly 12%. British films account for less than 4% market share, and he says that no national film industry can be said to exist if it has less than 20% of its home market.

France protects its film industry well; it is the law that foreign companies cannot own more than 70% of the domestic market. The French have a higher hit ratio, whereby 1 in 10 films is a hit. In contrast, only 50 out of 2000 films in the US industry are classed as a hit.

Gems talks about how humiliating the Harry Potter movie franchise is; J.K.Rowling wanted to sell the rights to the film to a British film studio, but there simply isn't one, which is why they got sold to Warner Bros. He says how the UK Film Council brag about the success of these movies, despite the fact that they are not British in nature. He calls this a 'humiliating demonstration of the abject failure of our industry'.

He quashes the belief that projects like Harry Potter aren't made by British companies due to the fact that there is not enough money to do so; however, British banks are investing billions of pounds a day. There is not one British company that is set up to give a film a general UK release.

Gems says that if anyone still believes that the free market is a good place for British films, they are deranged. He states that the free market is only free for Hollywood. He believes that the reason there are no official laws protecting US films is because they don't need them - they are protected by unofficial laws.

When living in LA, Gems tried to set up a project with an American star who's price was $1.5m per picture. 2 years later, he was back in England and helping to produce a film with a European distributor. He called the agent of the American Star, and the agent wanted to know if he was paying Working Title Rate, which effectively means that the price is three times more than that if he was in the US.

The 'law' is that if a foreign distributor or foreign production company wants an American star, they must pay a tariff. This tariff is the star's price mulitplied by three - known as the Working Title Rate because Working Title were the first to pay it.

Media Ownership - Does it Matter?

1. What is horizontal and vertical integration in the media industry and can you provide an example?

Vertical integration the process whereby several steps in the production and distribution of a product are controlled by a single company, and this manages to further the company's power in the marketplace. There are three different kinds of vertical integration; backward integration whereby the company aims to control the production aspects of a product, for instance if a company produces the film in a studio that they own, and forward integration where the company aims to control the distribution side of the product. There is also balanced integration, where the company uses a mix of both.
A company that uses vertical integration is Warner Bros Entertainment. They own film studios and the means to distribute their films. They also own some cinemas in which their films are shown; the company also owns factories whereby their physical product is made. This allows them to make profit at more stages in the production and distribution of their product.
Horizontal integration, on the other hand, is where a company takes over a similar company in order to gain more control over the marketplace and reach a wider audience. This is quite common and an example of this in the media is Disney merging with Pixar in order to form a strong brand.

2. What does Melody (1978) believe happens to the 'media market'?

William Melody felt that the monopolisation of the media marketplace is the greatest threat to freedom of expression in the United States, due to the private entrepreneurs having interests more based in economic efficiency and private profit as opposed to any more democratic messages.
Melody felt that the economic conditions and circumstances of these monopolies meant that the 'marketplace of ideas' was restricted to only a few privileged media owners.

3. What does Neuman (1991) believe happens to media content? Why is this a problem for the audience?

Neuman believes that the result of 'standardised production and marketing [processes]' is that most of what the audience see and hear in the mass media is very uniform in terms of it's content and world view. Anthony Giddens went further than this to say that we can solve this by 'democratising of the democracy'.

4. What does Sterling think about the level of research?

Sterling felt that 'surprisingly' little research had been carried out on the domination of the global media market, and found that only marginally more information has been discovered on companies now than what could have been found out 20 years ago. He felt that too much about this issue was 'assumed or anecdotal', and that it suggested results from the changes in ownership, but that was all.

5. What does the media reproduce according to Gomery?

Gomery believes that the mass media reproduces the 'structure of class inequalities from which they benefit', and that the media industry is said to play a very significant role in legitimating these. These inequalities may be in wealth, power or privilege. He states that when those who are in control of power control the flow of information the audience receives, the knowledge, values and images shown are all done so in the interest of others. This is a relatively Marxist theory, and hence it can be said that it helps to instill ideologies into an audience to make them believe that the messages they are shown through the media are right and that they should believe in these too.

6. The media industry and corporate power form a powerful cartel. What does it do to local cultures according to Meier?

Meier speaks of how the global interlocking of the media industry and traditional corporate power creates this powerful cartel, and that this encourages the transmission of certain generic values, such as consumerism, shareholder value, individualism and egoism. With commercial infotainment, reality shows and trivialised news programmes, Meier believes that local cultures and communities have become eroded, due to a conservative 'common sense' view on the world.

7. How have media corporations influenced the law? What impact does this have on new businesses entering the market?

The fact that media conglomerates have so much economic strength means that they have a very high position in society, which effectively means that they are powerful in terms of politics too. Bagdikian (2000) states that the largest of media giants have achieved shocking success in rewriting media laws and regulations in order to suit the interests of their corporations, rather than to appease the interests of the genera public. In Europe and the US, multiple cross-media ownership rules have either disappeared or been severely relaxed; for instance the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) once enforced stringent ownership controls for the media, and believed that programming diversification was necessary to maximise public service. However, they take a more laissez-faire approach to the diversification of messages nowadays.
This makes it very difficult for a new business to enter the market because they can easily be targeted by or swallowed up by conglomerates.

8. What issue does convergence pose for media ownership?

The problem with convergence in an industry that is becoming owned by so few people is that if the conglomerates look to purchase not only film-related companies, but also games companies, comic book companies and toy manufacturers, their generic messages will continue to be spread through and the messages in the market will become further diluted with the conservative views Meier speaks of in the article.
However, convergence may work well in terms of media ownership. A good example of this is where companies own different types of companies and then merge their intellectual property to create a new product. Although the image shown to the right is not a real media product, it is a good metaphor for the way that Disney could potentially merge their properties - the rights to the Lilo & Stitch franchise, as well as their rights to the intellectual property of Lucasfilm (Star Wars).

9. What does the FCC believe about programme diversity?

The Federal Communications Commission once believed that programming diversification was necessary to maximise the service companies could offer the public. It was said that the greater the number of independent broadcasters there was, the greater the changes of achieving the desire diversity, whereby there were messages broadcast to suit all kinds of audiences.

Projectionist

The projectionist talked to us about a few different things; he told us about how a rough edit of a film is constantly being put together as clips come in to the editors. This contributes to a "first assembly reading" whereby a version of the film, usually an extended one, is shown. For instance, the one for Les Miserables was 4 hours long and had a 15 minute battle scene. After watching this, parts end up being removed and phased out.
Once the sequence has been decided upon, it is "lock picture" and from then, no further changes are made, apart from visual effects and music.
Films can be shot on film, but are usually are transferred to digital to be shown. This is mainly because of the difference in cost; it costs £2000 to deliver film in the 35mm medium and it can be easily damaged. It takes a skilled projectionist and hence it is an incredibly costly means. In contrast, digital is perfectly secure (no one can pirate from it) and the cost to deliver is only about £30; it does not require much skill to show, either.
The projectionist also spoke to us about 3D and high frame rate (HFR). He believed that 3D conversions "are a waste of time", and made the point that Disney paid millions to rerelease Monsters Inc in 3D recently, but it was a total failure at the box office and did not even come close to breaking even.
He believes that if the initial intent of a film is for it to be shown in 3D, for instance James Cameron's Avatar, then the film benefits from it. He felt that animations always worked well in 3D as they can be drawn in order to complement the 3D effect.
Although he had not actually experienced HFR, he noted that it can make it very expensive to shoot films; also, the result tends to be that for some, the film looks "too realistic" and does not have the typical film look.
The projectionist told us that 3D tends to add between 25 and 30% onto the budget of a film. The argument for and against the use of film depends primarily on if the money can be made back.

Amelia Granger

Amelia Granger is a development executive at Working Title. Development is a department in which they come up with ideas for the films they want to make, and these can come in many forms; spontaneous ideas from writers, directors, articles about interesting people, if they read a good book, classic or modern.
They then have to track down the copyright owner of the film in order to obtain the rights to replicate it, and find screen writers and directors.
Anna Karenina was developed in a relatively short amount of time; it had been talked about for years by the development team but upon looking for a third film to add to the two previous films they had created with Joe Wright (Atonement and Pride & Prejudice) they decided on adapting Leo Tolstoy's novel. It was easy for them to set about developing the film - due to the fact the author had been dead for more than 70 years, it was out of copyright.
It was felt that there was room for a more modern adaptation of the film, as all the others had been made years before. They sent writer Tom Stoppard a copy of the book and within 8 weeks they had a script, which went through very little script development due to the prowess of the writer, according to Granger.

Amelia mentioned how the film had been cast to attract a certain audience, and in the case of Anna Karenina, the audience were an up market, literary audience (presumably in the AB social grade). Actors and actresses were drafted in to help to appeal to this audience; for instance Keira Knightley and Jude Law have both been in powerful, period, British dramas before. These well-known actors also allowed them to actors with less prowess, for instance Domnhall Gleeson who played Levin.

Sarah Jane Wright

Sarah Jane Wright is a production executive at Working Title.
She spoke to us about Anna Karenina, the latest period drama that the company had created, and talked us through the initial production process of the film.
The director, Joe Wright, had initially wanted to film the tale very realistically in the Russian cities of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, where the novel had been set. However, due to budget limitations given to them by a parent company, it was not possible, considering also the political instability and corruption in Russia.

Joe Wright then went away and over a period of 48 hours came up with the idea of setting the film in a theatre, since it was very symbolic of Russian high society at the time, where everyone was watching the lives of others.

She spoke to us about the basic production of a film. They use a software called Movie Magic Scheduling. They import the entire script, scene by scene, and then the software asks them various questions about what scene it is, where it is set, how many pages it is, to name but a few. A scriptboard is then created to give an idea of how many days and weeks it will take to film the piece; a medium sized film in the UK will cost between $750,000 and $1,000,000 a week just for the shooting crew. This figure increases when filming a period drama as the costumes and wigs needed are very expensive. In a modern film, for example, extras can wear their own clothes, but in period dramas even the most insignificant of background extras need to be properly dressed.

Anna Karenina was shot on film, with a Dior stocking over the lens of the camera, which created the soft effect on top of the scene. It was later moved onto film. Whilst Sarah Jane did not give us an exact figure of how much film was used for Anna Karenina, she told us that the adaptation of Les Miserables used over 1 million feet of film in the shooting of it.

We then spoke about the visual effects industry. 3 or 4 years ago, the visual effects world was thriving and companies could not expand fast enough in order to take on lots of big films. Sarah Jane stated that, as an industry, visual effects was "feast or famine" and that they were currently in a famine. There were lots of redundancies being made due to huge overheads and firms were constantly having to downscale.
However, visual effects companies have been benefitting recently from a 45% tax break in Montreal. Despite the distance from the UK, the digital age has made this incredibly easy to do.