Section B Institutions and Audiences

Section B Institutions and Audiences

What to include in your exam answer

You should collect notes, facts and quotes for Working Title, Film 4 and Warp Films making reference to films by both companies (we should aim to have two films per Production Company). You should be prepared to compare WT, F4 and WF in your exam answer stating differences/ similarities between them in Production/ Distribution/ Marketing/ Exhibition.

Production

• Who is responsible for production (companies, names, style of company etc.)?
• Type of institution (in line with the BFI categories)
• Money (funding, budget, overall expenditure, predicted revenue and revenue)
• Filming (how is it filmed in today’s ever changing media – cameras/ film reel/ HD, DV)
• Type of story (is it typical to the production company, what type of genre, does it fulfil a real representation of Britain?)
• Stars (celebrity, typical to that company)
• Directors (well known, unknown, style)

Distribution

·         Companies (who are they owned by, who are they associated with, how do they fit into the BFI categories)

·         Cinema (how is the film distributed to cinemas, what is the impact of digital technology?)

·         DVD/ BLU Ray (how are these distributed and by who, what is the impact of digital technology?)

·         Internet (what changes has this made to distribution)

·         Convergence (how does this affect distribution)

·         Piracy (how will digital technology impact on this, how does this affect distribution?)

Marketing

• Audience (this should be clearly researched – who is the target audience, what strategies to advertising companies use to reach audiences, how do audiences make decisions on the films they watch?)
• Synergy (what impact does this have on marketing of a film?)
• Advertising (how is a film advertised, what expense would be spent, what impact does advertising have on the success of a film?)
• Internet (how has digital technology changed the marketing of a product?)

Exhibition

• Digital Technology (how does this impact on the way we view a film- in cinemas and out?)
• 35mm film (who uses this to show a film and why?)
• Hollywood vs. British Film (what do people in the UK ultimately want to watch and why, what is the ratio of Brit to US films on offer at a cinema, how long is the run time of a Brit film compared to US?)