Ownership Essay

Ownership

To What Extent Does Media Ownership Impact The Success Of A Film

Media Ownership completely impacts the success of a film, it is one of the most important factors in the process of making the film which results in the overall success of a film. 

Hollywood definetly is the most dominant in the film industry. This is because of the name it has made for itself since beginning in 1911. It has a high quality for its films and people watch them for that, no other industry even comes close to the dominance of Hollywood. All of the Big 5 conglomerates in media fall under Hollywood, that is: Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, Paramount Pictures and Colombia Pictures. 

The biggest of these is Disney. It has grown it's audience by introducing many different genres of movies. They do the classic animated Disney movies, but they now also own marvel studios, fox, star wars, and animal planet. The Disney Studios has a net worth of $130 billion, compared to all the other Big 5, they have a higher net worth by even  $100 billion in comparison.

The New Zealand Film Comission is tiny in comparison to Disney and the other Big 5. The New Zealand Film Comissions net worth is only around $20 million. However, the goals of the two companies are very different. Disney is focused on how much money they can recive per film/show, whereas the main goal of the NZFD is too represent and enable the Maori culture to have a platform that reaches the world, and to invest into the future famous film makers of New Zealand.

There is also a difference in the type of movies each movie company focuses on. Hollywood is known for its Fictioon movies and the creativity that is involved in making them- for example movies like Inception, Forrest Gump, and Jurassic Park which still get heaps of sales every year, but the NZFD focuses mainly on documentaries and movies on the heritage of New Zealand. One movie that did really well for New Zealand, and crossed our border was Hunt For The Wilder People. This is mainly because Sam Neill who is famous not only in New Zealand but the states. Hunt for the wilder people received $23.2 million at the Box Office.

The Media ownership also influences how succesfully a movie is marketed. This is mainly because the more money the company (or companies if cross-media convergence is being used) the more TV channels, pre-movie ads, radio ads, social media influencers etc they will be able to pay for to advertise their movie. Also, in companies like Disney's case, they own Disney Channel, Disney Junior, some Fox Channels and a streaming site, so have multiple places where they can be putting their ads for very low prices, and also they have so much money that they can advertise at all the other places as well.

The Dark Knight Rises had a very unique way that they advertised and raised awareness for their film. called 'Why So Serious" where people at cosplay events were given clown make-up and walked the streets holding signs for the presidential campaign in the movie. They got notifications on their phones with when to go and where, and armies of Joker fans showed up to play this game in around 75 countries- each with different places in their country to gather. This raised major awareness for the film as people would see these clowns marching the streets, and they were even covered on several news agencies which also raised massive awareness for the movie. On the last night of the game, people gathered where the website told them to and a bat signal appeared on a massive building- however, the joker then made the bat signal disappear and instead it was his face on the building.

Paying for advertisement isn't the only way to fund a movie, however. 

Another way that has proven successful in the past has been crowd-funding. This is where the directors, actors and producers etc get the word out about their movie by advertising in unique ways and ask people who find out about it to pay money to help fund the film.

This has proven to work by New Zealands Mocumentary 'What We Do In The Shadows' that was created by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. They had some very unique ways to advertise their film. They showed up at a cosplay, in character and full costume with umbrellas to protect them from the light, and proceeded to answer questions as their characters. They set up TradeMe accounts, and sold vampire paintings they had done themselves and put the proceeds towards the movie, asked people to do fan art with the reward of posters being put up in theaters of their fan art, and the chance to got to the premiere. They also used a crane and changed the sign at New Zealands capital that says Wellington to 'Vellington.' They let anyone who wanted to interview them interview them, went on the ten o'clock news and made face book and dating profiles all in character. The movie was majorly sucessful, and ended up making $6.9 million on a $1.6 million budget.

Hollywood definetely has it easier to fund all of their stages of production. This is because it has become such a rich company that it is easy for them to hire famous actors, and the best special effects guys that  normal production company wouldn't be able to afford. Having famous people in the cats also helps with the fragmentation of media- some people wont go to the movies to see films so wont see ads for your movie, or maybe don't have a satellite TV or YouTube to see the ads on. This means when they log onto Instagram or Facebook and see a famous person has promoted their new movie, they are more likely to go and watch the film.

Indie film makers have it much harder then Hollywood studios in regards to distributing their movie after it has been made. An indie film only has just over 30% chance of making a profit, whereas a Hollywood film has almost 50% chance of making profit, which is a lot considering how many movies are released every year.  Also, ecause Hollywood movies have a budget generally around $65 million for production and around $35 million for distribution and marketing which ends up being around $100 million in total per film, whereas an independent film generally costs around $800,000 to make.

The top grossing movie of 2019 was Avengers: Endgame. This movie was made by Disney, and the next 5 down from there were also made by Disney. Disney has been raking in money recently as live action, new versions of their old classics have proven to be popular and very good for money making. The top grossing genres of 2019 were action, adventure, drama, and thriller. This was seen by the movie makers by previous years trends, so these genres have the most movies in their categories compared to others.

Because Hollywood is so massive in the movie market, it's made it difficult for others to enter the already saturated market. For example, independent films, Bollywood and other international films find it hard to get an audience for their film as people are flocking towards the latest Hollywood films.

Piracy has a massive affect on the profit received from movies as people will stay at home and illegally download the movie as opposed to renting it or going to see it in the cinema. A report from industry analysis Digital TV research suggested the amount of money lost to piracy has grown substantially form $6.7 billion dollars in 2010 to nearly $31.8 billion last year. The figure has been predicted to hit $52 billion in 2022. Among the movies which have been pirated the highest number of times are: Joker, Jojo Rabbit, Jumanji The Next Level, Charlie's Angels (2019), Parasite, and Frozen 2. Box Office made $43.5 Billion dollars last year, and since the Box Office has estimated its yearly loss to piracy at $10 Billion, they miss out on a quater of their total profit being added to the sum. This means that all the directors, producers, editors etc are losing out on substantially on profit because of illegal downloading and streaming.