Hollywood film industry

AS Film Studies: FM2 British & American Film The Hollywood Film Industry

AS Film Studies

FM2: British &
American Cinema:
The Hollywood
Film Industry
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The American Film Industry
The film industry is one of global proportions. Production, film distribution and
exhibition reach around the world and continue to adapt to varying political,
economic and technological changes. Hollywood however continues to be a
dominant factor in our film viewing experiences. Even if we choose not to
watch Hollywood movies, the chances are that we will encounter Hollywood
marketing through accessing other media (trailers on TV, internet, videogame
tie-ins), walking through town (posters), listening to radio (film adverts,
‘exclusive’ interviews/promotions), listening to music (‘official’ soundtracks),
catching the bus (advertising hoardings), eating breakfast cereal (free
toys/promotions inside), going to bed (‘Spiderman’ pyjamas) etc. Considering
that Hollywood remains a suburb of Los Angeles, California, its reach and
saturation remains global and unavoidable.

Our own experiences will play an important role in this study: the magazines
and newspapers we read, our conversations with friends and family, the
DVDs we buy and films we watch and download. These experiences confirm
the presence of the film industry as a worldwide commercial fact.

• Aside from Hollywood, what other film industries are you aware of?

• How do you consume film? Where do you watch them? Who with?

• List as many cinemas as you can within five or six miles. What sorts of
films are available? How may screens? Do you know how much the
tickets are? How do they advertise?

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Hollywood
As early as the 1910’s the US film industry began to shift its base from the
East coast to what was essentially a place in the Californian Desert on the
edge of Los Angeles. Since this time Hollywood has famously been built
around studios: well financed big name companies in the business of making
films and making money from films.

• What do you think was so attractive about building film studios in such
a remote location? What could they achieve?

• Watch the trailers for Casablanca (1942) and Citizen Kane (1941). How
might these be seen as typical Hollywood movies? What parallels can
we draw with those produced today?

History
Origins
In the United States, the first exhibitions of films for large audiences typically followed the
intermissions in vaudeville shows. Entrepreneurs began travelling to exhibit their films,
bringing to the world the first forays into dramatic film-making. The first huge success of
American cinema, as well as the largest experimental achievement to this point, was The
Great Train Robbery, directed by Edwin S. Porter. In the earliest days of the American film
industry, New York was the epicenter of film-making. The Kaufman Astoria Studios in
Queens, built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields.
Chelsea, Manhattan was also frequently used. Mary Pickford, an Academy Award winning
actress, shot some of her early films in this area.

Rise of Hollywood
In early 1910, director D.W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with
his acting. They started filming on a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles. This place was
called "Hollywood". Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood. In 1913 many
movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison, who owned
patents on the movie-making process. In Los Angeles, California, the studios and Hollywood
grew. Before World War I, movies were made in several U.S. cities, but filmmakers gravitated
to southern California as the industry developed. They were attracted by the mild climate and
reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film movies outdoors year-round, and by the varied
scenery that was available. There are several starting points for American cinema, but it was
Griffith's Birth of a Nation that pioneered the filming vocabulary that still dominates celluloid to
this day.

At motion pictures' height of popularity in the mid-1940s, the studios were cranking out a total
of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week.

Sound also became widely used in Hollywood in the late 1920s, after The Jazz Singer was
successfully released as a talkie in 1927. In 1922, US politician Will H. Hays left politics and
formed the movie studio boss organization known as the Motion Pictures Distributors

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Association of America (MPDAA); the organization became the Motion Picture Association of
America after Hays retired in 1945.

Golden Age of Hollywood
During the so-called ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’, which lasted from the end of the silent era in
American cinema in the late 1920s to the 1950s, movies were issued from the Hollywood
studios like the cars rolling off Henry Ford's assembly lines; the start of the Golden Age was
arguably when The Jazz Singer was released in 1927 and increased box-office profits for
films as sound was introduced to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a
formula—Western, slapstick comedy, musical, animated cartoon, biopic (biographical picture)
—and the same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. After The
Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros. gained huge success and was able to
acquire their own string of movie theatres; MGM had also owned a string of theatres since
forming in 1924, know through Loews Theatres, and the Fox film Corporation owned the Fox
Theatre strings as well. RKO also bought its own theatres. Paramount, bought a number of
theatres in the late 1920s as well.

It was possible to guess which studio made which film, largely because of the actors who
appeared in it; MGM, for example, claimed it had contracted "more stars than there are in
heaven." Each studio had its own style and characteristic touches which made it possible to
know this - a trait that does not exist today. Yet each movie was a little different, and, unlike
the craftsmen who made cars, many of the people who made movies were artists.

Movie-making was still a business, however, and motion picture companies made money by
operating under the studio system. The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—
actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, craftpersons, and technicians. And they
owned hundreds of theatres in cities and towns across the nation, theatres that showed their
films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPDDA President Will Hays
also founded the Hays (Production) Code, which followed censorship guidelines and went
into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. However the code was
never enforced until 1934, after the new Catholic Church organization The Legion of
Decency- appalled by Mae West's very successful sexual appearances in She Done Him
Wrong and I'm No Angel - threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it didn't go into effect, and
those that didn't obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration had to pay
a $25,000.00 fine and could not profit in the theatres, as the MPDDA owned every theatre in
the country through the Big Five studios. Throughout the 1930s, as well as most of the golden
age, MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood, and was also
credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether; stars included "King of Hollywood"
Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, and
Gene Kelly.

Decline of the studio system
The studio system and the Golden Age of Hollywood succumbed to two forces in the late
1940s:
• a federal action that separated the production of films from their exhibition; and
• Changing leisure patterns and social activity, notably the advent of television and
exodus of families from the cities into the suburbs.

The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the major studios ownership of theatres and film
distribution (vertical integration) was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

"Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with
any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the
several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony.”
Detail from the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

As a result, the studios began to release actors and technical staff from their contracts with
the studios. This changed the nature of film making by the major Hollywood studios, as each
could have an entirely different cast and creative team. This resulted in the gradual loss of the
characteristics which made MGM, Paramount, Universal, Columbia, RKO, and Fox films
immediately identifiable.

Also, the number of movies being produced annually dropped as the average budget soared,
marking a major change in strategy for the industry. Studios now aimed to produce
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entertainment that could not be offered by television: spectacular, larger-than-life productions.
Studios also began to sell portions of their theatrical film libraries to other companies to sell to
television. By 1949, all major film studios had given up ownership of their theatres.

Television and Hollywood
Television was also instrumental in the decline of Hollywood's Golden Age as it broke the
movie industry's position in American entertainment. Despite this, the film industry was also
able to gain some leverage for future films as long time government censorship faded in the
1950s. After the Paramount anti-trust case ended, Hollywood movie studios no longer owned
theatres, and thus made it so foreign films could be released in American theatres without
censorship. By 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had replaced the
Hays Code-which was now greatly violated after the government threat of censorship that
justified the origin of the code had ended- with the film rating system.

The MPAA
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) formed in 1922. Originally the Motion
Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) (pre - 1942 and 1946 - 1948), it is a
non-profit business and trade association based in the United States, which was formed to
advance the business interests of movie studios.
MPAA members include the major Hollywood studios:
o The Walt Disney Company;
o Sony Pictures;
o Paramount Pictures (Viacom);
o 20th Century Fox (News Corporation);
o Universal Studios (NBC Universal);
o Warner Bros (Time Warner).

The MPAA administers the voluntary film rating system. As part of its campaign to stop
copyright infringement the MPAA is fighting to stop the sharing of copyrighted works via peer-
to-peer file-sharing networks. The MPAA's anti-piracy campaign has gained much publicity
and criticism.

The 'New Hollywood' and Post-classical cinema
'Post-classical cinema' is a term used to describe the changing methods of storytelling in the
New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization
played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical period: chronology may be
scrambled, storylines may feature "twist endings", and lines between the antagonist and
protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir, in
Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho.

'New Hollywood' is a term used to describe the emergence of a new generation of film school-
trained directors who had absorbed the techniques developed in Europe in the 1960s; The
1967 film Bonnie and Clyde marked the beginning of American cinema rebounding as well, as
a new generation of films would afterwards gain success at the box offices as well.
Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian de Palma, Martin Scorsese,
William Friedkin and Steven Spielberg came to produce fare that paid homage to the history
of film, and developed upon existing genres and techniques. In the early 1970s, their films
were often both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. While the early New
Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider had been relatively low-budget affairs
with amoral heroes and increased sexuality and violence, the enormous success enjoyed by
Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas with The Godfather, Jaws, and Star Wars, respectively helped
to give rise to the modern "blockbuster", and induced studios to focus ever more heavily on
trying to produce enormous hits.

The increasing indulgence of these young directors didn’t help. Often, they’d go over
schedule, and over budget, thus bankrupting themselves or the studio.

Suburban exodus
While suburbs had originated far earlier; the suburban population in North America exploded
after World War II. Returning veterans wishing to start a settled life moved en masse to the
suburbs. Levittown developed as a major prototype of mass-produced housing. At the same
time, African Americans were rapidly moving north for better jobs and educational
opportunities than were available to them in the segregated South. Their arrival in Northern

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cities en masse – in addition to race riots in several large cities such as Detroit, Chicago, and
Philadelphia – further stimulated white suburban migration.
In the U.S., 1950 was the first year that more people lived in suburbs than elsewhere. In the
U.S, the development of the skyscraper and the sharp inflation of downtown real estate prices
also led to downtowns being more fully dedicated to businesses, thus pushing residents
outside the city centre. For the Hollywood film industry, this led to the cinemas of North
America failing into decline as many were in city centres and not the suburbs. This would be
addressed later with the rise of suburban ‘multiplex’ cinemas.

• Summarise the rise and subsequent demise of the ‘golden age’ of
Hollywood by selecting six significant events
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

The Studio System
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant
in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1950s. The term studio
system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios

• producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative
personnel under often long-term contract and
• Pursuing vertical integration through ownership or effective control of
distributors and movie theatres, guaranteeing additional sales of films
through manipulative booking techniques.

This business model is also known as vertical integration which meant
ownership and control of production, distribution and exhibition.

One of the techniques used to support the studio system was block booking, a
system of selling multiple films to a theatre as a unit. Such a unit—five films
was the standard practice for most of the 1940s—typically included only one
particularly attractive film, the rest a mix of A-budget pictures of dubious
quality and B movies

A 1948 Supreme Court ruling against those distribution and exhibition
practices hastened the end of the studio system. In 1954, the last of the
operational links between a major production studio and theatres chain was
broken and the era of the studio system was officially over. The period
stretching from the introduction of sound to the court ruling and the beginning
of the studio break-ups, 1930–1950, is commonly known as the Golden Age
of Hollywood.

During the Golden Age, eight companies comprised the so-called major
studios that promulgated the Hollywood studio system. Of these eight, five
were fully integrated conglomerates, combining ownership of a production
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studio, distribution division, and substantial theatre chain, and contracting with
performers and filmmaking personnel

The Big Five:
• Fox (later 20th Century-Fox),
• Loew’s Incorporated (owner of America's largest theater circuit and
parent company to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: MGM),
• Paramount Pictures,
• RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum),
• Warner Bros.

Two majors—Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures—were similarly
organized, though they never owned more than small theatre circuits. The
eighth of the Golden Age majors, United Artists, owned a few theatres and
had access to two production facilities owned by members of its controlling
partnership group, but it functioned primarily as a backer-distributor, loaning
money to independent producers and releasing their films.

• Who benefits and who loses out during this period of the studio
system? Explain why.

RKO went out of business in 1955: a victim of the rise of TV in America.
Warner on the other hand has gone from strength to strength. In 1989 they
merged with Turner Broadcasting and then with internet giant AOL in 2000.
The are now one of the largest entertainment conglomerates. 20th Century
Fox are a similar example and are currently owned by News Corp., again one
of the worlds largest media companies.

• Look over News Corporations media ownership. What are the
implications for film marketing? Should we have any concerns?

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The New Hollywood system
In contemporary Hollywood there is what is known as a ‘package unit’ system
at work:
• Studio space is rented and personnel hired for the duration of the one
project.
• Individual producers now have to put together a one-off package of
finance, personnel, equipment and studio time for each film being
made.
• The studios no longer have to be concerned with keeping busy what
was effectively a factory-full of workers permanently on their payroll;
instead arrangements can be made to film each one-off movie
wherever is most convenient around the world, perhaps in places
where union laws might be less stringent and rates of pay considerably
lower.
The main Hollywood companies were driven over to this system in an
effort to cut expenditure in the 1950’s in order to survive the decline of
cinema-going as a leisure activity.

Actors and directors
• In ‘old Hollywood’ they were under strict contracts with studios
• They worked on one film until it was finished and then ‘assigned’
another.
• In the ‘new Hollywood’ they have agents to cut deals for them.
• Some directors and actors have arguably more power than the
studios

• Can you think of any examples of directors and stars in
Hollywood today that could be described as ‘powerful
figures’? What evidence is there of their power? What is their
relationship with the audience?

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Producers
• In the face of industry decline in the 1950’s, studios became more
flexible towards independent producers enabling them to pick and
choose projects.
• Look at a recent film and find out:
o Who produced it?

o What other films have they produced or been involved in?

o What kind of films do they seem to favour? Genre? Budget?

Budgets
‘Old Hollywood’ offered two kinds of movies: A-movies (big budget) and B-
movies (low budget). These would often be shown as a ‘double-bill’ in
cinemas, the logic being that the B-movies offered good percentage profits in
terms of box office and as such act as a ‘buffer’ for the more expensive and
therefore more risky A-movie.

• Watch two trailers from this period, one A-movie and one B-movie. Can
you tell the difference? Are they presented in a different way?

Using the trailer analysis, what would you say the modern equivalent of the B-
movie is? Are they still popular? How are they marketed? Provide examples.

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Stars in the New Hollywood

• Clive Owen is a British Actor but has established himself as a
Hollywood actor. What is so typical about him as a star? Does he meet
our expectations of a ‘star’? Looking at the marketing for some of his
recent films (above) has he become typecast? What does he bring to
Hollywood films that perhaps American actors don’t?

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Distribution
It can be argued that film distribution is the most powerful part of the film
industry. Even a badly made film can be made ‘desirable’ through mass
marketing and targeting certain audiences and demographics. Film exhibition
is only the end result of film distribution: who will want to see a film they know
nothing about? In Britain at any one time more than 90% of screens are
showing American films.

• Look over the top ten movies currently on release. Who
distributed them? Which distributor is the most successful?

Independent production companies and Hollywood
Many film makers in Hollywood have been able to set up their own production
companies. Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino for example have both set up
their own production companies. Significantly however, independent
companies still rely on the major Hollywood studios to distribute their films.

The main distributors are:
Paramount
Warners (Time-Warner-AOL)
Universal (Matsushita)
20th Century Fox (News Corporation)
Disney & Columbia Pictures (Sony)

Hollywood and new technologies
Throughout the 20th Century, the film industry has faced a number of threats,
most notably from television. What did could cinema offer though that TV
could not?

• How did it compete with video, DVD and ‘home cinema’?

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As we have discussed, large media conglomerates now own many major film
studios resulting in a form of business called synergy.

Synergy:
Cooperative interaction among groups, especially among the acquired
subsidiaries or merged parts of a corporation, that creates an enhanced
combined effect.

• In terms of the Hollywood film industry, what does this mean?

Film as a commercial product
If you look at any DVD case you own, you will notice that a studio, for
example Universal or Warner’s, owns the material on the DVD. Warnings
come before the movie starts reminding you that you cannot hold public
showings, copy the material, lend to others etc. Of cause many of us do this
or may have doe in the past but this is in breach of the law. This then raises
the question of what we really ‘own’ when we buy a DVD.

• What other forms can movies take aside from VHS and DVD? What
are the benefits to the studios? Are there any downsides for the
studios?

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Corporate support for Blu-ray

Blu-ray Disc gained a large amount of support in the corporate world, with
companies such as Apple Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Panasonic
supporting it.

Blu-ray Disc was first developed by Sony Corporation in 2002 as a next
generation data and video storage format alternative to DVD.

In a recent interview with GameSpot, Sir Howard Stringer CEO of Sony had
this to say: "It's an expensive way of showing Universal discs. The three
biggest box-office winners of this year were, in order: Sony, Disney, and Fox.
Those are the three Blu-ray players. When you consider that those three
successful studios will be delivering last year's successful box office in home
video this year, then that's an enormous advantage. The fourth is Warner, and
they release in both formats, so it doesn't hurt. If you are going to be buying
discs, you are going to be buying an awful lot of Blu-ray discs going forward—
if you want Pirates of the Caribbean or James Bond or Da Vinci Code or
Spider-Man. Universal is the only one with HD DVD. I don't feel terribly
intimidated." In 2008, Warner Brother’s said that they would only release
movies in Blu-ray format. This was instrumental in ending HD DVD part in the
‘format war’.

Sony’s Playstation 3 comes with an integrated Blu-ray
player making it a valuable tool in getting Blu-ray players
into living rooms across the world in the guise of a games
console. The convergent nature of the machine gives Sony
a financial advantage by using the PS3 as a platform to
promote its library of movie titles.

• Look over the Powerpoint presentation on Blu-ray and discuss the
implications for the film industry.

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Adaptability of the film industry

Perhaps the key to understanding the success of Hollywood over the past 100
years is to recognise the way in which it has always demonstrated an
incredible ability to adapt to changing business circumstances. At heart the
mainstream American film industry has recognised that what it is offering the
public is a product, and that its success depends upon adapting that product
to a constantly changing market. Hollywood has continually managed to find
ways to embrace new technologies.

On the Waterfront (1954), an early film staring Marlon Brando, was made
during the period when the American film industry was facing perhaps its
major challenge. It needed to reorganise itself in the face of competition from
the then stunning new technology of TV. Studios were beginning to use
independent producers; they would finance a one-off project for one of these
producers and then distribute the resulting films. This meant that they no
longer had the ongoing week-in, week-out expense of staffing and running
production facilities. The package of business arrangements (cast and crew to
be signed up and paid for a given period, clearance for filming at various
locations to be obtained, studio space to be booked for filming on set, editing
facilities to be lined up) necessary to complete the On the Waterfront project
was organised by independent producer Sam Spiegel, who then released the
finished product through Columbia. It was a relatively low-budget movie being
made for just $800,000 on a tight 35 day shoot but it grossed $9.5 million at
the box-office when it was first released.

• Research The Full Monty (1997). Which production companies
were involved? Who distributed the movie? What was the budget?
How much did this movie make?

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In the face of continued competition from TV and changing leisure patterns,
the industry continued to lose ground during the 1960’s and 1970’s. In the
Mid 1970’s all this changed however with the release of Star Wars (1977)
which took more than $46 million during its first week.

This was achieved by coming up with a strong initial concept, marketing the
film at the same moment to more cinemas than was usual at the time. The
film became the first to gross more than $400 million at the US box office and
effectively changed marketing practices and release strategies for the
industry.

What is the
appeal of
this film from
the
marketing
alone? What
does it offer
to it
audience?

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The main thing to take on board is the fact that despite difficult times, in
general Hollywood has been able to continually reinvent itself by seeing film
as a creative product that has to respond to a changing marketplace and take
advantage of new opportunities offered by new technologies. At each moment
in its history when the industry has faced the need to reorganise in the face of
new competition, the effort has always been to reorganise in as effective a
way as possible in order to continue to make money.

• What current problems might the industry be seeing right now? How
might it overcome them? Is there any evidence of them doing this?

Pirate-sharing films throttle Hollywood
The film studios are powerless against a new breed of pirate
sharing films online even before they are released
The Sunday Times, January 25, 2009
Matthew Bingham and Alex Pell
Fancy watching the latest Hollywood film in the comfort of your own home tonight, free of
charge? The Wrestler, perhaps, or Slumdog Millionaire — or even Revolutionary Road, the
Kate Winslet drama due out on Friday.All you need is a home computer and an internet link.
Illegal downloading of films started as a trickle with the arrival of broadband but has suddenly
turned into a flood.

About 6% of the 15m or more consumer broadband users in Britain freely admit to
downloading illegally posted films at least once a month. A Hollywood blockbuster film is
typically downloaded 2m-3m times worldwide in the month of its official release, according to
Envisional, a Cambridge-based internet monitoring firm that acts for several Hollywood
studios. Illegally posted films even have a top 100 chart on The Pirate Bay, a website that
offers links to pirated films.

The reasons for the sudden surge are intriguing. The first is that technology for downloading
has become better and cheaper — computers with vast storage capacity and drives that will
burn DVDs; high-speed internet connections. Equally to blame, though, is a band of
dedicated and fearless internet pirates who get their hands on copies of films, sometimes
even before they are in cinemas, and make them available through filesharing websites.
These uploaders even brand the pirated titles with their signatures as a mark of quality and
proof of their audacity.

The films they post on the web are not the grainy versions filmed in cinemas with shaky
camcorders and marred by the occasional member of the audience walking in front of the
camera, but can be DVD-quality versions, sometimes even in high definition, the new crystal-
clear format.

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The film industry says that the growth of these sites is a threat to its very existence — piracy
of all forms is estimated to have cost the film industry £486m in the UK in 2007, the most
recent figure available. The practice deprives writers, artists and producers of a fair reward for
their work. In December a group of more than 100 of Britain’s best-known producers,
directors and writers, including Sir Alan Parker, Kenneth Branagh, Richard Curtis and
Stephen Daldry, wrote to The Times demanding action — but there seems little the
authorities can do about it. Like home taping in the 1980s, which caught on with the arrival of
the compact cassette recorder and survived attempts by the music industry to stop it
(remember the “home taping is killing music” campaign?), film downloading has defied efforts
by the industry to stamp it out.

“We are aware of the increasing seriousness of the problem and are giving it a high priority,”
says Eddy Leviten of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact), which represents the
audiovisual industry on copyright matters. “Shutting down servers and services can be a
complex business, not helped by the cross-border nature of the internet.”

So who are the pirates and why do they go to such lengths to upload films? Over the past
three years, a character calling himself aXXo — assuming it is a man — has built a reputation
as the best in the business by consistently posting good-quality copies of the latest films
(often before their official release), carefully compressed so that they fit neatly onto single
CDs. In a recent survey, one in three movies shared online was attributed to him.

Little is known about aXXo but a recent interview did appear on a blog about filesharing. He
remained tight-lipped about how he obtained his material but did explain why he had illegally
posted at least 1,000 films online in the past three years. “If I see a great film,” he said, “I
believe everyone has the right to be entertained by it.”

This hippie ideal seems to be at the core of the pirating community. Britain’s leading uploader
is KingBen666, who runs a website where filesharers post music, video and software and
swap tips. When we contacted him he declined to speak but did refer us to another of the
site’s uploaders, known as Geno. Aged 19 and based in the Midlands, Geno was willing to
talk about his motives.

“I don’t make any money and I don’t condone profiting from this kind of thing,” Geno said.
“The keyword is ‘sharing’. I do it for people who don’t always have the means to pay full
prices. Compared to all the money the film industry makes, what we do is a drop in the
ocean.”

He was scornful of the anti-copying security used by the business. “It seems no matter how
much companies are willing to spend on protection, clever and talented people out there are
going to be able to defeat it,” he said.

Downloading films via these sites couldn’t be easier, though it is illegal to possess copies or
distribute them (see panel). To demonstrate, and with the knowledge of Fact, we went to
filesharing sites featuring five of the films that won this year’s Golden Globes awards: The
Wrestler, Slumdog Millionaire, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (the latest Woody Allen), The Reader
and Revolutionary Road. We also downloaded a couple of recent action films, Quantum of
Solace, the most recent Bond film, and Iron Man.

Once the right free software had been installed from the internet, it was simply a matter of
clicking on the film and choosing where on the computer to store it. Because the files are
large — 700MB is typical — they can take hours to download. Once the film is on the

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computer, it can be burnt to a DVD or streamed wirelessly to a TV via a video-receiver gadget
such as a PS3 or Xbox. The picture quality is limited mainly by the size of file you download
— even the lowest-quality films were almost as good as a Freeview digital broadcast.

The fact that all the films were of such high quality raises the question of where they came
from. The filesharers we spoke to refused to elaborate but on the versions of The Wrestler
and Slumdog Millionaire that we downloaded a clue was visible in the form of a caption that
flashed up on the screen at the start. It read: “Property of Fox. May not be copied, transferred
or sold.”

Many pirated films, it seems, are leaked by disgruntled film studio employees and DVD
factory workers. More often, though, the films have been pirated from pre-release DVDs
distributed by the studios themselves.

Contrary to popular belief, the red-carpet film premiere is not the first time most people in the
industry see a movie. Studios routinely send out so-called screeners to critics, awards judges
and others well in advance of a film’s official release, and these screener discs often make
their way online.

Unfortunately, then, the studios, in their eagerness to impress the cognoscenti before a film
opens, may be unwittingly aiding the pirates. Perhaps they need to step up their security. If
they don’t, and attempts to enforce the law do not improve, things could soon be a whole lot
worse.

A new breed of pirate site streams blockbusters to ordinary web browsers — no fancy
software or waiting for downloads. At the moment, watching a streamed film is a patchy
experience with frequent interruptions. Soon, though, as connection speeds grow faster,
seeing a pirated film will be as instant and easy as turning on the TV, and that could mean an
unhappy ending for the motion picture industry.

• Read through the article above and answer the following
questions
1. How many people freely admit to downloading movies illegally each
month?

2. How many times is a typical Hollywood movie downloaded in the
month of its release?

3. Why has there been a sudden ‘surge’ of downloading?

4. How much did it cost the film industry in the UK in 2007?

5. Explain what the process of ‘sharing’ means in the pirating community.

6. What can be done with the film once a file has been downloaded?

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7. What conclusions can be drawn about the future of the film industry if
this continues? Try to provide positive and negative outcomes.

• Bring in a DVD cover that you find interesting or eye-catching
o How does it attract attention?
o What words or names are used? Why? How prominent are they
and why? Discuss fonts used and colour.
o What image has been chosen? What meaning do you think we
are supposed to take away from this? Can you break the image
down into component parts and discuss them separately?

• Analyse some film trailers and answer the following questions:
o Which studio made the film? What expectations do we have?
o What expectations does it fulfil?

• Go out I small groups with a camera and take as many pictures as
you can find of film marketing.
The process of making a film
The three key components of making a film are:
• PRODUCTION (make it)
• DISTRIBUTION (advertise it)
• EXHIBITION (show it)

In the grand scale of the ‘global’ film industry and Hollywood’s multi million
dollar budgets, it is easy to lose sight of this simple process and acknowledge
that these three elements are all equally important.

• Imagine you are making a film here in school. How would you go about
addressing each of these stages?

20

PRODUCTION
There are three phases to the production
1. Pre-production: idea development, script writing, funds are raised,
contracts are signed
2. Production (the ‘shoot’): images and sound are recorded on film or
using digital technologies.
3. Post-production: images and sounds are edited together.

After the film has been competed, some important questions need to be
answered.

• Congratulations! A large Hollywood distributor has now snapped up the
school film we discussed earlier. Lets discuss our options with
advantages and disadvantages:
o In what countries is it to be shown?
o Should there be a global release date?
o Should some countries receive the film before others?
o Which cinema chains should be used?
o How should this initial release be built upon in order to maximise
the potential audience? How quickly should we move on to a
DVD release?
o How long should it be before it is shown on satellite, cable and
terrestrial?

21

Distribution
This involves making sure a release pattern is put into place that will enable
the product to reach the widest and largest audience possible. Of course, film
distributors may be small firms specialising in certain types of film or
multinational corporations with global networks of offices, and the product
they deal with and markets they focus on will vary enormously. However the
distributor essentially:

• Acquires the rights to the film
• Decides the number of prints to be made and released to exhibitors
• Negotiates a release date for the prints
• Arranges the delivery of prints to cinemas
• Provides trailers and publicity material for exhibitors
• Puts together a package of advertising and publicity to promote the film
• Negotiates related promotional and/or merchandising deals.

Marketing and advertising
This may be seen as three distinct areas: advertising, publicity and
promotional deals worked out with other companies. Within an overall
marketing budget possibilities within each of these areas will be considered in
terms of the likely return on ticket sales weighed against cost. The big plus in
favour of publicity is that it is essentially free. Consider the BBC’s Friday Night
with Jonathan Ross show which regularly features Hollywood actors
promoting their new film. In turn, this is of course welcomed by the TV
company as the appeal of a Hollywood star will bring in audiences.
Advertising on the other hand has to be paid for and popular newspapers and
magazines will be costly, hence the reason why only big budget movies reach
the larger publications. The same applies to ad breaks in TV shows.

Trailers are a traditional way of advertising upcoming movies. This though has
seen changes with some movies building anticipation with a series of trailers
sometimes months before the release date. ‘Teasers’ may just feature a few
seconds of footage. Posters can be used in a similar way, some avoiding the
title in favour of an iconic image associated with a franchise or an abstract
image. These ‘teasers’ will later become the ‘main poster’ to coincide with the
release date. A third poster featuring critics (favourable) responses may also
be used.

Promotions
Special concessionary deals may be offered to sectors of the public believed
most likely to be interested in the film being promoted; competitions
connected to the film may be set up in magazines or newspapers, or on food
packaging likely to be picked up by the target audience.; and merchandise
related to the film in some way may be given away or offered at special rates.
In each case the effort is to raise awareness of the forthcoming film among
potential consumers within the target audience.

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• Choose one fo the following films: Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows Part 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Bridesmaids, The
Hangover 2. Identify the target demographic and what other interests
they might have.
o What concessionary deals might appeal to this audience?

o What competitions might help to promote this film to its target
audience?

o How would you use merchandising to promote this film?

Exhibition
Cinema exhibition has always tended to be controlled by a relatively small
number of companies, and often the major studios responsible for making
films will have considerable stakes in some of these companies that are not
responsible for showing their products. If small independent exhibitors want to
screen less well-known films they need to know their local film-going market
well, since they will be working without the back-up of the major marketing
campaigns that accompany big studio productions.

But of course exhibition no longer refers simply to showing films at the
cinema. We can now see films on terrestrial TV, satellite and cable (including
pay-per-view), on video, DVD or Blu-ray, high definition home cinema set-ups,
via the internet and download services, even mobile phones and i-Pods.

Essay questions
o To what extent are Hollywood films simply ‘products’ made to
make a profit?
o How important is marketing in influencing people to watch films
both at the cinema and on DVD?
o How are billboard posters and poster-style advertisements in
newspapers and magazines used to create audiences for films?

23

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