What is the benefit of synergy for audiences and institutions?

Synergy is when a company owns another company, or is a conglomerate business. By being able to have different businesses it has more money and therefore can make films with a bigger budget which is beneficial as more people can see it.

As a conglomerate business has a lot of money, it allows them to make films which can be blanket released, therefore hopefully getting a bigger revenue. Disney is a very good example of how synergy is beneficial. They produce films and then can market them through subsidiaries such as NBC. They own NBC and ESPN therefore they do not need to pay for this advertising. Once the film has been released, the institution continues to gain marketing from their other subsidiaries, for example their theme parks.

However, this is only beneficial for the big institutions such as Disney as the independent UK institutions such as Vertigo Films can not afford to compete along side these films. Therefore audiences fail to see a wide variety of films as the film industry is arguably dominated by the conglomerate businesses. Although synergy in fact can be beneficial for small UK film institutions if a big institution finances them. An example of this is Working Title Films, who are financially backed by Universal Studios. They can afford to make big budget films because of this now, such as The Boat That Rocked which had a £50million budget. Working Title has made well known films which have been blanket released and have been received very well, such as Love Actually. These films have also been received well in America as the people who live there like the see a very British England which contrasts to the films of Vertigo Films.

Yet, do audiences have the freedom to choose the films they want to see or are the films they think they want to see imposed upon them due to synergy. 50% of a film’s budget is spent on advertising, which is arguably the most important stage of the process as the audiences must watch the film in order for the film to be successful. If an institution has synergy they can afford to spend a lot of money on advertising their film above the line. Therefore audiences choose these bigger films over smaller institution’s films as they have seen more about it. This of course is very beneficial to the institutions and also in a way beneficial to audiences. If the institutions could not afford to market their film the audience would not be aware of it, thus loosing the potential experience of seeing this film at the exhibition stage.

Overall, synergy is very beneficial to institutions as they can produce higher budget films, therefore being able to blanket release there film so more people see it. However, audiences enjoy these films but they also may enjoy films which are of smaller UK institutions but due to their lack of synergy they are not received by as many people. Therefore synergy is only beneficial to those who have it.

UK FILM INDUSTRY SINCE 2000 TEST

1) Working Title has become very successful as it is linked with Universal Studios which allows Working Title to create movies with a large budget making these films well known as they are distributed everywhere. Working Title films usually make films which show Britian how Americans like to see it, which allows the film to be popular in America, which is arguably the most important place for a film to be receieved well at the exhibition stage.
2)Shane Medows- This Is England, Somers Town, Dead Man's shoes
3)Slumdog Millionaire
4)Vertigo Films and DNA Films
5)£840.1 million

DIGITAL CINEMA TEST

1) the majority of films are filmed with an analog camera, then turned into digital format for the editing process and then turned back into analog to be distributed physically to the cinemas.
2) it can be distributed through a hard disk/ computer file which is much faster then physically sending the film to each cinema.
3) if the film is in digital format it could be released on the internet which allows blanket-release to the big companies and also the small independant companies who wouldn't be able to afford to release their film at all cinemas in analog format. It also allows the film to be released at the same time in every country as there is no need for it to be taken to that country as it can be sent through a computer.
4)1- if the film is exhibited on the internet, it is impossible for someone to go into a cinema and film the film. 2- if the film is released at the same time at all countries there is no need for people to try and find the film before it is released. 3- it could be made much harder to copy films if special formats are used, e.g enscription.
5)the cost is reduced enormously as analog films are very expensive and physically taking them to each separate cinema also is extremely expensive. Without these costs it is possible for all institutions with whatever budget to blanket-release their films, making the selection of films on offer much more varied. Also digital films don't require any trained peron to show them as it is not complicated, whereas analog films do, therefore this reduces the cost of training.
6)at the moment most cinemas do not have the digital equipement to show digital films, and getting this is extremely expensive. Also if the cinemas were to pay for this equipment they'd have to raise the prices of the film for a period of time to pay for it.
7)I think slowly digital cinemas will be introduced and the exhibition will be digital in cinemas. However, there is the possibility that people could boycot the cinema altogether if the films are distributed more and more online. However I think this would ruin the exhibition experience as people prefer watching the film on a bigger screen in public.

Will cinema always survive technological change or is the latest technology a bigger threat because it is at the exhibition end of the chain?

In this modern age the film industry is continuously finding new ways, through technology, to enable them to get more money and produce better films. The film industry has also been endlessly trying to introduce smaller production companies into the mainstream audience therefore with the most recent technology, the digitalisation of film, this has become possible. Through the possibility of distributing films via the internet for the viewer to download this threatens the cinema’s future. Can the cinema survive this most recent advancement?
Firstly one must understand how films have been shown at the cinema for years, basically every film shown in a cinema is a separate ‘print’ of the film projected via a reel. The major companies can afford to produce far more copies than the smaller companies can. A small company producing a less commercial product cannot afford to risk spending lots of money on reels when they may not make it up in the box office. Because of this, the film industry strived to find a solution which would allow smaller companies to be able to ‘blanket release’ as the major companies comfortably do.
UK Film Council is finding a solution to this problem via its Digital Screen Network. The deal is that cinemas receiving financial support to equip themselves with digital facilities (thus avoiding the issue of prints) will in return be expected to show more films from independent distributors. They hope small-scale independent films will get seen this way. Another plus to digital technology is that it is much cheaper therefore making it much easier for low budget film makers and distributers. It is now possible for short films to reach a potentially wide audience via a range of hosts, which include the UK Film Council, The UK Media Desk, BBC Film Network, Big Film Shorts, Film London’s Pulse, and a host of short film festivals all which have online submission. Perhaps it is worth considering what is more important, the film or the cinema? To have a wider choice of films, not dominated by the major companies, maybe the cinema should be sacrificed, although it is possible to save cinemas by equipping them with digital facilities which would let the cinema profit more as well.
As far as the major studios and distributers are concerned, digital technology offers great potential to increase profits and dangers in equal measure. Once it becomes the norm to download film via broadband, the potential for a new form of ‘blanket distribution’ is obvious- not only do you no longer need multiple prints; you can also bypass the cinema. However the big screen offers a separate experience that is likely to remain attractive, therefore the cinema could survive this big advancement in technology although it is inevitable that its popularity would decrease. However, the cinema could be destroyed as digital film has the advantage of offering identical versions of the film to each viewer. This will without doubt save billions of pounds at the distribution phase; causing film companies to choose to distribute their films this way.
Piracy is a major concern of all film distributors, with Hollywood investigators claiming at 10% raise each year. The small production companies are hurt more by piracy than multinational conglomerates, as they cannot bear the impact with already acquired capital. The solution to piracy is that through digital distribution there is control and security as most piracy is the result of a cinema-goer with a hidden camera distributing a poor quality version of a film to parts of the world where it has not yet been released (because the prints are somewhere else). Simultaneous global distribution via the internet will put an end to this ‘time-gap’ and thus its exploitation by pirates. This is one of the main possible contributors to the end of cinema, as if the film companies can gain millions of pounds through the decrease in piracy they will.
One issue for debate which could save cinemas is the quality of digital movies. Whereas some film makers and critics argue that the ‘binary reduction’ of imaged in the digital compression process reduces the complexity of image and light, some would argue that digital films only remove the degrees of texture that most viewers wouldn’t notice anyway. Randle and Culkin explain how at the cinema the movie we seen has been shown so many times it “wear(s) and tear(s)” therefore it “reduce(s) the quality of the presentation”. Another point they make which could show the potential ‘death’ of the cinema is that “some experts believe that D-cinema will overtake the quality of the best conventional cinema within the next year or two, and at the same time address age-old industry problems.”
Film companies are always trying to find new ways to produce film and by the digitalisation of film offering a range of new institutional practices it makes this way much more appealing. The editing process can become more creative and composite images can be produced to incorporate digital animation. Although the ‘one way’ process of film making and consumption is threatened by the interactive ‘zeitgeist’, so that the generation of media users who are immersed in online media and videogames are likely to require new forms of interactivity in the film medium, which could mean the cinema still has reason to stay.
Overall, with the smaller production companies and distributers becoming more popular the need for digitalisation is greater than ever. After all, as technology is evolving constantly, wouldn’t the most logical thing to do be digitalising film to create more money for not only the production companies but the cinema as well? Although, once it is the norm for films to be downloaded on the internet and watched that way to reduce piracy, the cinema would not be needed. However, the experience of going to the cinema is one that most people will not be willing to give up as most are ignorant of how the film they seen has been produced and distributed. Perhaps only time will tell whether the cinema will survive the most recent technological advancement, but personally I believe the cinema’s days are numbered due to the new internet based age, especially as “the digital has created new cultural economies”(Marshall).

SHERLOCK HOLMES GAME

Througout the game the same eary, old fashioned writing style is used as that of the faint scribbles on the poster, which allows the player to associate one with each other. The game's aim is to use the clues to discover what has happened which is like the movie, so as you get involved playing it the interest of the film grows because you want to watch the characters acting out the mystery. The two players can choose to be either Sherlock Holmes, or Watson, which lets the player become more acustomed to the renovated original characters and want to watch the film finally. The way you can answer questions to determine whether your own personality is like Holmes or Watson makes it more personal. Once you have chosen your character there is a black and white photo of that character with a small description of what that character is like, which allows the player to understand exactly how this new, remade character acts. There is also quite eery music, which reminded me of the kind of music which is included in attractions dedicated to old London, which lets the player feel like they are playing these new characters in the same old London.

The game can be played on facebook, which is an extremely popular way of communication these days. So in order for the 'buzz' to be made and for popularity to come around, the game is released onto facebook and people can see when there friends are playing it and so they can to, eventually creating conversation about the film and excitment over the two main characters.

SHERLOCK HOLMES WEBSITE

Response:
In the synopsis, the words 'new' and 'legendary' are both repeated several times, although they both seem to be quite opposing ideas. The filmakers may have done this as they are re-making the character of Sherlock Holmes, bringing out new qualities in him which have not been highlighted before. Also by adding the word legendary a lot reinforces the idea that Sherlock Holmes is an old story, with legendary tales which are remaining in the movie but just changing the character slightly.
A film ledgend who has also been newly portryaed like Sherlock Holmes is Superman.
I concluded that the genre of Sherlock Holmes was obviously mystery, but with more action then before, a comedic approach, with a hint of romance. This synopsis confirms that it is in fact an "action adventure mystery" and it goes on to describe slightly Sherlock Holmes' new adventure. It also includes a bit on Holmes' love interest, which is highlighted more in this film, and in the synopsis which creates some romance. Although, there is no hint of a funny edge to the film, which is only seen in the trailer and movie.
The order which the actors appear in the synopsis may be decided on their success, but I find that as Robert Downy Jr's name is mentioned first, and then Jude Law, and finally Rachel McAdams, it is down to character as well. Sherlock Holmes is mentioned, then Watson, then Holmes' love interest.
Usually I find film synopsis in magazines or newspapers, but usually where the review of the film is, and this would help me decide whether the film sounds appealing to my personal taste. Although, I think that the only people who would read the synopsis on the film's webiste is film fanatics and those who are fanatical about this particular film as they are extremely curious what the film will entale. Therefore it is very important that the synopsis is cleverly written in order to generate as much interest as possible, especially amougnts the target audience.

Gallery:
This area of the webiste is there to feed images of the set and characters to those who are very excited about the film. It also helps generate excitement for the film if there are pictures of famous people in the photos as these particular legendary characters.
The images in this gallery are similar to the ones you'd find in a gallery such as the ones on www.imdb.com which is a movie webiste. I would say the only difference there is, is that the photos in this gallery look slightly posed, in order to create the specific image the filmakers want the characters to have. For example, in one there is a picture of the love interest of Holmes who looks seductive and glamorous with her hair pinned back and her reflection the other side of the image.
I believe that there is more then one poster to promote this film as this film is based upon a legendary story which has many fans who would be interested in each character and each aspect of the film. Therefore, there have been several character posters released in order to let the audience understand how each character is now being portrayed and who is acting that character. There also has been a teaser poster released in order to create an initial amount of interest even before the filming had finished.
The downlode section is probarly based at those who are extremely interested in the film, and mostly would be people under the age of 25 years old who use technology a lot and would be interested in downlodes for their phone or computer. I firstly thought that only males would be interested in the downlode section as the added things onto the film, such as the game, is mainly consumed by males. But I then realised the persona of the two main male actors is that of an attractive but slightly bad man, which would appeal to women, so they may be more attracted to this side of the website.
I do think that the poster, downlodes, and gallery are aimed at the same people as they are all well planned for fanzies but also would be consumed by the women or male fans of the actors.

FILM POSTER- CHARACTER POSTER