Insitutions & Audiences: The Film Industry

Thursday 19 April 2012

How does Battleship appeal to a British audience

BATTLESHIP

Production
. Directed by Peter Berg
. The main investors were Universal Pictures, Bluegrass Films, Hasbro and Film 44
. This film was originally going to be shot on location in Australia’s Gold Coast, but the location was changed due to money problems with the Australian government.
. Based on the popular board game of the same name by Hasbro, the company behind Transformers.
. An American Science Fiction Navel war film with a predictable narrative and a high concept

.Starring Taylor Kitch, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna and Liam Neeson, a mix of American and British actors to maintain a global appeal
. Produced at a budget of $200 million dollars, and filmed at the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Oahu.

Distribution and Marketing
. A Facebook page promoted the film with Behind the Scenes features, pages talking about real battleships used in wars, online games and other stuff related to both the movie and the board game
.$50 million was spend on its marketing campaign on websites such as Twitter, YouTube, ITunes, IMDB, and the advertising Posters, Teasers, Trailers, and TV Spots.

Exhibition
. World premiere took place at Tokyo, Japan on April 3rd 2012 at an event attended by the director and most of the stars
. Shown in 416 UK cinemas on its opening weekend and made £3.7 million in that country.
. Managed to gross $55.2 million on its opening weekend ranking just behind the 3D re-release of James Cameron’s Titanic.
. Critics gave the film mixed to negative reviews, praising the visual effects, but criticizing the lack of character development and lame dialogue.
. Currently has a 43% “Rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com.

Thursday 29 March 2012

Which area of the film industry (production, distribution, exhibition) do you think new technologies have had the biggest impact on and why?

In my opinion, I think that in terms of how new technologies have changed the face of the media industry, I think that distribution has gone through the biggest change as for a long time the only way you could see films and trailers was via cinema, video and DVD, and on the television. Now, however, in the last ten years, Media conglomerates in conjunction with companies such as Netflix and Lovefilm have started to offer people access to movies in returns or paying a certain sum of money every month at home via their TV, Computers, ITunes, Xbox Live and Playstation Network to name a few. Another thing to note of is Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Theses are useful for companies such as Universal or Paramount as an alternative to designing official websites for their films.