How does Hollywood produce, distribute and exhibit films to ensure success?

Hollywood is the biggest, most well known district for making films in the world. It is made up of 6 huge studios, known as the big 6. This consists of Warner Bro’s, Universal Pictures, Disney, Paramount, 20^th century fox and Columbia pictures. Between these studios, 120 films are distributed on average every year. The most well known, often biggest grossing films, are Blockbusters, or high concept films. These are films that are aimed at mass markets and audiences, that have huge budgets. A lot of the income relies on merchandising around the film. They also have high production values, meaning they have the money to attain the most well known and talented actors, the greatest, most impressive special effects, a fantastic script written for their film, exotic, beautiful locations to set their films, as well as all the latest technology. Against low budget films who rely on un known actors and semi professional scripts, this is almost unbeatable.

The production of the films determines how the film will be made, the people that will be involved with the film, on and off camera, as well as the technology, locations and special effects that will be used in the film. When a film is trying to assert itself as a huge blockbuster, aimed at everyone around, they have to back this up with successful, well known actors. This way, people watching adverts, or looking at the cast will know of the talent involved in the film. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the 2011 blockbuster,  hired actors such as Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy, in the hugely successful Harry Potter series) James Franco, well known for his role in popular film series and comic book Spider man 1,2 and 3. It also had Andy Serkis, who was praised for his fantastic job playing Gollum, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This all-star list of actors means that the film has a firm stance and an advantage over films that have actors who are not as well known, as this will attract bigger audiences, as the actors are more reliable and associated with big, successful films, making us assume that this film will be a success and good to watch. Another way that Rise of the Planet of the apes has asserted itself as a huge film, they have decided to take a step up in technology. Previous planet of the apes films have used humans, wearing masks or make up to make them look like apes, but this time the direction has been changed. Each and every ape was made as a visual effect, by visual effect company WETA. This company was also the one who made visual effects for the incredibly successful film avatar. Visual effects are currently making for very successful films, such as Avatar, and there fore the makers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes are bringing the film towards what is popular for the viewers at the moment, this means the film is likely to be successful, as well as this, the fact that the same company making their apes, made avatar’s effects, means that the effects are guaranteed to be fantastic and mind boggling to the viewer, as the reception for avatar was extremely favourable. Another way success is guaranteed, is the fact that the film had a very successful director. Although the director of Rise of the Planet of the Apes had only previously directed 1 film, it was nominated for 8 international film awards, and was the winner of 2 of them. This gives the director a very promising, exciting name for himself, and proves that he can do a very good job as director. Blockbusters will need the very best of directors, as if all the actors and props are doing the wrong things, the whole film, no matter how high the budget could be ruined, and here, the director, Rupert Wyatt, means that the film is guaranteed to be as good as possible, and therefore successful. The film Zombieland, is a comedy/horror about zombies taking over the world. The film is meant to be scary, and have good visuals. Therefore, the zombies would need to be designed by the best possible make up artist or designer around. For this, Tony Barker was appointed. He helped to created the signature look of the zombies from Michael Jackson’s music video for his song, ‘thriller.’ The song is one of the most well known and successful songs of all time, and the video is incredibly famous, and scary. Therefore he is proven to be able to make convincingly scary successful zombies, and this ensures that the visuals in the film will be as impressive and successful as possible. Other ways in which films can be guaranteed success are their popularity before being made into an actual film. For example, the Harry Potter series was guaranteed to be a hit, as it came from an extremely successful children’s book written by J.K. Rowling. The book was also successful amongst adults. This meant the film was always likely to be successful and well aniticipated. It is also the same for the sequels. Once the first Harry Potter came out, and was a huge hit, the sequels would be equally as highly anticipated, due to the success of the previous film.

Once the production of a film is over, and every thing is ready, the film must be distributed. This is the stage where advertisements are made and the film is bought to the public eye. People may have known of the film before but this is the stage where the film is attempted to gain a huge, mainstream following, and wow the public into watching the film. This therefore is the most important part of the process. You could have spent millions and millions of dollars on your massive blockbuster, but if you have no money left to put the name of your film into the public eye, then no one will know what it is, or that the film even exists, and this means you will have no fan base, or viewers at your screenings, and will therefore make absolutely no gross profit, and have lost millions of dollars. Films can be advertised in many different ways nowadays, they are often shown on television, on buses, at bus stops, on billboards, on the big screen at the cinema, in magazines, and many other ways, as well as this there can be things building up to the film, such as the red carpet premier, which is often filmed and put on television for the public to watch, there are also sneak peaks and behind the scenes, all grabbing the publics attention and making the films more hotly anticipated. Synergy, is the word for a coming together of products leading up to the film, or after the film. Pretty much everything about the film, that isn’t actually the film, for example advertisements, merchandise, facebook pages are all synergy, as they are based on the film, but are not actually the film, they just help to promote it. Films attempt to distribute there films in a way that guarentees a large crowd and therefore a large gross profit. The way that the film ‘Cloverfield’ was distributed, guaranteed for a huge audience, and a huge buzz and excitement around the film. They started off by showing an advert, that had a date, but no film name. This of course got people talking on the internet about the possibilities of what could come of this advert. Just from this advert, there was many eager followers of the film. More adverts were shown and a website was given. Pictures were uploaded occasionaly. One advert included at the end of the advert, the head of the statue of liberty, crashing through the streets of New york, this gave a reaction of shock, and again was a huge talking point. On the website, just as the photo’s had seemed to of stopped being uploaded, a film title was released. The previous campaign, had gained the film thousands of followers, before even starting the standard advertisements and synergy. After this, the usual advertisements, buses, television etc. were shown. This bought the film into the public mainstream eye, but due to the excitement and buzz of the early campaign, the film had many more fans then what they would have done, if they had just followed a standard, lazy advertisement. Rise of the Planet of the apes, similarly ensured success with mass advertisement building up towards and around the film. To introduce the film, the makers of the film held an event called ‘Rise 50.’ To this, they invited 50 of the biggest media influencers to an event too essentially, show off how good their film will be and what technology it uses. This means that the media infulencers will write articles about the exciting film, and the high technology it uses, and this will be seen by many people, causing a talking point around the film. After this, too bring the film even more into the mainstream eye, a twitter hashtag was created, and therefore allowed fans and the public to engage in conversation with one another, causing excitement towards the film, as well as allowing the makers of the film to see what kind of audience they will be receiving. To further entise the public, posters were released but gave away nothing about the film, still leaving the public to talk about possibly outcomes and scenarios. On the films youtube website, they put up videos of apes doing clever things such as firing from an ak-47, catching the viewers eyes and imagination, and widening the audience of the film, they also used formspring, a social Q&A site, to ask questions about what would happen if apes took over the world, bringing social networkers to light of the film. Itunes apps were also created, testing your knowledge and short term memory against that of an apes. By now, the website had links to all info possible, about actors release dates etc. the film had gained a giant crowd. Making of the films have been shown on tele and there was a red carpet premier in los angeles. Since the film has came out, the director has talked of sequels, this keeps the crowd that were impressed by the first film talking and content, whilst the film gains more fans. This method gained the film much success, as it was one of the biggest hits in 2011.

Films, nowadays, can be exhibited in a vast amount of ways. The cinema screening is not the end of the films income. Every film released a DVD a few months after it has been on at the cinema. This is a very popular way of watching films because it means that you can watch the film whenever you want as well as pause or rewind any missed parts if there is a distraction within your viewing. People can also illegally download the films from the internet, this will be from someone who has taken a camera into the cinema, and filmed the screen. This can be a popular way of viewing films, as it is costless and easy, and will save onto your computer, so you can watch it easily whenever you want, however usually the quality of viewing is fairly poor, you can often see people getting up and out of the cinema, and the sound can be fairly distorted. To prevent people from filming in the cinema, 3D has been re-introduced, as it means the camera will be filming a screen that has a blurred image on, and can only gain the correct image from wearing the correct glasses. Another con of downloading films is that it is illegal, and you can be charged a large sum of money for downloading films. Films are also now shown on the television occasionaly, and sky has its own film channels, where there are films on all day. This allows us to watch a wide variety of films, and means we can record them and therefore keep them safe. Technology now also allows us to pause and re wind our television, and therefore this is ideal. The way that films are now exhibited mean that a lot of people often wait until after the film comes out at the cinema to watch it. Now that illegal downloading is possible, many people avoid going to the cinema to save money. As well as this, they can wait till the film comes out on dvd, and rent it out for a cheap price, and then return it. This means that films must be advertised and distributed to there maximum potential as it is crucial to get viewers sitting in the cinema, and get them to take there chances and spend money on a cinema ticket.

I personally prefer to watch films at home or on DVD with my friends or when I have nothing else to do because its easy and time consuming. If I want to go and watch a film at the cinema, it has to be something that really grabs my attention and looks brilliant or humerous. This is because going to the cinema can be a hard job as it costs a fair amount, the food is expensive, and if I need the toilet, the film can not be paused, there fore I prefer to wait until dvd unless it is something I am desperate and excited too see, often due to the advertisement of the film. I also believe that English films will never be able to compete against those films which are made in Hollywood. I believe English films have the power to be fairly successful, but not on the huge scale of Hollywood blockbusters. This is because the blockbusters appeal to everyone. There advertisments are so in your face that you cant ignore them, and they appeal to wide audiences, whereas English films are often made for one target audience, as they haven’t got the budget or script too widen there market. They also cant afford such a huge advertising campaign, and can not always afford to have their films showed in any other countries apart from in the UK. Quality wise however, I believe English made films are better than American films, as American films seem to rely too much on special effects, rather than talented actors and a good script.