Globalisation

1
Globalisation Hollywood
2
Globalisation Hollywood

• Branston 2000
• Radical changes to Hollywood since 1960s
• Ownership patterns
• Financing
• Form of major films (event movies)

3
Globalisation Hollywood

• Branston 2000
• Large parts of Hollywood now foreign owned and
  multi-market oriented.
• Development of global multi-media corporations.

4
Globalisation Hollywood

• Balio 2002
• eg Companies
• AOL Time Warner
• Viacom
• News Corporation
• Disney
• Film 30 of their income

5
Globalisation Hollywood

• These companies own film production, but also tv
  stations, satellite tv, etc as outlets for film

6
Mergers

• Balio 1998
• They invest in foreign media industries
• Time Warner, Turner, Disney, Viacom, NBC invest
  in European media
• Television production
• Cable and satellite
• Telecommunications

7
Mergers

• Balio 1998
• Eg Time Warner invested in
• Satellite broadcasting in Scandinavia
• FM radio in UK
• Pay-tv in Germany and Hungary

8
Globalisation Hollywood

• What difference does it make to
• The films that get made?
• The Americanness of the films, and their relation
  to other national cinemas?
• Audiences engagement?

9
Globalisation Hollywood Globalisation

• Branston Stafford (2003)
• Globalisation a distinctively modern phenomenon

10
Globalisation

• Activities global if
• Take place in a global arena
• Are organised on a global scale
• Involve interdependence activities in different
  parts of the world are shaped by each other

11
Globalisation Hollywood

• Globalisation activities
• Expand horizontally to tap emerging markets
  worldwide
• Expand vertically to form alliances with
  independent producers to increase no. of films
• Partner foreign investors to obtain money

12
Globalisation Hollywood

• Balio 2002
• Studios evaluating new projects on their
  potential to reach specific segments of the
  audience.

13
Markets

• In global market 2 main segments
• teen and pre-teen bubble
• ¼ of audience but largest share of box office
• Avid filmgoers 10-24
• Young males the key segment
• plenty of leisure time and money

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Markets

• boomers with kids
• 8-80
• Children, parents and grandparents
• Limitless possibilities for theme parks, rides,
  ice-skating, etc

15
Markets

• Geezers over 50
• ignored

16
Markets

• Studios devoting their resources to high-concept
  blockbusters and star vehicles
• Can be pitched in national marketing campaigns
  and released simultaneously in thousands of
  theatres

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Selling Films

• (ie Film Distribution)
• Maltby 2003
• Cinemas (Theatrical Release)
• Ancillary Markets
• Video/DVD
• TV

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• Film Release Order
• Domestic Theatrical
• Foreign Theatrical
• Pay per view
• World home video/dvd
• Pay tv
• Foreign tv
• Network tv
• Syndication

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Selling Films

• Film release phases
• Maltby p 194

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Selling Films

• Foreign theatrical
• Maltby p 216

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Selling Films

• Hollywoods changing market
• Maltby p196/7

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Selling Films

• Importance of theatrical release to eventual sales

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Selling Films

• eg Willow 1988 George Lucas Sci Fi
• Cost 55m
• Domestic Theatrical 28m
• Video 18m
• TV 15m
• Foreign theatrical 42m
• Foreign video and tv 22m

29
Selling Films

• Shooting for the box
• Different screen ratios the box (tv) is narrow.
• (See Bordwell and Thompson 2004 p16/7)

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Overseas Market

• Balio 1998
• Foreign box office
• More and better cinemas
• Low concentration of cinemas outside US
• US majors and European partners renovate cinemas
  in UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and others.

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Overseas Market

• More effective marketing due to
• Increased availability of commercial tv
  advertising
• Eg new commercial channels MTV

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Marketing the Film

• Maltby 2003
• Marketing and advertising campaigns
• Run trade shows screening new films, for
  exhibitors to buy. Have parties, with stars.
• Schedule release dates
• Make trailers

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Marketing the Film

• May organise
• Music video
• Soundtrack album
• novelisation
• Infotainment tv shows
• Press kits
• Electronic press kits
• Internet links to merchandise

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Marketing the Film

• Merchandising
• Manufacturers buy rights to film characters for
• Toys
• Games
• Clothing
• Lunchboxes
• Schoolbags
• Tie-ins with fast-food outlets

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Marketing the Film

• Eg Star Wars merchandising
• By 1992 merchandise had made 2.6 billion

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Marketing the Film

• Eg
• McDonalds pays 100m a year to Disney for
  exclusive licensing of Disney films

37
Marketing the Film

• Cross promotion film and merchandise advertised
  at same time

38
Marketing the Film

• Eg MGM
• Tomorrow Never Dies stars appear in ads
• Heineken
• Smirnoff
• BMW
• Visa
• Ericsson

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Marketing the Film

• These 5 companies pay 100m for campaign, which
  runs worldwide.
• In return Product Placements
• film features their products.

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Marketing the Film

• Eg Spy Who Shagged Me
• Had ad partnerships with-

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Marketing the Film

• Mitsubishi
• Heineken
• Visa
• Virgin Atlantic
• Philips Electronics
• Starbucks coffee
• American Academy of Periodontology

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Ultra high budget film

• Balio 1998
• Studios exploit ultra-high-budget film
• Eg Terminator 2 Judgement Day
• 100m production
• Gross 204m domestic 310m foreign

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Ultra high budget film

• High concept
• Big name stars
• Visual and special effects

44
Ultra high budget film

• Reduce financial risks
• Are media events
• Lend themselves to promotional tie-ins
• Make ancillary profits in theme parks, videos,
  etc
• Make profit in foreign markets
• Easy to distribute

45
Ultra high budget film

• Saturation booking
• Releasing new films simultaneously in every
  market of the country, accompanied by massive
  marketing.
• Eg 35m to promote a film
• Designed to recoup production costs quickly

46
Ultra high budget film

• World markets seem to like action attractions
  or exhibitionist cinema
• Their roots in stimulus and carnival rides
• Less a way of telling stories and more a way of
  presenting a series of views and thrills.
• (Gunning 1990/ in Branston 2000)

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Effects of Globalisation

• Conclusions (Balio 1998)
• Concentration of ownership is speeded by
  stressing economies of scale
• Some smaller pictures are successful but
  Hollywood committed to megapics and saturation
  booking

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Effects of Globalisation

• Dominate screens worldwide and damage national
  film industries
• The big got bigger - the small disappeared or
  merged with giants

49
During

• Simon During
• Popular culture on a global scale a challenge
  for cultural studies?
• 1997

50
During

• Investigating the global popular.
• Eg Total Recall (TR)
• Only Hollywood produces systematically for export
  and can establish a global star.

51
During

• Globalisation inscribes itself at the moment of
  financing.
• A big budget globally oriented film like TR
  requires
• Those involved in production take share of
  profits, rather than up-front payment
• Presales to foreign distributors

52
During

• cross-collateralisation performance in one
  territory can be discounted against performance
  in other territories
• Purchase of insurance against failure to complete
• Local/national distributors only invest if they
  believe it will succeed in their country (eg
  Japan, Germany, wouldnt buy into Revolution)

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During

• Some films then are aimed simultaneously at two
  markets US and rest of the world.
• Rest of world fragmented territories.
• Japan and Germany most significant, so most
  influential at point of finance.

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During

• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Dominant star at time when non-domestic sales
  became more significant than domestic
• Arnie even more popular in Japan, Indonesia,
  Eastern Europe than in US or W. Europe

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During

• Total Recall pivotal in his popularity
• Directly controlled by the star
• Cost 60m
• Gross 300
• 180 non-US
• 120 US - 63 from rentals

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During

• World market likes cinema of action-attractions
• Special effects and stunts
• Stylised acrobatic violence, often drawing on
  non-western martial arts
• Welded into narratives for which violence is the
  solution to exploitation
• Hence extend generic conventions developed in
  western youth markets

57
During

• Male bodies and special effects are key.
• His body is his ultimate resource and grounds his
  appeal across the international division of
  labour.
• Carry idea of training and routine of
  transforming and observing the body

58
During

• These films allegorise the condition of those for
  whom the body is
• A ground to be worked on
• A source of labour power
• A locus of undervalued presence

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During

• Special effects
• Used to construct magical worlds that exceed
  causal constraints

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During

• Plot must appeal worldwide
• Balancing act appealing to metropolitan and
  non-metropolitan audiences
• TR presumes we live in a global culture, via its
  planetary perspective resource depletion on
  earth creates a global we.

61
During

• Divisions between cultures on earth seem
  peripheral in the face of another species
• the movie markets the cultural and
  infrastructural conditions of its own success
  p221

62
References

• Balio, T. 2002 Hollywood Production Trends in
  the Era of Globalisation, 1990-99, Chapter 12
  in S.Neale (ed) Genre and Contemporary
  Hollywood. London BFI
• Balio, T. 1998 Contemporary Hollywood Cinema.
  London Routlege
• Bordwell D. Thompson, K. (2004) Film art an
  introduction. Chapter 1 London McGraw-Hill
• Branston, G. 2000 Globally Popular Cinema?.
  Chapter 3 in Cinema and Cultural Modernity.
• Branston, G. and Stafford, R. 2003
  Globalisation. Chapter 15 inThe Media
  Students Book. 3rd ed. London Routlege
• During, S. 1997 Popular culture on a global
  scale a challenge for cultural studies? Chapter
  11 in Mackay, H. and OSullivan, T. (eds) 1999
  The media reader continuity and transformation.
  London Sage
• Maltby, R. 2003 Hollywood cinema. 2nd ed. Oxford
  Blackwell