Media ownership has a great impact on the successful
distribution of media products in the film industry. Walt Disney is one of the
world’s largest media conglomerates. Disney owns many different smaller
companies as well, a main one being Pixar. It also owns all of the Marvel
characters, apart from Spiderman. Disney is known for producing high budget
movies. It is part of the oligopoly of the Big Six, giving it a great amount of
power on the film industry.
One of its biggest, recent movies is Maleficent which had a production budget of $170,000,000 USD. Disney
made back nearly a quarter of the amount of money spent on the movie on the
movie’s opening weekend in the United States alone. Due to the size of the
Disney institution, the company was able to produce and distribute their film
independently in the US and UK. They used social media to promote their film,
which cost little-to-no money and also produced many YouTube trailers and
teasers. The film also had its own webpage where people could find out more
information about the film. This website also had activities for young children
to get them excited for the release of the film. There were also traditional
marketing techniques used such as television trailers and posters/billboards
which also helped to create awareness and hype for the film. The film was
filmed using high-end cameras and was also filmed and showed to the audience in
3D. This helps to deal with the increasing levels of piracy which is a
never-ending problem for Disney and the rest of the Big Six.
In 2013, the British Film Institute released an independent
film, The Selfish Giant. The film was
directed by Clio Barnard, who was already known in the British film industry
for her short films and documentaries. The production budget was a massive
contrast with the production budget of Maleficent
at only £1.4 million. The Selfish Giant was
distributed by Film4. There was not much money available for the marketing of
the film and so the distributers relied heavily on the reviews that the film
was given to promote their film. They also had posters up in the London
Underground and also had some page advertisements in magazines.
The BFI produce films for a much more niche market than
Disney does who produces films that can be enjoyed by a large variety of
people. Disney can also sell cinema tickets much more easily than the BFI can
as they have more money to market and distribute their film. It is also easier
for Disney as they have a much bigger and well-respected name for themselves
and have many positive connotations attached to their company, therefore they
will never have a problem with selling tickets as their films are on very high
demand.
This concludes that media ownership has a massive impact on
the distribution of films, due to money and name, making it impossible for
small companies to be able to distribute their film successfully and compete
with the Big Six. Distribution is very important in making back the money spent
on a film because if a film is not distributed it is not seen by the audience,
therefore no matter how good a film is it cannot make any money.
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