Section B: Institutions and Audiences

The majority of successful films are owned and produced by the ‘big six’. These being: Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount and 20^th century fox. These are the World’s largest media conglomerates and they dominate the film industry. All these are American companies, and they not only control the American Film Industry but they also dominate on a worldwide scale and make more money from international revenue. Since these six companies have so much success, it is known that if your film gets one of them backing you, your film will do incredibly well. Since they have so many investors, they are free to take more risks and they have the budget to back it up. A larger budget means more explosions, better effects, better writers and better actors. The high budget also gives them the opportunity to distribute the film in a very successful and efficient way. The funding comes from the large amount of alliances with other Hollywood production companies. This synergy provides enough funds to efficiently distribute the films overseas to Britain and get a larger audience for their films.

Due to this oligopoly, most British films are independently produced. The film market in Britain is dominated by American products so it is naturally harder for British films to do well, especially in America. Independent films need to find a number of financiers to fund their film, to do this they must exhibit their films at film festivals in hopes that people will get interested. When a number of financers come together to fund a film, it gives the directors and producers the assurance that not one of them will invest enough to have control over the film, this is a key advantage of independent production. However, independent films have a much lower budget than the large Hollywood companies.

An example of a British film that is independently produced is ‘The King’s Speech’, which was an amazing success in the box office. The films budget was £8 million, it grossed £250 million. The film was produced my independent companies such as Bedlam productions and See-Saw films. The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in the United States; the film was picked up and distributed by Momentum Pictures and The Weinstein Company. The film drew in both British and American audiences which its British historical events and its stereotypical emphasized British lifestyle and surroundings which drew in the both audiences.

Hollywood films tend to exhibit there film and distribute it to a wide range of cinemas and Multiplexes, therefore giving Independent films less of a chance of being seen as they now have to compete with higher budget films. This makes Independent distributor’s job very hard. The concentration of media ownership is based only in American companies and since the company’s such high budgets, they have enough funds to distribute their products much more efficiently that the British film industry. A large factor to the decline in the British Film Industry is that they spend most of their funds on the actual production of the film and don’t use enough of it in distribution; part of this is due to low budgets of indepedent films. This is partly due to the disbandment of the UK Film Council. Therefore, a much larger amount of British films do worse than Hollywood films.

Since the big time distributors are in America, a British film will ironically have to do well in America for it to do well in Britain. For a British film to do well in America, the film has to emphasize the stereotypical view America has on the British population. But, the British Film Industry puts too much of the films funds into the actual film rather than any of the distribution or advertising, which is another area in which it differs from Hollywood. A film without advertising will go un-noticed by audiences, distributors and producers and will therefore fall behind the well advertised productions and will lose a significant amount of money.       

Films are distributed in a variety of mediums after the film release. Initially it was just VHS’s and DVD’s but technology had evolved rapidly with the addition of Blu-ray, Home 3D and films on demand. Consumers can get films on demand in a variety of ways such as: on xbox live and Netflix in which you could either download or stream a chosen film. However piracy has increased by a staggering amount. Un-authorised re-production and distribution of films is having a large affect on the films profit. This could result in producers not having enough funds to fund new films. Most of all, it harms the independant films who heavily rely on the public paying to see their films as they don’t receive as much funding as large budget films.