Essay

“Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices”.  To what extent would you agree with this statement, within the media area you have studied?


I would agree with this statement as in the film as in the film industry, without marketing and/or distribution films would not be able to reach their target audiences, whether it is regarded as a 'good film' by critics. For the majority of films, to make a lot of money, they will need to get their film distributed by a large distribution company, such as Paramount Pictures who are one of the biggest film distribution companies in the world. Paramount Pictures being a world wide distribution company means that the films reach all around the world meaning that more people will see the film, which results in the film making more money. Also being a world wide, respectable distribution company means that they have connections in different types of media such as, newspapers, social media, and others. This means that people can now find out about films easier, and they can share it over social networking sites.

However critics reviews play a  huge part in a films success, this is shown by the film Grand Budapest Hotel, this film was given a 92% from the film review website 'Rotten Tomatoes'. Films with good reviews spark audiences interests as people largely rely on reviews of films before seeing them, this way they can also know which bits are the best and worst as this is what sort of information is in critics reviews, this therefore impacts the film making money.

Although critics reviews can make a difference they also cannot, this is shown by The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1, this films got a 66% on 'Rotten Tomatoes, which is okay but not as good as the previous two, it had a budget of $125,000,000 and got a  gross of $225,693,000 despite getting average reviews, this shows that films coming from a film franchise such as The Hunger Games helps the film get money.

Grand Budapest Hotel used a lot of different ways to market the film such as, using a Prada store and decorating it in little pictures and props from the film, Wes Anderson, the director of Grand Budapest Hotel, also produced a video and recipe for creating the 'Mendels' cakes, the video for this went viral meaning that people who did not know about the film could find out about it. This means that more people would have heard about the film therefore more people would have seen the film when it came out meaning more money.

The Avengers did not need good critic reviews as it was a product of Marvel, who is a worldwide respected company with a large fan base of people that would watch this film. One of the places they announced that 'The Avengers' was coming to cinemas was at Comic-Con this is a convention were the majority of people will have a product or have seen or read something that Marvel had produced, this meant that Marvel's target audience was in one convention and with the right slot to release the film and some clips Marvel had already created hype about the film.

Lionsgate UK CEO Zygi Kamasa, has stated that he thinks cinema tickets in the UK should be cheaper, "A blockbuster can cost $250m and a UK independent film can cost $4m but it’s £10 or more to see both. I think we should see UK films priced at £4 and US films at £10. A trip to the cinema isn’t cheap anymore.” He believes that because the prices for tickets for a Hollywood film and an independent British made film are the same this means that less people are going to see the independent film as they do not want to waste money on something thta they do not recognise.

More films becoming available on DVD or online means that film companies can have their films watched easier this therefore means that more people will watch films creating more money going to the company that made the film. Also films now are coming in high definition and ultra high definition this will encourage more people to spend more money  on the better quality film as this will make for a more enjoyable watch.

In conclusion, I believe that the distribution and marketing of a film is more important than if critics thought that it was a good film or not, as if a film did not get distributed or marketed then almost all of the people would not hear about films being released and if this happened then it would not matter how critics rated it as they would not be able to create a gross profit just from critics seeing their films.