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Media Studies

Case Studies

Big Picture• Candidates should be prepared to understand and discuss the processes of

production, distribution, marketing and exchange as they relate to contemporary media institutions, as well as the nature of audience consumption and the relationships between audiences and institutions. In addition, candidates should be familiar with:

• • the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice; • • the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production,

distribution and marketing; • • the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of

production, distribution, marketing and exchange; • • the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and

audiences; • • the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences; • • the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically,

British) by international or global institutions; • • the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption

illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour. •

Production/Financing

• Produced by:

• Rook Films• British independent production company formed by director Ben Wheatley and

producer Andy Starke in 2008.• Specialise in low budget independent films, that are financed via partnerships

with other companies (Down Terrace, Kill List, Sightseers)

• Financed by:• Film 4.0: The digital arm of Film4

• “Film4 funded A Field In England, but it’s the first film that we’ve made without any production partners, which was really interesting and important for us. The nuts and bolts of the deal and how you do that stuff is really involved and we had always had structures or other companies involved on the other funded films we’d made [Kill List and Sightseers], and this was the first one where we went completely solo.”

• Andy Starke

Production/Financing

• Support from:

• BFI New Models Award

• Designed to support experimental and ambitious release models, and creative marketing strategies that seek to exploit new opportunities outside traditional theatrical and marketing routes.

• The film was envisaged as a film which would be funded, shot, edited and distributed in an agile and ambitious way (see Distribution)

• The film’s production budget was £300,000

Factors Influencing Production

• The film was the fourth directorial film from Ben Wheatley

• Wheatley is a critically acclaimed British film maker Kill List and Sightseers both received five star reviews in the Guardian)

• The film will have attracted significant interest from those familiar with Wheatley and his work (e.g. passionate followers of British cinema and independent film)

• The film features UK actors familiar to fans of alternative cinema/TV (e.g. Michael Smilie, Reece Shearsmith, Julian Barrett)

Production

• At £300,000 the films budget is incredible small (even by British film standards)

• The film was shot extremely quickly (12 days)

• The film was shot digitally

• The film was edited by Ben Wheatley at home using Final Cut Pro on an Apple Mac

• All essential for keeping costs down

• This also illustrates how new technology opens doors for filmmakers to produce films on considerably lower budgets

Distribution

• Distribution was handled by:

• Picturehouse Entertainment

• Launched in 2010, Picturehouse Entertainment is the distribution arm of Picturehouse Cinemas Ltd which specialise in independent cinema

• Film 4

• 4DVD

• Film4 Channel

• Additional funding through BFI grant (New Models Award)

Distribution

• The film’s distribution strategy was an extremely unusual one which dispatched with conventional cinema showing followed by home releases

• “the first ever film to be released in UK cinemas, on freeviewTV, on DVD and on Video-on-Demand on the same day – with Film4, Picturehouse Entertainment, 4DVD and Film4 Channel partnering for this innovative watch-it-where-you-want experiment on Friday 5th July 2013”

• Why might this have been done?

Distribution –Andy Starke

• “The reality in film is that distribution methods are changing, and in four or five year’s time your movie is going to be on a server somewhere in the world being beamed directly to the cinema or to your telly or your phone or whatever – or probably straight into your head! Therefore, our focus is on trying to structure a deal so that at least some of the money trickles down to the people that make the art, and embrace the new technologies rather than running scared of them.

• Cinema owners can programme things in different ways – they can programme theatre and live Q&As. It’s about whether people have got the will and the interest to exhibit something that isn’t just The Hobbit or Iron Man 3. There are leftfield films around now that are doing relatively well.

• To a degree, you can’t get interesting independent cinema without some effort, so if we are all interested in different cinema, then we’ve got to actually support it. And Picturehouse is doing that. They’re creating an interesting world of film, which is really important, not just sitting there waiting for the next Titanic or something. Those enormous films are another world to me and I’m not in that world, and I’m not really interested in being in it, to be honest”

Distribution –Andy Starke

• “This type of release makes sense for these kinds of movies. I think that time and time again, interesting movies come out and don’t find their audience because they are not around in cinemas for long enough. I’m hoping that this approach, with all the weight of the publicity geared towards one month, might help it be around longer in cinemas, and let people come to it without having that panic of being around for one week before it’s gone because there’s another Marvel movie on which just fills up cinema screens.

• In the States, VoD is a big deal now and geographically it makes more sense. Where I live, I’ve got to travel for forty minutes to get to anything that screens art house films, so with the best will in the world, you’re just going to miss stuff. I would always rather see a film at the cinema, but ultimately I think you have got to accept that not everyone has that option. I hope people who can see it at the cinema will do so.”

Distribution - Picturehouse

• “The key aim for the cinema aspect of the release is to prove that the theatrical experience stands up on its own, even when presented concurrently with alternative – and potentially cheaper – platforms. It doesn’t hurt that the film is being jointly distributed by Picturehouse and 4DVD, with both sharing the theatrical and DVD revenues. And then there is the tempting contribution of Channel 4′s in-kind marketing muscle, which will promote all the platforms, not just the channel’s own.

• And instead of each partner having to spend separately to promote its own window in the chain, we are leveraging these different platforms, with the benefit of a single concentrated campaign to maximise the budget and PR opportunities to really make things stretch”

Distribution - Picturehouse

• “In other words, for a title that would otherwise be released on a three to five print very limited theatrical run, where broadsheet newspaper advertising would be limited, never mind TV advertising, we were suddenly benefiting from substantial visibility through the various Channel 4 channels as well as the various partner communication channels.

• We are also fortunate enough to have financial support offered through the BFI’s New Models Distribution Fund, which has allowed us to expand the campaign further, such as resourcing a live satellite Q&A with Ben Wheatley and cast members on 5th July, broadcast from The Ritzy, Brixton.

• We are now looking at a film launching on 19 cinema screens in the opening week, and a further six off-date bookings where it will play in cinemas several weeks after it has aired on free TV and has become available on DVD, Blu-Ray and VOD. Or if none of these platforms quite work for you, we’ll even be screening in a field, several in fact, as the film plays a few festivals this summer including Latitude in Suffolk”

Distribution campaign

• Creates publicity

• Such an unusual campaign generated a lot of press coverage –would this film have garnered such interest with a standard campaign

• Offers the audience options

• How many people would see a limited theatrical run (or even be aware of it, or even have access to a cinema showing it?)

• Possibility of higher financial return

• The vast majority of British film does not return its budget – and the smaller the budget the less chance the film will turn a profit –the combination of various media platforms (synergy) and the use of technological convergence (each media technology complimenting the other) allowed the distribution to pool resources

Exhibition – Film4

• “UK release across every platform on the same day, they’ll have the opportunity to experience it however they want – on television, at the cinema, on DVD or even in a field! Talent development is of course at the heart of what we do at Film4, but our focus on audience development is just as keen. We want to help new voices find new audiences, and to do that we need to reach audiences in ways that are practically and physically accessible. It’s no good screening a film in one independent cinema in London and calling it a theatrical release.

• In an age where access to media is opening right up, I don’t think audiences understand the business models that mean they have to wait six months before they can watch something on DVD, particularly if the film in question isn’t showing in a cinema anywhere near where they live. I firmly believe in the power of the cinema, and we have to find ways to build projects so that cinemas can be an integral part of bold releases, like we’re doing here with Picturehouse.

• Ultimately audiences just want to see something that they love, or a filmmaker’s next piece, on the best platform available, as soon as possible. The more we try things to see the results of giving them that opportunity, the more exciting it gets for British independent film.”

Promo Campaign

• Screenings in ‘Fields in England’

• For the cinema release of A Field in England in the UK, Weltons Brewery brewed a limited edition ale to give to cinema-goers.

• Extremely detailed online website going into detail about all stages of production

Exhibition: Profits • Released theatrically by Picturehouse Entertainment on 17 sites, it generated £21,399 over

the weekend at a £1,259.• The film played to sold-out crowds at the likes of the Ritzy, Curzon Soho and Hackney

Picturehouse in London, Dukes at Komedia in Brighton and Edinburgh’s Cameo.• For a limited release, the results are solid given the niche appeal of the film

• On television, it played on the Film4 channel on Saturday and Sunday, to 357,000 – up on the Film4’s slot average of 346,000

• On the Film4OD and iTunes platforms there were a total of more than 1,000 purchases. A Field in England was the week’s bestselling title on Film4oD

• Sales of DVDs from Amazon and HMV across Friday and Saturday amounted to 1,462. Supermarkets will stock the title from today.

• The number of Blu-ray copies sold was slightly higher than DVDs. The Blu-ray edition features more extras than the DVD release.

• It was also the most-mentioned film in social media terms for Film4 all week and was the number one trending topic on Twitter in the UK on Friday evening

Exhibition: Profits

• Anna Higgs, Film4.0 “We are ecstatic with the results. I was nervous going into the hottest weekend of the past two years, which also featured Wimbledon, but we had the best possible results.

• “By having all platforms working together, we generated a real buzz and put the film on the map.”

• Asked about applying the strategy to future releases, Higgs added: “We would be really excited to do it again. We built this campaign in a bespoke way so there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

• “But we have taken a film that might have gone out on five screens and debuted it on 17 sites, generating mainstream coverage. It has shown that taking critical and multiplatform buzz can create a perfect storm.”

• Clare Binns, director of programming and acquisitions at PicturehouseEntertainment, said: “Given that we had the hottest weekend in 2 years, Andy Murray bouncing his balls around, and the film was on selected shows, we are extremely happy with the theatrical box office total.”

Audience Responses• “I found the simultaneous release to be an absolute blessing as I lack the means of journeying to

the nearest art-house cinema whenever I want to see a film that doesn't have snack-brand tie-in. I can only hope that A Field in England's success prompts more distributors to trust the multi-platform release strategy so more people can see such diverse and challenging films. Aren't films meant to be for our (the audience's) benefit?”

• “As much as I would have loved to have seen this film at the cinema, work commitments and transport problems have put paid to this idea. Even though I work in the heart of the West End, I live in South East London and my nearest independent cinema is the Ritzy in Brixton, which takes me nearly an hour to reach. I believe to watch A Field In England you have to do so with a clear head and not exhausted after a days work. At the end I saw watched it on Filmfour and have since bought it on Blu-Ray. I may have had my doubts to this release pattern, but after seeing the benefits I really do hope this is the future of independent cinema, it will no doubt help the film make a profit (broadcasting and DVD rights will probably increase) but it will also introduce a whole new audience to films that would have normally bypassed them completely.”

• “My nearest cinema screening AFIE is over thirty miles away - Cambridge Arts - so it wasn't really viable for me to see it theatrically. And I know I'm lucky to have one that close: many are much further away from an independent arthouse cinema. So I saw the film on Film 4 (to be precise, I recorded it and watched it back the following day).”

• “As a consumer of films I really appreciate choice and that's what this type of release offers. I chose to watch it at the Little Theatre in Bath and I'm glad I did as I got to experience the trippy visual feast and soundscape full on. Can't wait to buy the DVD and check out the extras. And thanks to simultaneous release I don't have to! :)”

Audience Responses

• “I saw it on the telly, and it totally blew me away. I want the film to be a success so I've bought the Blu ray.”

• “I watch this last night thanks to pre-recording the film on my 'branded' tv box. Though I would have prefered the cinema to see a film like this. The choice was great to watch this at home. I'd be temped to get the blu-ray now for the extras and commentary”

• “I settled for watching it on film 4, and loved the film so much ibought the blu ray. Which i would have done as well had i seen it at the cinema.”

• “If small, experimental releases were given just one screen of regular viewings in a 'multiplex' there would be no need for this type of multi-format release.”

Audience Responses

• “When we watch on Film4, we are paying via the long adverts at the start and end of the film and through our TV subscriptions to the HD channel via services like BT, Sky and Virgin. In turn this creates word-of-mouth and reviews which boosts DVD and VOD sales. This is better than nothing (not to mention that it easily dwarfs the extremely disciplined budgeting of the film) and it allows Ben Wheatley to further build his audience so that he can secure better distribution for future films.”

• “In a way it is sad that we are forced to watch films on TV because the idiots that run distribution and cinema chains refuse to invest in the marketing of interesting films that would be seen by many millions, if people only knew about them”

Home Release

• A Field in England continues to make profits well after cinema release

• Traditional Physical Formats

• Blu Ray, DVD• Convenience factor

• Extensive special features for fans (with even more on the blu ray release)

• Video on Demand (VOD)• i Tunes

• 4OD rental

• These are linked and advertised on the website (continued promotion) as well as the opportunity to add an alert for the next time it is shown on terrestrial TV

• Technological Convergence