LO1 Task 2 - Analysing media products

Purpose

The film’s purpose is to entertain and it does this by having elements of drama and action, for example the chase scene in I, Robot on the highway.

The films audience would be mass, as the style of the film is more action and mainstream and appeals to a wider audience because is quite fast paced.

Genre

Genre as described by Daniel Chandler (2001) “Genre means type or category”. I, Robots genre would be an action science-fiction movie. This is evident because the film is very fast paced and action oriented, for example the scene where the robots are storming the police station there is a lot of gunfire. The science-fiction element comes from the use of robots and the futuristic city and technology. The science-fiction elements of this film could have an affect on the audience by attracting digital natives (people who have been brought up in a digital age, so something like technology is natural to them). This makes it more appealing to the target audience, this also works well  with the action genre because digital natives tend to be teenagers and teenagers tend to find action films appealing. The action of the film also helps highlight the advanced technology. Furthermore Barry Keith Grant(1995) says that “All genres have sub-genres". In the case of I, Robot it is a utopian science fiction film, where because of the advancement of technology and robots that serve humanity there seems to be virtually no problems and people live happy lives.

 

Form

I, Robot is a feature film and is 105 minutes long. The term "feature film" means that it is a full length film and the main attraction in a cinema showing.

A film could be distributed as a DVD, Cinema, Streaming websites, on a phone (downloaded from the App store, Google play store), TV. This could be done to increase profits by making it more available for consumers.

I, Robot was distributed in the cinema and DVD, as well as the Streaming websites because it is aimed towards a more mass audience. This means that it would have been released through cinemas. This was done to create a larger profit due to the genre being more mainstream and easier to pick up and watch.

Style

The style of the film is post-modern, as the setting is more of a modern day but with the science- fiction elements as the main plot point is the advancement of robots that serve humans as well as an Artificial intelligence, something that is not currently possible in todays day and age.

Content + Meaning

Todorov(1977) said that every story has key stages and that there are 5 key stages in a story/narrative.

The main 3 stages would be:

Equilibrium (Everything is in balance and fine.)

Disruption/Disequilibrium (A disturbance in the equilibrium, the enigma/problem appears in the story.)

Resolution (Solving of the enigma.) and a new equilibrium.

However the formula is interchangeable, as you can start on a disequilibrium and have the enigma resolved.

For I, Robot the formula follows the narrative structure of Equilibrium with the robots being the helpers of mankind and serving them. The enigma would be the death of the Alfred Lanning and the rise of the robots and then the resolution would be the destruction of the A.I.V.I.K.I that controls the robots, stopping the uprising.

Also Claud Levi Strauss'(1958) theory of 'Binary Opposition' is present in I, Robot in the form of man and machine, as the machines want to control humanity to save it while humanity wants to be free. This is binary opposition because of how the two forces of man and machine in this film will inevitably oppose each other. This reinforces the genre of science-fiction and the audience it attracts as the main plot of the story is based around themes that are science-fiction based.

Micro elements would be the parts of a film such as sound, mise en scene, camerawork and the editing. These things make a film's tone and mood while also setting the scene for a film.

Diegesis - the story world that the story world is taking place in. Could be set in the present day (verisimilitude), or set in the future (sci-fi). Diegetic sound is sound that is heard by both the audience and the characters in the film and is native to the setting and world the film is based in (the films diegesis). For example when Detective Spooner shoots his gun in I, Robot it can be heard by both the audience and the characters. Dialogue is also an example of diegetic sound, such as when When Sonny the Robot asks "What am i?" Dialogue is present in Pre-production, production and post-production. For Pre-production it is present in the script. In Production it is present when the lines are being said on scene. Lastly it is present in Post-production in the form of editing the dialogue said by the characters or, in some cases such as in animated movies, the actual dialogue said by the actors is added in after the creation of the animation in the Production stage.

Non-Diegetic sound would be sound that is not native to the setting in the film and is only heard by the audience, not the characters. For example background music in the car chase highway scene in I, Robot is there to build tension in and can be heard by the audience, but it cannot be heard by the characters. Incidental music, for creating emotion and building tension and atmosphere. This type of music is present in Pre-production, production and post-production. For Pre-production it is present in some stages of planning, as you would need to decide what sort of mood the film would take and so the incidental mood would need to reflect that. In production incidental music would be created ready to be inserted in Post-production where it is then added to the final scene. It is done in Post-production because it can more easily be edited around the visuals of the film.
An example of Incidental music being used

Denotation means what it is and what you can see, while connotation is what the thing you see symbolises or represents. (Correct)

Laura Mulvey talked about “the Male Gaze”, and how men objectify women by how they look and are judged on how they look. (1975) In order to appeal to a male audience, for example Megan Fox in Transformers.

Examples of Diegetic sound in I, Robot would be when the rogue robot asks "what am I?" the denotations of this is that the rogue robot doesn't know what it is, it also connotes that it doesn't know why it was created or why it exists and feels it doesn't have a purpose. This could represent the fact that the robot is different compared to the other robots as they simply obey orders. This could mean that the robot is important to the story as it is different.
Also the normal robots walking up to Detective Spooner and saying "can I help you sir?" when detective Spooner gets thrown to the ground. The denotations of this scene is that the normal robots want to help him up.

The camerawork helps do this by having low angle shots to make the robot seem more imposing and impressive in this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouht1xip9NQ ,
at 1:33, the rogue robot is standing over detective Spooner and instead of just showing the robot standing over him in a wide angle shot, it uses the view point of the detective and the camera angle to make the rogue robot seem more imposing.

The film I, Robot denotes the journey of a man trying to uncover a plot by an unseen enemy, which is  to use robots to control humanity.

The film connotes the struggle between whether or not having artificial intelligence would be best for humanity and whether or not it is playing god to do so. It also connotes whether or not humanity can be trusted with its own safety, as the A.I. V.I.K.I argues since humans pollute the environment and causes wars and kill each other, they cannot be trusted with their own safety and protection.

Production 

Mise en scene -

Indie music video - Instruments such as guitars, black and white filter, cheap special effects (because of the low budget they have to work with).

 

Horror film - Low key lighting, Gore and blood (connotes death or danger for a character.), a mask/monster.

 

A micro element that is encoded to create meaning/representation (stereotypes) in music/film trailers is MISE EN SCENE.

1. Location.

2. Costume/make up

3. Props

4. Colours/lighting

5. Gestures.

 

It reinforce the genre and representations (people).

Mise en scene translates to - Everything within the frame.

 

1. Locations - Location is a good way of encoding and creating verisimilitude.

Two important locations in I, Robot would be a USR building which is a very grand and large building. This connotes the fact that USR is very rich and powerful, with a lot of influence to have such a grand building inside the large city. The other would be the  

 

2.Costume - Costumes reflect the Diegesis (Time and place, story world.) of the film, and are very good at creating and reinforcing things such as binary opposition and representations. Costumes can be relatable to a target audience, for example teenagers in a movie would wear casual baggy clothes like some teenagers would wear, to be relatable.

 

3: Prop - The property of a character, this is anything that is handheld. Props can be iconic and recognisable, such as blood in a horror film. Iconography. Some icons in I, Robot would be the gun that detective Spooner has, it connotes how he has some position of power and authority with the ability to exercise that authority, and how futuristic the gun is also represents the setting of the time period. It is also an icon of action films for guns to be present as they help create tension and thrills in an action genre.

 

4. Colours and lighting - These are used to create/connote moods and emotions. There is two types of lighting, Low key and High key. Low key lighting is dark while high key is bright lighting, can also be referred to natural lighting. Low key lighting is encoded in a scene when an environment has a lot of shadows, darkness and low lighting. Low key in horror could connote the fear of the unknown, someone in the shadows. In the terms of villainous/antagonistic characters low key lighting represents the dark side of them. High key lighting on the other hand connotes happiness, clarity, religious themes, victory/celebration, hope, prosperity. However these things are not always relevant, as it could be just natural lighting, or the night time.

 

Location of this is England.

England streets, well off house, park.

The streets denote the fact the kid is walking alone.

It connotes the fact that the kid has no where to go.

The locations in this is England connote how close to home the film is based, for example the common areas the kid lives in. It also connotes the era, how they have no jobs and no income.

LO1 - Script

Introduction

Hello, my name is irrelevant! and im here to talk about the layout of companies in the film industry, the creation of films in said film industry, the audience of the film and how that effects the production of the film, 

Ownership

Who owns 20th Century Fox?

20th Century Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox as a subsidiary and 21st Century Fox is governed by a number of people, chief among them being Rupert Murdock and Lachlan Murdock as co-executive chairmans, James Murdock as CEO and Chase Carey as vice-chairman.

What does 20th Century Fox own? 20th Century Fox owns all the rights to the products that they create and being a conglomerate (a company that owns other companies) they own subsidiaries which are a company owned by another company. An example of the subsidiaries that 20th Century Fox own would be:

Blue Sky Studios

(Used its in house rendering software, they handled the animation and visual effects, but later devoted itself to solely creating animated films, is first being Ice Age.)

Fox Star Studios ( Based in India)

(They are the dedicated production and distribution arm of 20th Century Fox, and generally create Hindi and Regional films through co-production or just creating them in house.)

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
(The home video division of 20th Century, the handle the distribution of films in the form of DVDs to be viewed at home.)

Fox Television Studios(This studio was designed to house the smaller production of movies and TV production.)

20th Television(Created to separate the production of TV products from the movie production, previously handled by 20th Century fox itself. This was created to increase the output of the respected products.)

20th Century Fox Television

(the TV division of 20th Century Fox)

TSG Entertainment

(A film financing company that mainly funds live action films. Created in 2012 to replace Dune Entertainment)

They work as a cross media company, meaning they product many different types of media within their company, either with the help of their subsidiaries or using the resources they have inside 20th Century Fox itself.The different types of media they create are things such as films (James Cameron's Avatar, X-men days of future past), TV shows such as The Simpsons and American Dad, music in the form of soundtracks for its movies and TV shows.

The company synergises its films, using Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to repackage them as videos and DVDs, Fox Music to deal with soundtracks, and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising to promote them and earn secondary revenues. 

They also work with 21st Century Fox who in turn works with News Corp to promote their films through the use of things like newspapers, as News Corp owns subsidiaries like the Star, a popular newspaper in England.

Operating Model

A company either has two types of integration, horizontal or vertical. Vertical integration would be a company that is able to produce, distribute and exchange its own products. This is because they own the subsidiaries that allow them to do that. Horizontal integration is where a company does not have the resources available to produce, distribute and exchange. Instead they have to out source some of the work to other companies, typically the distribution part of the process as it is generally the most difficult and costly.

Vertical integration is better than horizontal because you have full control of the production, distribution and exchange of the product, it is also faster, as you do not have to use time out sourcing the work and setting up deals, furthermore you can keep a closer eye on the work and its progress.
The operating model of 20th century fox is one where they create a product in house, mostly by themselves and use their marketing and distribution abilities that they have within their conglomerate, such as their subsidiaries advertising their products creating synergy. Now synergy, theres an important word right there, as synergy means the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances or other agents to a produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. A simpler way of saying it would be two things working well together to create something they couldn't alone.
So because 20th Century has synergy as an important part of their operating model they have an ENORMOUS advantage when it comes to their competitors, as they can both create the product and decide how they would want to market and distribute it. Another advantage would be the ability to advertise their products through other media such as Newspapers, Radio, TV etc.

Products

The term production means what the company produces, and in 20th Century Fox's case they
create different types of media through the use of their subsidiaries, as 20th Century itself just creates films while companies such as Fox Television Studios, that 20th Century own, create TV programs such as the Simpsons and American Dad. This makes the companies more efficient in how they create their products, as they can focus on creating their respected product while a subsidiary creates the music and soundtrack for the product. Some of the products that they have created that are well known would be Avatar, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and X-men Days of Future Past as they are both well received on reviewing sites such as Rotten tomatoes and IMBD. Furthermore they all did well in the box office, especially Avatar as it is still the highest grossing film they have produced. The main target demographic of the movies varies, as since 20th Century Fox is such a large movie making company, they can make films that cater to different audiences increasing their potential demographic and overall products.
For example Avatar would cater to a more mature audience that enjoys action, while Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is more drama/sci-fi that focuses more on the story than on action and finally X-men Days of Future Past appeals to an audience that is a fan of the original comic material.

Market Position

Market Position means how successful the company is in their field.
There are a number of things that shows 20th Century Fox is successful in its chosen market, film. For example:

The average quality of the films they create is 50 on Metacritic, a respected review site, and the highest scoring movie is 100 and the lowest is 5. This shows us that it creates products that are both very well received by the market, but also create films that are viewed as horrible and poorly done.

It has a large mass, in the sense that it can create a large amount of products aimed at many different audiences and still be effective.

The gross profit market margin annually for 20th Century Fox in 2014 would be $1,790.5 million, being the largest share holder in the market at 17.3%.

Their highest grossing product would be Avatar with a total gross value of $749,766,139 (£486,587,817.46).


20th Century Fox is generally well known internationally, as they have subsidiaries that distribute their movies in other countries such as Fox star studios who distributes films in India on behalf of 20th Century Fox.

Another way we can tell 20th Century Fox is successful is because of the market share it has in the box office for example. Since they CURRENTLY have 10% of the box office market shares, meaning that they get 10% of the entire income of the box office market in shares, it shows that they have a large influence in the market as well as having a large share of the profits. Furthermore this means that they are placed 4th in the overall box office, meaning that they are doing considerably well compared to nearly all of its competitors. However Universal is 1st with a considerable 28% market share, Buena Vista (A subsidiary of Disney who distribute films, such as Guardians of the Galaxy) is 2nd with 18.6% and Warner Bros is 3rd with 16.3%. This shows that 20th Century Fox has a considerable share in the market, but compared to Universal they don't even have double their shares in the Box Office. To 20th Century's credit though, everyone bellow it on the list drops from 10% to 7% then to 4%, which is nothing compared to the 4 major film production companies.

*All images and statistics were taken from Boxofficemojo.com I did not create or contribute to gathering any information from the site, and all rights are owned by the creator of the site.

Competitors

Now because of the market position that 20th Century Fox has, there is bound to be competition. The main competitors to 20th Century Fox would be Universal, Beuna Vista (The film distribution arm of Disney) and Warner Bros. These 3 companies are competitors to 20th Century Fox because like Fox, they create films that also appear in cinemas. Examples of this would be Jurassic World for Universal, Guardians of the Galaxy for Beuna Vista (Disney) and The Dark Knight for Warner bros. All of these are big budget films that did extremely well in the Box office, showing that 20th Century Fox has strong competition, especially in the creation of comic book movies, a fast growing trend in recent years. These films are based around the characters in comic books, and are generally stories about heroes and loss. 20th Century Fox create movies such as the X-men franchise, while Buena Vista (Disney) creates Marvel franchise movies and Warner bros create DC franchise films. The reason for this increase in Comic book movies in the cinema is because comic book movies are generally super hero movies, with a hero that we can rally behind as well as a villain we can despise. Furthermore Comic books already have an established storyline that they can draw inspiration from or even just copy straight from the comic on to the cinema screen. Furthermore comic books already have a pre-established merchandise market, for example figures, T-shirts, cartoons etc. so it synergises with itself. So because of this increase in comic book movies in the past couple of years and these studios wanting to create similar movies, they can be seen as competitors because of that.

Operating Model

Key terms.

Integration - could be either Horizontal or Vertical.

Affiliates - Not owned in the same conglomerates but work together/along side each other. E.g. Dreamworks and 20th Century Fox or Warp Films and Film Four. A joint venture is 

This would be known as horizontal integration. This has synergy as they can promote their products  on multiple media and platforms.

Vertical integration would be a company that is able to produce, distribute and exchange its own products. This is because they own the subsidiaries that allow them to do that. 

This is type of integration is only for conglomerates as they own the subsidiaries that allow them to produce, distribute and exchange, while independent companies do not have the resources to do it.

20th Century Fox's subsidiaries that promote their products are:

Fox TV, Sky, Star (TV),Talk Radio (Radio), Fox Home Entertainment (The DVD/Bluray), The Sun (Newspapers).

This gives them the advantage compared to independent companies compared to Warp, as most indies can only produce.

The Film Production Cycle.

Vertical integration is better than horizontal because you have full control of the production, distribution and exchange of the product, it is also faster.
The operating model of 20th century fox is one where they create a product in house, mostly by themselves and use their marketing and distribution abilities that they have within their conglomerate, such as their subsidiaries advertising their products creating synergy. Now synergy, theres an important word right there, as synergy means the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances or other agents to a produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. TL;DR two things working well together to create something they couldn't alone alone.

So because 20th Century has synergy as in important part of their operating model they have an enormous advantage when it comes to their competitors, as they can both create he product and decide how they would want to market and distribute it. Another advantage would be the ability to advertise their products through other media such as Newspapers, Radio, TV etc. This is called Vertical integration. Vertical integration means that they handle every stage of the creation process all by themselves. Production, Distribution and Exchange. The reason they are able to handle of the process as well is because of their SUBSIDIARIES. A subsidiary would be a company owned by another company. In 20th Century Fox's case they own:

Blue Sky Studios (Used its in house rendering software, they handled the animation and visual effects, but later devoted itself to solely creating animated films, is first being ice age.) Fox Star Studios ( Based in India) (They are the dedicated production and distribution arm of 20th Century Fox, and generally create Hindi and Regional films through co-production or just creating them in house.) 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment(The home video division of 20th Century, the handle the distribution of films in the form of DVDs to be viewed at home.) Fox Television Studios(This studio was designed to house the smaller production of movies and TV production.) 20th Television(Created to separate the production of TV products from the movie production, previously handled by 20th Century fox itself. This was created to increase the output of the respected products.) 20th Century Fox Television (the TV division of 20th Century fox) TSG Entertainment (A film financing company that mainly funds live action films. Created in 2012 to replace Dune Entertainment) Each subsidiary is used in place of an outside source in creating a product, this reduces the overall cost of creating the product, while also meaning that all the profits stay in house and outside companies will not have to be given a share.

Lesson 2: Unit 1: Starter task

Matthew Ellis

The lesson 2: Unit 1 starter task.

Recap questions based on what we learned in lesson 1. 

The answers i got correctly were:

That the person in the picture was Rupert Murdock.

That one of the two main conglomerates he owns is News corp.

That a conglomerate is a group of companies that work together.

That an example of a conglomerate that is owned by 21st Century Fox and is one we are studying is 20th Century Fox.

That warp is an independent film company and that means they work for themselves.

That Warp work with Film 4.

The answers i got wrong were:

That a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox os Fox TV/

That 20th Century promotes their films by promoting across other media.

An example of a public service british media institution is BBC.

That they are known as a cross media conglomerate because they make media on Radio, TV and films.