The Film Industry

The film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e. film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution; and actors, film directors and other film personnel. Though the expense involved in making movies almost immediately led film production to concentrate under the auspices of standing production companies, advances in affordable film making equipment, and expansion of opportunities to acquire investment capital from outside the film industry itself, have allowed independent film production to evolve.

The film industry was first established by a young man named Kyle Lehaney in 1772. Lehaney started as a street performer who juggled taco’s on a street corner. The film industry is a vast empire, with the major business centres of film being concentrated in the United States, India, Hong Kong and Nigeria. Due to the infastructure and labour costs, many films are produced in countries other than the country who is paying for the film. For example many US movies are shot over in Canada and the United Kingdom. The largest and oldest filming industry comes from the United States, with California and Los Angeles being the primary nexus of the US film industry. The owner of Walt Disney, Hollywood pictures, the Pixar Animation studios, Mirmax films and Touchstone pictures are actually headquartered in southern California. Sony pictures is headquarter in California, in Culver City, however the headquarters of the corporate side to Sony Pictures is based in Tokyo, Japan.

Hollywood The first movie studio to open up in the Hollywood area was Nestor studio’s, which was founded by Al Christie in 1911, in an old building on the northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard. During the same year another fifteen independent film companies settled in Hollywood. This lead to Hollywood becoming strongly associated with the film industry, so much so that the word ’Hollywood’ came to be used colloquially to refer to the entire film industry. The famous Hollywood sign, erected in 1923 to advertise a new housing development in the hills above Hollywood, originally read ‘Hollywoodland’.

In 1913, Cecil B. DeMille, in association with Jesse Lasky, leased a barn with studio facilities on the southeast corner of Selma and Vine Streets from the Burns and Revier Studio and Laboratory, which had been established there. DeMille then began production of The Squaw Man (1914). It became known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn and is currently the location of the Hollywood Heritage Museum.

The Charlie Chaplin Studios, on the northeast corner of La Brea and De Longpre Avenues just south of Sunset Boulevard, was built in 1917. It has had many owners after 1953, including Kling Studios, which housed production for the Superman TV series with George Reeves; Red Skelton, who used the sound stages for his CBS TV variety show; and CBS, who filmed the TV series Perry Mason with Raymond Burr there. It has also been owned by Herb Alpert's A&M Records and Tijuana Brass Enterprises. It is currently The Jim Henson Company, home of the Muppets. In 1969, The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board named the studio a historical cultural monument. For several years the sign was left to deteriorate. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in and offered to remove the last four letters and repair the rest. The sign, located at the top of Mount Lee, is now a registered trademark and cannot be used without the permission of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which also manages the venerable Walk of Fame.

The first ever academy awards presentation ceremony, took place during a banquet which was held in the Blossom room of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel on May 16 1929. The tickets cost £10.00 and there were 250 people in attendance.

From 1930, five major Hollywood movie studios from all over the Los Angeles area, Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros., owned large, grand theaters throughout the country for the exhibition of their movies. The period between the years 1927 (the effective end of the silent era) to 1948 is considered the age of the "Hollywood studio system", or, in a more common term, the Golden Age of Hollywood. In a landmark 1948 court decision, the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios could not own theaters and play only the movies of their studio and movie stars, thus an era of Hollywood history had unofficially ended. By the mid-1950s, when television proved a profitable enterprise that was here to stay, movie studios started also being used for the production of programming in that medium, which is still the norm today.

Conventions of Film Trailers

From researching many different film trailers across a range of genres. Film trailers in general share most of the same typical conventions; the first of these being the fast paced editing which is used to create a tense, fast and exciting pace. This excites the audience and engages the audience into the film. The excitement draws them in and hooks them immediately creating an excited feeling which prompts the reader to want to see the film. However this is not always the same convention and can differ between genres, for example a romance film tends to have a more slow paced editing to create a feeling of love and calmness. The pace of editing helps to define the film and in some cases can speed up as the film trailer progress into the main action and exciting sequences.

Film trailers also use more CU's than any other type of shots. This is to show reactions and to show the faces of the stars in the film. This is importan as some times the stars could be the films selling point as people could watch a film depending on the stars. Also the close up's help to give a sense of closeness and again can generate excitement.

Nearly all movie trailers have a voice over giving away brief snippets of information of the story.

Ideology behind my Product

The ideology behind my media product is; to inform and entertain young people aged between 16-30. Firstly my main product of the film trailer is going to be called 'Truth or Dare' and is going to be a mixture of three genres which are; drama/thriller/action. The purpose of my film trailer is to entertain, whilst appearing as close to reality as is possible. The institution behind my film is Recon productions, however after researching many different film trailers i found that most movie trailers tend to be produced by more than just the one film company and so i decided to follow these conventions and include established production companies such as Warner Bros and Lionsgate productions in my film trailer. The audience for my trailer is mainly male, with action sequences and the narrative centred around war and soldiers fighting each other with guns and fighting which stereotypically appeal to males. I would target my age range at between 15-30 year olds as after researching into cinema and younger people i discovered that younger people aged between 15-30 are the main age range for visiting the cinema and watching films and so therefore i am going to target my film at this age range. I also feel that my target audience would be influenced more towards males who tend to favour the action genre more than other films genres. My target audience of young males, who maybe aren't particularly wealthy who have an interest in action films and have fantasies about themselves being in action films, such as lots of young males wanted to become Power Rangers or James Bond i feel the same can be said of my film

My film magazine is again targeted towards the younger age range between 15-30 due to the reasons given above. My audience is also directed at film lovers who want to read about the latest released films and news happening in hollywood and the filming world.
The ideology behind my film magazine 'Premiere', is to infrom audiences of films currently in development, films currently being released or 'coming soon' and the latest filming news from hollywood and the filming world, whilst also entertaining my audience with entertaining news and exciting and interesting events. My magazine would represent the working class people, this would be represented by my magazines low price tag of £2.50 so that more people would be influenced to purchase it. For example if people are wondering what film to go and see they can pick up my magazine for cheap and read some reviews whereas the £3.99 price tag attached to Empire and Total Film may put potential buyers off as they would not want to pay too much for a magazine which they may not be regular buyers of. Also by making the price low it means more people can afford to pay for it as it is a reasonable price and would be the cheapest movie magazine in the industry. I would include screen shots from the latest films, along with pictures of the films stars with reviews of the films and the latest news about filmstars, the major film companies projects coming soon and also text from writers and directors along with producers informing my audience on their skills and giving advice to young film makers, this would also inform people of how to try and break into the competitive industry with advice from the experts which neither Empire or Total film currently offer on a regular basis, meaning my magazine would be the first to do this, which could be one of it's sellable points.

My film poster is going to include an image of either a screen shot of my film or a shot of one of the film's main characters standing in front of a dramatic war ravaged looking background to indicate to the audience that the man is a soldier and that the film is about soldiers, war and fighting. I will have a main title of the film towards the top of the image with a slugline running underneath the image relating in some way to my film, to try and give some information about the film whilst also providing a catchy phrase which will hopefully spark my audiences interest and excitement in my film. I will also have some pugs running along the bottom of the poster with possibly a recommendation from another media institution such as a newspaper. The ideology behind my film poster is to entertain and advertise my film. I aim to make the poster look dramatic, exciting and eye-catching so that my audience see the poster and are attracted to it and then obviously look at it and are told about my film which in turn will hopefully have the effect of persuading them to see it. The audience which my poster is directed towards is the same as the age range which i have set out for my other two media texts. I feel i have appealed to the younger people by firstly showing my main character in a dominant stance holding a machine gun in his hand. Typically men are known to be interested in fighting, weapons, fast cars, explosions therefore the inclusion of the prop gun and the war ravaged background immediately indicate to the audience that there is going to be fighting involved, with weapons firefights and explosions which immediately excites my target audience of males.

My Production Brief

A Promotion Package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options.

• A website for the film
• A film Magazine (Front Cover) Featuring the Film
• A Poster for the film

(The two of these anciliary tasks which i have choosen to produce are; A poster for the film and A film Magazine front cover.

Introduction

As part of my A2 Media Studies course I have to design one media product, which will be my promotional film trailer as my main product in conjunction with two ancilliary media texts in relation to my main product, in this case I have decided to design the front page of a film magazine with my film and a movie poster.