Unit 8: Timeline

In the begging... (1830)
In the old days film was not as we know it today, it started out as a novelty for audiences to be entertained by at events and it did not manifest itself in the same way that we see it today. Originally film started out as just moving pictures. These moving pictures created an illusion of movement, which worked by spinning the pictures in devises known as stroboscope and zoetropes. These inventions where created in the 1830's by William Horner a British man and would entertain audiences via the illusion that the moving still pictures were actually moving images the audiences would look through the holes in the devices to see the moving pictures. This was way before the time of the first film camera.

This is a 1830 styled Zoetrope.

Next in 1867 game the first US patented device that could display animated pictures. The 'zoopraxiscope' Is considered the first movie projector, it would project moving pictures onto a wall for audiences to view, this was an improvement from the zoetrope as more people could view motion pictures at once. The device worked by placing spinning glass disk which contained a sequence of images on it, into the device. It used the same principles as the zoetrope to give the illusions of motion.

Zoopraxiscope from 1867.

If we skip ahead to 1895 Two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere patent a never before seen movie camera and projector device that is a two in one, capable of projecting an image that can be seen by many people. In Paris, they present the first commercial exhibition of projected motion pictures. Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more that one person. At this point film was evolving from pictures to motion picture shot on film reel from the very first cameras. Audiences were stunned when they saw motion picture for the first time.

As technology was very limited films were not as they are like today, they were silent and not very complex usually being quiet short. The camera was very static as they were relatively knew inventions meaning people had not mastered shots containing camera movements the cameras were also very big and heavy so were not moved around much. As well as this editing was different, as everything was shot on film during editing the editors would literally cut parts of the film out and stick it back together. They had to be very careful as to not damage the film whilst they were doing this,

During the early 1900's hand crank cameras were replaced with the first motorised cameras they became smaller as well. 

In 1925 Western Electric and Warner Bros. agree to develop a system for movies with sound. This is when film started to incorporate sound within themselves leading to the first pieces of dialogue in movies. These movies with audio became known as 'talkies'. Two years later in 1930 Paramount becomes the first studio to announce that it will only produce ,talkies'. This leads to the death of silent cinema.

1937 Walt Disney’s first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is released. This creates the birth of a whole new film genre known as animation Walt Disney follow this up by pumping out hundreds of successful animations over the next 10 years such as Dumbo. Disney would later create Dinsey Pixar a whole studio dedicated in producing animated films, Pixar today are the most successful creator of animated giving Dinsey a monopoly over the market. In 1995 Pixar would go on to create the first animated film (Toy Story) that was not a hand drawn cartoon but a computer generated image this meant that animations could be made much quicker, these days all animations are computer made no one makes cartoon drawn animations as it takes far to long to draw out every single frame. This technology lead to competition from other animators such as Dreamworks.

In 1990 DvD's became the new standard for the distribution of film, VHS tapes became no more as they were obsolete compared to the DvD's which could store more data and were more compact.

During 1994 Major American film companies began to create their own independent production companies to produce smaller films. In 1994 Disney purchased Miramax after seeing the success of reservoir dogs. The year after the purchase Pulp fiction was released.

In 2002 Imax cinemas were introduced, these cinemas had huge curved screens creating a better view experience, following this in 2009 films began to be shown in 3D at first this was huge and the 3D film Avatar became the highest grossing movie of all time but eventually 3D became a novelty that most viewers did not want to pay extra for.

Unit 8: Contracts

Contracts in the media industry are different from contracts in most other fields of work, this is because in the film and TV changes occur all of the time meaning that contracts must be flexible.

Freelance
More creative and technical jobs in the media industry such Camera Operators or D.O.P's are freelance. This means that the person is self employed and works on a temporary contract that only lasts a certain amount of time and may not have the same amount of benefits as a full time contract. The reason that freelances are common in the industry is that because once a freelance has finished their work on a production they are no longer needed and can leave, if they were on a full time contract and were no longer needed on shoot but still being payed it would be a waste of the production company's money. This is why contracts must be flexible. Freelances are in charge of finding their own work as they are not attaches to a company, they work for themselves giving them more flexibility between jobs.

Full / Part Time Contracts
Only some lines of employment in the industry are offered full time contracts, these are usually managerial or office based jobs and are usually permanent contracts unlike freelances who have temporary contracts. A full time contract is 39 working hours a week and can offer many benefits such as a pension plan, holiday time and sick pay. If you are on a permanent contract then you are classed as a regular member of the crew appose to freelance's who will come and go jumping between different crews and jobs. A part time contract is similar and offers similar benefits but they may be reduced, like a permanent contract you still have a set amount of hours you are expected to work a week but these hours are less and as a result offer less pay. Part time contracts are often only temporary.

Hours
Due to the fluidity of days on set some shoots may run longer than excepted or into the night. As well as this night shoots are very common as some scenes may need to be shot in the dark, to compensate for this workers paid extra for having 'anti social hours' these are hours were shooting runs over or if the cast or crew have to be on location very early or very late in order to set up or get the shot at the correct time of day. This is very common in the industry workers should expect long and hard days which may have anti social hours. Appose to these 'anti social' or 'irregular' hours crew members who work managerial or financial jobs often work 'office hours' traditionally this is 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. These are common hours for full time managerial contracts.

Live Shows
Crew who work on live shows such as news broadcasts and 24 hour radio stations will work in shifts. This means that they do a certain job for a certain amount of time until their shift is over and someone else comes in to take their job. Shifts can be long or short and may sometimes be night shifts where somebody has to work through the night in order to cover their shift.

Pay
It is very common in the industry to not be paid until the project is completed. This is known as being played on completion and is common as most workers are commissioned to create a certain project, if they do not completed this they are not payed. Simple. You must completed the piece of work to the standard that the contract states and completed for the date that it is due to be completed. If you do not do this you may not get payed. Freelancers with more creative roles are usually paid on completion where as managerial and financial roles tend to be paid on salaries. A salary is a set amount that you are paid annually which is split up and given to you monthly.

Showreel

Unit 8 Task 1: Studio Canal

Studio Canal is a French based production and distribution company who have own the third largest film library in the world giving them access to a huge number of films. Today Studio Canal mainly focus on distribution rather than production and are a division of Canal+ Group who themselves are owned by Vivendi. The company was founded in 1988 by Pierre Lescure Canal TV network. The original idea was to focus on distributing European and French films however strategic deals where made with American Production company's, probably because that's where all the money is. In the past Studio Canal have been involved in some huge productions most notably; Terminator 2, Cliffhanger, JFK, Basic Instinct and the original Stargate film. They have strong links to Universal studios as they were once both owned by the same company hence why Studio Canal co-produce a lot of Universal Studio films. StudioCanal acquired British-Irish distributor Optimum Releasing in 2006 as their 1st expansion into an international market.

Unit 8 Task 1: NBC

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) are owned by NBC Universal who themselves are a subsidiary of Comcast. NBC is an American commercial broadcasting television network based at Comcast headquarters in New York, with smaller offices located all over the States. They own and operate nearly 200 affiliated TV stations throughout the U.S as well as having rights to some stations over seas in countries such as Germany and South Korea. NBC are huge and are one of the 'Big Three' TV networks which are the three traditional commercial broadcasting TV networks that dominated American television from the 1940's all the way up to 1980's. The three big networks (ABC, CBS & NBC) all started out in 1941 originally running small local stations but eventually affiliating with other stations until covered the U.S. In 1986 General Electric purchased NBC until in 2003 when French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE forming NBC Universal. Comcast then purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011 and in 2013 acquired General Electrics reaming stakes.

NBC broadcast a huge amount of television shows all across the United States, but as of recently NBC are moving into creating their own original programming in what they call a 'robust original programing initiative' which they plan to distribute to online streaming site Hulu which is a joint venture between themselves ABC and a few other companies.

Unit 8:Job Flowchart

As part of this unit we had to understand the connection between roles in the film industry, to demonstrate this we created a flowchart showing how all of the Job roles link together. We gathered this information from sites such as Creative Skillset and BECTU. We made these flowcharts in groups and

Unit 26: 'Relationship with Film'

Intro
People interact with films in many different ways, some people view a film to kill time or just enjoy the movie were as others are more active in their viewing and like to interact and perhaps question the films reading. Some films are more ambiguous and leave the audience with an open ending giving them lots of work to do in figuring out what happened after the film. A passive audience member may dislike a film like this as they prefer to sit and absorb information instead of reading or questioning the true meaning behind the film. Some people go the extra mile to represent a film they like, they may have an emotional connection with the film and represent that via buying merchandise and/or cosplaying as their favourite film characters.

Passive & Active viewer-ship
People interact with films in many different ways, some people view a film to kill time or just enjoy the movie were as others are more active in their viewing and like to interact and perhaps question the films reading. Passive viewers are the first kind, they just sit down and enjoy a film without reading into its preferred meaning they watch films purely for entertainment. Some suggest that passive viewers are vulnerable to manipulation as they absorb all of the information a film throws at them without questioning it. A study from Frankfurt School in the 1930's calls Film the opium of the people, referring to it as a drug due to the fact that people may enticed by film into accepting incorrect values without being critical or questioning them. This is also the idea behind propaganda films which aim to influence the viewer and mould their political values to gain an advantage. The passive viewer may accept these values without questioning them. Active viewers may be more involved in the meaning of the film that they are watching. This suggests that all viewers are different and may perceive the text differently having different opinions on the meaning, this conflicts with passive viewers who are said to all share the same perspective on film. Active viewers don't just consume what they are told to watch via marketing but may go out of their way to find films they like. For example Active spectators of the horror genre may go out of their way to find different new or old horror films in order to sample everything that that genre has to offer, the active viewer knows that they like the tropes of a horror film so will seek them out when finding films to watch.

Preferred reading & Oppositional reading
Some films may have a hidden meaning that many audience members may not understand. A preferred reading is when the viewer takes up the films intended message and does not look any deeper than that, this is common of passive viewers as often oppositional readings are only found when the film is looked at and question by an active viewer from another perspective. Many films a have multiple meanings or opening endings leaving the audience to figure out the true meaning behind the film, as well as this some films may be non linear and difficult for some viewers to understand if they are not fully focused on trying to piece the story together. An oppositional reading is when the viewer rejects the films intended response and believes it means something, this may be to do with the films hidden message or how it represents a certain culture or political view.

An example of a popular film that people have preferred and oppositional readings for is Avatar. James Cameron said that the intention behind Avatar is that the Aliens are a primitive species who represent the native American people, they are noble and honourable but their land is destroyed by the invading humans who are said to represent white people when they settled in America. They came over and destroyed the land due to their greedy consuming way of using natural resources. This is the preferred meaning as it is the message that the director is trying to get across however some people have an oppositional reading to this film, that reading is that the Alien people represent the native Americans but are portrayed as savage and primitive and looked at as lesser than the Humans who represent the white people, this was down to the fact that the humans wanted to wipe out the aliens as they believed they were savage and did not want to coexist with them whilst they were using the aliens planet for its natural resources. People read the film this way and were offended as the majority of the cast used for the aliens were African American or of native American decent.



Fandom
Fandom is when a viewer or group of viewers go the extra mile to proclaim them self as a fan of a film. Audience's can be effected by film but also have the ability to effect films, and this applies in both ways to fandom. Fans are a set of people who really enjoy a certain film, series or character from the film. They often use this film or character to express themselves and can relate to them. They will often go the extra mile and make their favourite film their hobby to, they may do this by starting a blog, making videos on their favourite film, attending fan events and conventions, buying merchandise that relates to their favourite film and even dressing up and role playing as their favourite characters from the film. For them fandom is a way of life they love and respect their favourite film and may be considered obsessed with it, this obsession can effect the film itself as some fans turn director and create fan made homages to the film and/or even write their own fan fiction (short story's set in the films universe.) The most poignant example of a fandom is the Star Wars community. The fans of Star was helped turn the film into a cultural phenomenon by obsessing over it, they hold conventions to meet cast and crew whilst cosplaying (dressing up) as their favourite characters from the film. They may do this as they would rather live a life of fantasy than live their own life, it can be seen as a form of escape is from the mundaneness of everyday life. The introduction of social networking sites such as Facebook has given opportunity for many fan groups like this to be created as fans can communicate with other fans around the world online and even set up events.

Online Presence
Many films and film franchises have a strong online presence, this could be through the films website or various social media accounts such as facebook pages and twitter accounts. Films can do this to interact with their audience better helping them gain a better understanding of them which may help them create a better product in the future. Films may also use their online presence to stay relevant and in the public eye for longer gaining more attention. Movies tend have a heavy online presence when it comes to advertising, companys can advertise on websites that their target audience are likely to visit such as youtube and facebook overall having a good online presence may be effective in boosting your audience.

Unit 26: 'Producers and their audiences'

Marketing and distribution are massively important to a film and can if done right can bring the film great success. The point of marketing and distribution is being able to target your specific audience in order to get them to notice the films presence, it can raise awareness for the film and help it become more successful commercial. In this case study I will be talking about the Marketing strategies used by the Bond film Skyfall.

About Skyfall
Skyfall is the 23rd film in the James Bond franchise featuring Daniel Craig in his third performance as Bond. It was released in 2012 and was very successful.Skyfall was made on a huge budget, allowing them to have a large and expansive advertising and marketing campaign. It's owned by Sony a huge global conglomerate of the media industry, Sony are one of the biggest players in the game meaning the production company behind Skyfall had a lot of money to play with when creating the film. As well as this Sony Distributed the film via distributors they own; MGM and Colombia Pictures. The film was aimed at a global audience.

Synergy/Product Tie ins and Advertising 
Skyfalls marketing team collaborated with other companies to help promote film. Some of these companies included Heineken, Tom Ford Suits and Omega Seamaster Watches. These companies teamed up with Bond to help sell there product and this is known as synergy, this is when two companies team up and focus there efforts on 1 linked advertising campaign instead of two separate campaigns.

For example special creates of Heineken Beer were released before the Skyfall film with James Bond on them, giving buyers the chance to win tickets to the premier but as well as helping sell creates of beer this also raises awareness for the upcoming James Bond film. Heineken had an extended deal with Sony that also included having there product placed through out the Bond film. This is known as product placement and is a form of advertising used by many companies to get there product seen. This deal would be that Bond would trade his signature Vodka Martini (shaken not stirred) for a cool bottle of Heineken Beer, this upset some fans as they said it didn't fit bonds character however truth is the deal helped Sony finance the film as a lot of the money for the production came from this product placement. This meant the film got more money and overall could be made to a better standard. Heineken is a good product tie in for the Bond franchise as the two products target audiences overlap, Skyfall and Bonds main audience is Males over the age of 18 as is Heineken.

As well as this Tom Ford became the official suit for James Bond he can be seen wearing them in the film and Tom Ford suits used it to sell there suits during the release of Skyfall. This lead to an increase in demand for Tom Ford suits as many men recognise Bonds coolness meaning they are likely to buy a product he endorses, this was the same for the Omega Seamaster watches which became Bonds official watch.

An advert that was ran for Skyfall and James Bond could be seen on the Visit Britain website, the official tourism website for the UK. Visit Britain teamed up with Skyfall and James Bond in order to promote tourism in the UK, using James Bond to get people to come to Britain. This is synergy as Skyfall and Visit Britain benefited from this, Visit Britain got to run a cool James Bond themed advert on there website with the slogan 'Bond is Great Britain' and Skyfall got publicity from it.

Publicity
One of the key roles of  marketing and advertising teams is to help a film gain publicity. This can be done in a number of ways from releasing trailers to having the cast and crew appear on talk shows to discuss the film and also publicity stunts. One example of a 'publicity stunt' carried out for Skyfall is the films tie in to the London 2012 Olympics, more specifically the video staring Daniel Craig as James Bond that was used during the opening ceremony in which Bond escorts The Queen to the Olympic stadium and then sees them parachute in to the stadium during the live ceremony itself. Obviously the Queen and Bond themselves didn't actually parachute into the stadium but it was a good way to introduce the Queen to the Olympics and a great advertising ploy to get people talking about the latest Bond film; Skyfall.


Hype
Another marketing strategy used to gain publicity is building hype and getting people excited for the release of your film. This can be done by releasing trailers, teasers and carefully leaking information about the film. Hype is generated so that by the time the film is exhibited people are excited and cannot wait to go and see the film. Skyfall did this with a clever release schedule during 2011 and 2012. They announced the full cast and crew November 3rd 2011 four days before production, this got people talking about the film for the first time, then in 2012 on the 1st of May the first teaser was revealed. Next Daniel Craig appears with Queen during the Olympic opening ceremony in London, making people talk about the film some more. Four days later again the second trailer is dropped generating even more conversation about the film. Then two months later the official US trailer is shown once again getting people to talk about the film and finally in October Adele is announced as the official artist for Skyfall on the 1st of October 25 days before the film is released, the song blows up and creates a massive intrest in the film once again this time just before it it premièred. This slow build up of information about the film helps get the audience excited and keeps them talking about and spreading word of the film all the way up to its release.

Target Market Research
Like with any film it was very important for the producers of Skyfall to get there target market right in order to assure that the film is aimed at the correct people. For the producers of Skyfall it would have been very easy for them to see who their target audience was as the film is part of a long standing franchise with an already established target audience. The target audience for Skyfall was Males mainly over the age of 18, however the film was made to accommodate the younger viewers as well by reducing violence and foul language so that a larger group of people can view it at the cinema. The reason that the target audience for Skyfall is males over the age of 18 is because the film is of an action-thriller genre and market research such as analytics, focus groups and surveys will have helped Skyfalls marketing team identify that the action-thriller genre is most popular with males who happen to be over 18. Bond is huge in Britain and all over the world, which is why the Olympic games was such a good place to advertise Bond at as it was hosted in Britain and watched my millions around the entire world.

Conclusion
To conclude I believe that Skyfalls marketing strategy worked well and was very effective. The producers ensured that their film was known about well before release, using various methods such as product tie ins and publicity stunts in order to generate interest and hype in the film. They ensured that these advertisements and tie ins were aimed at the correct audience by advertising places the whole world would see such as the Olympic games.