Section B Essay

Section B Essay

• 1.
  The question asto whether ‘media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences’ provokes much debate and is a highly controversial and emotive subject. On the one hand there is the global film industry, dominated by Hollywood and its celebrities with seemingly unlimited budgets versus the small, independent film companies who may only have a few hundred thousand pounds per movie and relatively unknown actors to promote its productions. Obviously, the small national film companies struggle to maintain their audiences against such overwhelming finance and publicity and heavily rely upon the quality of the scripts and the actors to ensure that the films are a success with the limited resources available. There is doubt that the film industry is dominated by global film institutions who are able to take more risks because of the huge amounts of money that their movies are constantly bringing in and so can frequently produce highly publicised films which national companies can in no way compete with. <br />Many British film companies produce films which are based around British culture and tend to portray it in its true form. An example of this is This Is England, directed by Shane Meadows and produced by Film4 (a film company headed by Tessa Ross which produces many films that are based around national cultures; for example, Slumdog Millionaire, Four Lions and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands) which centres on young skinheads in England in 1983. Though this is good because it gives audiences a chance to see an honest interpretation of a culture, because the context of the film isn’t familiar to other countries, it won’t appeal as much to them as it would to the domestic market and so has a limited audience and therefore would make a lower profit globally, even though it may be successful within its own country. This means national companies cannot begin to take more risks and create more successful and globally recognized future productions and will therefore continue to be dominated by more thriving global institutions. <br />Since 2000, Thin Man Films, a British company has produced just four films. Compare this to Warner Bros. Pictures which has 482 films since 2000 and the difference between national and global companies is obvious; Warner Bros. is obviously far more successful. The matter of national companies never being able to become as successful as global ones is an endless cycle; because global companies have more money, they are able to afford more well-known actors, better locations, props, costumes and special effects and more advertising which then attracts both global and national audiences to see their films rather than lower-budget national films and then results in them gaining higher profits. This then means that they can go on to make more high-budget films while national companies struggle in comparison because they are never able to gain the money needed for these different aspects. For example, Warner Bros. last film which was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1allowsd HallHHHHHhhhhhhhhghhhh made a profit of $942,645,304 whereas Thin Man Films last film made a profit of only $5,960,866. This shows that the national company will continue to struggle compared to the global company in that it will be more difficult for them to make future productions due to a lack of money; this shows that global companies will most likely always dominate smaller national audiences as they are able to attract more people to see their films. <br />Due to the fact that generally international films are more successful than those made by national companies, more and more British actors are moving to America to star in films aimed at global audiences as this means they are able to become better known and earn more money per film. For example, Cillian Murphy starred in the British film 28 Days Later (directed by Danny Boyle) and since then has gone on to star in various American films such as The Dark Knight and Inception. Compared to 28 Days Later which made an overall gross profit of $82,955,633, Inception made a huge $825,476,195 because of the fact that global companies can spend huge amounts of money on well-known actors, special effects and many different locations and most importantly advertising. Because actors are obviously going to be paid more for these global films it is easy to see why they would be more attracted to star in. However, this means that British companies are going to always be less successful because without well-known stars (who they are unable to offer large salaries) that can bring a lot of money to our industry, it is not able to expand and create better films. Because of this British films lose out as they are not able to gain as much publicity compared to those big-budget movies with more well-renowned stars and consequently do not gain as much money to produce future films which means the industry continues to be overshadowed by the Hollywood blockbusters. <br />It can be argued, however, that because global institutions dominate national audiences, meaning there is less money going into British institutions and they have less money for big scenes and different locations, they have to be cleverer in the films they produce particularly in their storylines, making them far more special than those made by a global company. So although national institutions may be limited in terms of the lack of money, the artistic quality of the products and services that they distribute may actually be greater due to the fact that they have to generate more individual and exciting ideas that will attract audiences because they are unable to take the risk of making a film that may not sell because of lack of interest or because it is similar to others that have been made by larger, global companies. Therefore, this raises the question that if national companies were more successful, would their films still be as unique? <br />An example which can argue this is that Working Title Films have adapted in order to appeal to global audiences and so they produce films that have similar storylines (such as typical romantic comedies, for example, which are familiar and don’t take much effort to watch in that there is nothing too deplorable or intense about them) to those that are created by global companies. Though this has made their films (such as Notting Hill which made a gross revenue of $363,889,678, compared to Trainspotting’s $16,491,080) more successful than other darker, and arguably true to life, British films, it means they have lost out on making their own unique style. Therefore, though this is an example of national films being big in other countries and means they are being less dominated by global institutions it also shows that global institutions dominate national audiences in that some British companies feel as though they have to become more generic in order to be recognized on a larger scale which is obviously a negative point, but it could also be seen as negative if global companies were to stop dominating national films as this could mean that other British companies could lose their individuality as they would no longer need to try so hard due to the potential risk of a film losing money that they inevitably do not have. <br />On the other hand, both the honest and individualistic style of British films can be seen as negative as it means that they are often more gritty and harder to watch than films produced by global companies, which in contrast can show real life in a much more glamorous and almost too-perfect manner. In addition, British films can also make the audience question their own lives much more. Though this makes for much more creative productions, the sometimes shocking realism of them could be deterring audiences from wanting to watch national films and means that the exaggerated version of life shown in global films continues to dominate localized audiences. <br /> An example of this is Trainspotting, a British drama, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan Mcgregor. Though it was very controversial due to the use of drugs shown within the film, it received almost universal praise from critics and was nominated for various awards. In contrast, Moulin Rouge also starred Ewan Mcgregor but was produced by the American company, 20th Century Fox. Though the storyline was far less original than Trainspotting, its musical genre made it much more fun and easy to watch, which was likely to have made it appeal to a much wider audience, and overall was a more successful film in that it made a profit of $162,722,354 more. <br />In conclusion, whilst global companies certainly do overshadow national film institutions, the national companies play an important part in film culture today and have on several occasions proved that money is not everything. Many Hollywood stars started their careers when starring in national low-budget productions and the success of some of these has catapulted them into opportunities for the elusive Hollywood roles that most actors dream of. The fact that many now well-known actors still want to appear in British films show that the quality and uniqueness of these still carries a great attraction which cannot be found elsewhere, so although national audiences may be dominated by global institutions which unfortunately means it is generally harder for national companies to flourish and gain the larger sums of money needed to produce big numbers of blockbuster movies, the companies make up for this in their artistic talent which creates individual films that are remembered for questionably much longer than some global films for their honest and creative flair. <br />