Hollywood films are the major film producers in the world having achieved masses of success over the years they have been running. Whereas Independent films have always had a niche target audience, producing films that aren’t mainly commercial but a form of art. This seems to be the main conflict between Hollywood film makers and independent film makers. Both these film producers have different goals when producing a film. Hollywood film makers look at the commercial success and financial success the film will have, however independent film makers look at films in terms of creating unique works of art that inspire their viewers. This seems to be a major debate. Therefore one difference between the two film production companies is their personal goals when making a film. Hollywood film makers goals are to make commercial production which sell to larger target audiences, whereas independent film makers are their to produce films which are unique works of art, therefore selling to a smaller target audience.
In order for Hollywood film makers to gain this goal, they create films which are full of special effects, big Hollywood actors/actresses, famous director’s expensive sets/locations etc. For examples films such ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End’ had one of the most successful financial gain that the Hollywood films industry has ever seen. The film had been set on a boat and had many different mis-en-scenes which attracted audiences to the film therefore making it sell more to the public. The costumes were too attractive and vibrant allowing audiences to see the richness of the characters and film in general. However in order to achieve this success, Hollywood film makers must begin with a large budget. For example Gore Verbinski, director of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End’ had set a budget of $300million in order to produce the film. Having also directed films such ‘The Ring’ in 2002 and ‘Mousehunt’ in 1997, he was aware that the budget for main-steam Hollywood movies must be high in order to attract audiences and make money, effectively their main goal.
However in comparison to Hollywood film producers, independent producers are more concerned with making art and films that are visually exciting without using fancy special effects and big Hollywood names. Independent film producers consist of individual artists which inspires the public. Therefore the target audience for these films are small and only appeal to a person who is particularly interested in a specific topic. Because of this they have a small budget as they don’t intend to make money but rather an impact on the audience. . For example, a small British based distribution company called ‘Mira max’ distributed a film called ‘Clerks.’ It had a small budget of only £27, 575 in comparison to the Hollywood film Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End’ which had a budget of $300million. Therefore this shows the huge difference in both industries in terms of investing money. In the end they didn’t make as much as they spent. They only made £20,000. again this shows how the two media developing industries differ in terms of making profit and each industries goal.
Similarly in Hollywood production advertising their production plays a very important role in making profit and achieving their goals. A Hollywood film will be distributed through many countries via trailers, billboards, interviews, reviews, pop-ups on the internet web pages, radio, premieres and other forms of media. Due to setting larger budgets they are able to market their products world wide in order to sell to audiences. This enhances more sales as more people know about it. On the other hand independent film producers have very small budgets for the marketing, producing and distributing therefore they cannot afford to pay for billboards, posters, internet pop ups on the web pages, etc. An Independent film relies simply on the use of ‘Word Of Mouth.’ This is when the film is heard of and spread about through different people and society. This isn’t always the best form of advertising as it may not always reach the correct target audience for that film. For example if a racing film is produced and a group of girls hear about it, it is not very likely that they will go to see it, therefore it is an unreliable method of distribution. So again another difference between the two industries is the form of distribution of a particular production. The Hollywood producers tend to use the mass media in order to advertise the production, promoting it to a mass audience, whereas independent producers distribute mainly via word of mouth, therefore only appealing to a small market.
However recently independent film producers have introduced another method of advertising; by taking their film and placing it in a ‘Film Festival.’ There are film festivals all over the world. This is a regular event where all directors take their film and screen it for a large variety of distributors. An example would be ‘This Is England.’ Directed by Shane Meadows, this film was taken on as the Best British film award as well as Shane Meadows getting an award for the Best British director. Independent films rely simply and only on what they are given for their film, they can not afford to be paying for big promoting materials. They also have to rely on getting reviews and interviews which are then put into newspapers or magazines by the newspaper or magazine company themselves. For example dead man’s shoe which was reviewed by ‘Humphrey Jeffery’ and said to be ‘A film telling the history of England! Truly recommended. This helped for the people to make awareness of the films. They can also rely on an internet based fan club. This is when there are fans of the club who have seen the film. They then later go on to write a review or have a debate on a specific discussion topic about the film or based on the film. This is usually done on a blog or a forum and/archive/ of some sort. This helps to spread word of mouth which the film to spread around giving it a wider audience range to have reviews from therefore telling the director whether or not his/her film has reached the right audience or not and how successfully it has done this. Therefore independent producers are slowly getting into the main stream market of advertising the productions.
Also Hollywood films industries are one of the largest film producing companies around. For example one of the major brands in Hollywood film production is ‘Walt Disney Pictures.’ They have made movies from the worlds best directors and producers. For example: Jungle Book was released in1990 and had a budget of $10 million USD. This movie was then shown at the Sundance Film Festival 2003, 2 months before the release of the film where it was bought by Walt Disney Pictures and distributed around the US. Walt Disney Pictures also has many major international companies which for its distribution as it later went on to be shown in many other countries around the world such as the UK, all over Europe, Egypt, and Australia. It further went on to release in another 40 countries. It made a profit of $18 million. Therefore having such big brands working in the Hollywood industry it is able to have bigger budgets to distribute, produce and market their production. The Hollywood industry generate a lot of money from selling products (e.g jungle book lunch box and pens etc) and selling copies of films on DVD, blu ray etc. whereas independent film companies don’t tend to do that.
Overall there are many differences between the way both industries work, having two separate goals both production companies achieve great success in their own personal goals.
No comments:
Post a Comment