Media Institutions and Audiences

1. What kind of Media Institution might distribute your Media Product and why?

2. What are Media Institutions? Give appropriate examples!

3. Who would be the audience for your Media Product and why?

Stephanie Mareen Kufferath-Kassner

I think if i was to promote and distribute my product i would do it the same way it was done with the new Horror movie Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity was done by a newly formed independent company and then they presented the movie on the Slamdance Film Festival. It was so successful that Dreamworks saw it and decided to do a remake. So Paranormal Activity is an example of an independent film made without any studio funding. Another example of this would have been the movie “Colin” which is a zombie movie that was made for about 5 pounds, but people talked about it and therefore it made a huge profit in the end.

However it is very difficult to be lucky enough to get accepted at a film festival so that your film will actually be seen, but still I think it is a great idea because you do the movie the way you like it and then the Media Institutions can think of whether they believe it’s worth to do a remake. Personally I like the „platform release“ because if it develops all over the world you know the movie is great. I think if I would show my film at a film festival an American Institution which would appeal to it „New Line Cinema“ because they do movies like „Final Destination“ and our movie also deals with the „supernatural“. However I would also try to target my film at „Hammer Film Productions“ which are also known as „Hammer Horror“. It is a film production company based in the United Kingdom that used to dominate the horror film market and used to do great successes like “Frankenstein” and “Dracula”. Now they are restarting and therefore they would maybe use my horror film. I think they would be good because they also have the long-time experience from the past because they were founded in 1934.

2. A media institution is an established, often profit-based organization, which deals with the creation and distribution of advertising, entertainment and information services. Normally it is split into many different institutions where each one of them deals with another area and they all just “live” under the same name. Media Institutions largely exist internationally, which means that they work all over the world, like Warner Bros.. This is called „horizontal integration“. Warner Bros. Is a Media Institution that works, of course vertically which means that the do the production, the distribution and sometimes even the exhibition. But they also work horizontally which means that they do not only own other little productions like New Line Cinema in this case, but they have an own TV Chanel, Warner Bros. Used to own AOL as an internet server as well as a Radio Station and the publishing „Time“. This is very useful because if they have a new movie coming up they can advert for it in their own magazine. All in all this means that they own a wide range of Media and not only the film industry. Warner Bros. is a high-budget Institution that produces movies with A-List celebrities. There are a huge company so they have their own existence and have the opportunity to get the best actors, great equipment, an experienced crew as well as better locations. They also have the money to produce lots of advert which makes the people go and see the movie. Their costs are immense, but they do big productions such as “Harry Potter” or “Matrix” and therefore they are still making profits because they also do blanket releases which means that there are lots of copies of the movie which are then shown all over the world because they expect that many people want to see the movie.

However they can also exist in a smaller and national form, like the BBC. One hugely known medium-budget Media Institution is New line cinema which is part of Warner Bros.. This means that they do productions without i-max-cameras and use lesser known actors to save money. Their advertising is very small and their movies are platform released. This means that there are only a few copies of the movie which are only shown in few cinemas and when they are good people talk about them and so the movie is copied again and sent into more cinemas. That’s called word of mouth. Therefore only little money is spent but you mostly get a profit still.

3. I think the audience for my Media Production would be female and male but mostly males because I think when the movie is completed it will not only be scary but also bloody and males prefer such movies. I think my age group will be teens at the age of 15 to adults at the age of 25 because they are the age group that spend money for movies that are entertaining, so called „fun-Films“. But still for the 15 year olds it could get problematic because I feel that the age limit is going to be 18. As the main audience is 15-25 males I think the secondary audience would be 25 to 34 year old who enjoy watching horror movies and are maybe even huge fans. Another secondary audience would be 16 to 25 year old females, who are taken to the cinema by their boyfriends. And then maybe people that have seen and liked movies like “The Orphanage” and “Final Destination” or any other horror movie that deals with the supernatural and is bloody because then they would like to go and see our movie as well.