Nieeve Quinn

Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and

distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production
practices.
In my opinion, I would have to agree with this statement as I think the
success or failure of a particular film relies on good marketing and
distribution as well as having good production qualities. For a movie such
as Star Wars huge amounts of advertisement is produced to engage the
huge intended audience, this consists of things like posters, trailers, TV
spots, childrens toys etc. The only way this is able to be created is by
having a large budget from a wealthy film company, for Star Wars the
Force Awakens this is exactly what has been achieved. Disney studios was
the production team that distributed this movie and were able to put
forward a large sum of money to add to the film budget that was made by
Lucasfilm, they are able to do this due to owning other companies where
they can take some money away such as Pixar, ABC and ESPN. Disney is
well known for being a massive company and has made numerous movies
that have been hugely successful and have raised a lot of wealth. Due to
the size of Disney studios they are able to afford different types of
marketing to advertise the new Star Wars film, this means that although
the Star Wars series is already massively popular throughout society they
are able to make sure that everyone can see the first looks of this movie.
This has been done by using different types of strategies for example,
posters were used on billboards, buses or shop windows. Trailers or TV
spots were also featured on TV during the 3 minute breaks between shows
which has been due to Disney being worth a lot of money. TV
advertisement is constructed as a very costly media platform with adverts
that can cost up to 1,000,000. This means that in order for movies to
feature on TV there has to be wealthy film companies involved. However
other methods of marketing was used through the use of electronic
devices. Disney would sponsor certain apps e.g. games, social media in
order to show a 15 second clip or banners advertising the movie by
presenting the basic movie poster that is shown everywhere. This enables
that all members of the intended audience see a hint of the film and
makes sure all ages can recognise the movie title. For example, elderly
people or children are more likely to see posters and trailers whereas
teenagers or young adults are more than likely using their electronic
devices and seeing the advertisement in the digital form. Also people
could not only purchase the DVD or Blu-ray disk they could also download
the movie on their electronic devices meaning they could watch it multiple
times which would appeal to the younger generation. This is an example
of a positive aspect of having good quality marketing and distribution.
However there are other factors of Star Wars the Force Awakens that
could have resulted in its success of earning over $2 billion in the box
office worldwide. For instance, the director J.J. Abrams is well known for
making movies such as Mission Impossible, Star Trek, Cloverfield etc. Due

Nieeve Quinn

to the success of these films it could add to the success of this Star Wars
film by the audience recognising the director and knowing his work
already or perhaps the film company who made the movie. Lucasfilm is
owned by George Lucas and was founded in 1971 and has previously
made all the other Star Wars films, as those movies were hugely popular
the audience may know this film was filmed within the tradition. These
factors may have made Star Wars as successful as it was.
Star Wars the Force Awakens was filmed with high quality technology and
production practices. The movie was filmed in Pinewood Studios that is
famous for the making of the James Bond franchise, it was captured on
65mm IMAX cameras and filmed on film instead of digital. This was done
as some producers may argue that film has a noticeably better quality
then digital. Star Wars was rated 4.3/5 by the website Rotten Tomatoes
showing a huge amount of the audience enjoyed the film especially the
high quality special effects and motion picture. Film companies Lucasfilm
and Bad Robot productions came together and worked to make the movie
by combining their money to form a $306 million budget, this enabled that
high quality technology would be used and in ordered that the film would
look realistic and professional. Lucasfilm is a large company compared to
Bad Robot which is seemed to be a small business with a lack of money,
by both these film productions teaming up it means more money can be
involved to purchase props, setting, casting etc. Bad Robot would be
unable to create a film of this size due to having a lack of wealth and
technology. The film only consists of one A-list star Harrison Ford who
plays the role of Han Solo, he tries to defeat a new threat with his allies
Rey and Finn who is played by new actors Daisy Ridley and John Boyega.
Star Wars has no need to have a lot of A-list stars due to the franchise
already being hugely popular and recognised worldwide. Casting also
contains some actors from the previous Star Wars films in order to make
the movies have some familiarity and isnt completely different with a
whole new cast. For example, Carrie Fisher who plays Princess Leia, Mark
Hamill who plays Luke Skywalker and Peter Mayhew who plays
Chewbacca. By doing this the audience also recognises the characters and
the storyline. The first few scenes at the start of Star Wars the Force
Awakens were filmed in Abu Dhabi, this made filming hard due to the heat
and the amount of clothing the actors/actresses had to wear which made
it difficult to work and concentrate. Special effects that were used in this
movie were portrayed when making the character Maz Kanata. Maz was
played by actress Lupita Nyongo who has been featured in films such as
12 Years a Slave, The Jungle Book and more, shes received 6 awards
including an Oscar for her role as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave. Maz was
made by using mouth motion capture so when the actresses mouth
moved so did the characters, this makes the character look much more
realistic and believable. Motion capture body double was also used to
copy the actresses body movements, this was then edited by the use of

Nieeve Quinn

CGI. White dots were placed over Lupitas face, body, arms and legs in
order to capture her movements to later on replace it with Mazs
characteristics. CGI is also used throughout the movie for things such as
explosions happening in space and spaceships which included green
screens, however most props used were built and made by people on the
production team, this went with the traditional Star Wars films as they
both made the movies in similar ways.
Star Wars the Force Awakens is recognised worldwide which resulted in
high anticipation as soon as the audience got the first look of the film.
Although in places such as China there is a lack of knowledge of the past
Star Wars films, in order to engage their attention to the movie they
involve certain celebrities that Chinese people may recognise. This is done
so that they can find something in common with the franchise due to that
chosen celebrity suggesting to watch the film. Due to the high
expectations Disney had to make sure the movies distribution was of high
standards and met everyones needs. Star Wars was placed in over 2,000
cinemas in the USA due to the popularity rates and stayed for a relative
number of weeks. The film was distributed digitally despite being filmed
on film, by transferring the film digitally the companies are able to save
large amounts of money as its a lot cheaper and saves a lot of time. In
order to see the movie on film the audience can view it in IMAX cinemas
which has a bigger widescreen, however only certain cinemas are showing
the film version - the majority are showing digital. The only distributors of
Star Wars the Force Awakens was Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
this film only had one distributor as the movie was already hugely popular
and can easily be recognised. In addition, Disney can already guarantee
the success of this film due to the large quantity of the company. The
bigger the film company the more money its made and so the better
known the business is. However this is not always the case, although
Disney may be very well known there are some movies that didnt raise as
much money in the box office despite this company being the main
distributor. The movie John Carter had a similar film budget as Star Wars
with reasonable directors and casting that had high quality technology
and special effects but only made a few hundred million more than it cost
to make the film. In the film industry this is considered a fail. Reasoning
behind this can only be seen in the marketing area which was
accomplished by Walt Disney Studios, the advertisement side of this
movie had a lack of quantity and regularity. Not enough people from the
intended audience were aware of the films presence, this proves that the
success or failure of a movie relies heavily on the marketing and
distribution of a film.
Blockbuster films such as Star Wars are part of the four quadrant picture.
This is when a movie is intended or targeted at everyone despite their age
or gender which shows Star Wars as a mainstream film. Star Wars the
Force Awakens is appropriate for every person including males and

Nieeve Quinn

females that normally have different tastes in movie choices. Star Wars
contains action, science fiction, romance and a hint of comedy. For niche
films in order for them to engage a larger audience they would have to
add extra elements to the movie e.g. action films attracts more males, to
appeal to females the director may add a love interest as this is what
stereotypically women like to see in movies. The same thing is used for
romance films they may add a famous male actor to attract more males.
Star Wars has no need for these actions due to it already being hugely
popular with the older generation this is because they more than likely
grew up with the other movies so their children will also go and watch the
film due to the rating being a 12A. This rating allows children under the
age of 12 to witness violent occurrences with their parents or their
permission, 12A movies contain things such as discrimination, drugs,
nudity, sex or threat. This can be considered too extreme for children
under the age of 12 and could show imitated behaviour of characters
actions so its the parents choice whether they see it or not. Four
quadrant movies also contain cross marketing by selling products for a
range of different people that have been influenced by Star Wars. For
example, make-up inspired by Star Wars, childrens toys such as light
savers, costumes in all sizes that have been copied from characters and
more.
Overall, the success or failure of a film depends on multiple things.
Although having a good director, cast, producers, special effects and
editing is beneficial so is the quality and quantity of the marketing and
distribution methods. This has been shown by comparing the success of
Star Wars (earned $2.066 billion) to John Carter (earned $284.1 million),
both have similar production details but different marketing techniques,
this would suggest that the failure is down to the advertisement and not
the making qualities. However Star Wars wouldnt have been as
successful without having the high quality technology, special effects and
good acting despite the franchise already having a supreme rating. In my
opinion, in order to have gained a money making movie I think the
production and marketing or distribution should be equally as good to
back up their success.