Independent VS Mainstream films

Ella Overson

Film industry • What is the main film going audience? - The main film going audience is people aged 16-24 both male and

female.

• How do cinemas make most of their money? – As the cinemas do not make any money through ticket sales as that all goes to the production companies cinemas make most of their money from people purchasing food, drink and especially popcorn. As more people will be going to see a mainstream film than an independent film at the cinema they are more likely to only show the mainstream film on their screens as they will make more money from the sales of food.

• How do you get a film into the cinema? – A film gets in the cinema by having someone called a distributor go around to the different cinemas and convince people why their film should be shown on their screens. It is much harder for independent films to be shown in the cinema because the cinemas will only mainly show films they know will bring a lot of people into the cinema.

• What does a distributor do? - Distributors explain their films to different cinemas and convince them to show the film they are presenting on their screens.

Low budget film Paranormal Activity

• The low budget film I have chosen to analyse is ‘Paranormal Activity’

• This film was produced by ‘Blumhouse Productions’ and ‘Solana Films’ and distributed by ‘Paramount Pictures’

• The budget for this film was $15,000

• The amount of money made from this film was $193.4 million

• The production company for ‘Paranormal activity’ was ‘Blumhouse Productions’ which isn’t a very well known production company however the company have also produced other successful horror movies.

High budget filmTitanic

• The high budget film I have decided to analyse is ‘Titanic’

• This film was produced by ‘20th Century Fox’, ‘Paramount Pictures’ and ‘ Lightstorm Entertainment’

• This was distributed by ’20th Century Fox’ (international) and ‘Paramount Pictures’ (North America)

• The budget for this film was $200 million

• The amount of money made from this film was $2.187 billion

• The production company ‘20th Century Fox’ is a very well known production company and is included in ‘ The big six’ of production companies. However ‘Paramount Pictures’ and ‘Lightstorm Entertainment’ are not very well known.

Differences and Similarities• Differences – The differences between my low budget film and high budget film chosen in terms of

institutions is that the high budget film was produced by a very well known production company ‘20th Century Fox’ and the low budget film was produced by ‘Blumhouse Productions’ which is not a well known production company.

• Similarities – A similarity between my low budget film and high budget film I have chosen is they were both distributed by ‘Paramount Pictures’. Another similarity between these films is they both made a very large profit after taking away their budget.

Production companies20th Century Fox Paramount Pictures

- ‘20th Century Fox’ produced the very successful film ‘Titanic’ and have also produced other very successful films such as ‘Avatar’, ‘ Gone Girl’, ‘The fault in our stars’ and ‘Taken’. These films and more produced by 20th century fox have been very successful and made big profits.

- ‘Paramount Pictures’ produced the film ‘Paranormal Activity’ which was very successful considering it had a very low budget and the company also produced ‘Interstella’, ‘The wolf of wall street’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ which were all successful considering ‘Paramount Pictures’ is not one of the main production companies.

Genre and audience20th Century Fox Paramount Pictures

The genre of films this company typically produces is a very wide range including romances, science fiction, action and many more. When deciding what production company could produce your film it is very important to consider what film genres they usually produce as it would be best for the film to choose a producer which has experience with your film genre.

Paramount Pictures produce films in many different genres including horror, science fiction, comedy and many more.

As ‘20th Century Fox’ have produced many different films the audience which they aim the film towards will be always changing. In todays society production companies aim their films towards 16-24 year olds.

As ‘Paramount Pictures’ have produced many different types of films the audiences they aim their films towards will always be changing. For example if Paramount Pictures was releasing a romance film their main target audience would be females aged 16-24.

Institution success In my opinion ‘20th Century Fox’ have produced more successful films and are a more successful production company compared to ‘ Paramount Pictures’. Although paramount pictures have been very successful with some films they produce 20th century fox are very successful on many films they produce and also make very large profits.