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Saturday 27 September 2008

Across Racial Lines - an essay on THE WIRE

This essay examines the most expressive racial reprensentation in a US TV programme since "ROOTS".

Video Essay on the Kings and Pawns scene from THE WIRE

After you click on the link click on the smaller video image.
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/kings-and-pawns-20080801#

TV Drama - 5 video essays on the opening sequence of THE WIRE

This video essay is by a leading academic on what many critics are saying is greatest TV drama of all time is goldust! Check out the links to other video essays in The Museum of the Moving Image.
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/extra-credit-part-1-20080728

Tuesday 23 September 2008

An interesting link for analysing and studying media corporations

A condensed concept map of what the major media corporations own just in the USA! Click on the map to enlarge.
This is a useful site with good posts and links on mass media organisiations.
Check out the analysis and the links for extending your own knowledge of institutions and the issues surrounding them.
http://powerofmediaconglomeration.blogspot.com/

I've also place this link in the media ownership section of links on the right of this blog.

Gladiator case study information

Jill Nelms's book "An Introduction to Film Studies" is essential reading for our class case study film, "Gladiator". Do not ignore the value of what can be found in books for your individual case study films.

http://books.google.com/books?id=vb_1ma9DKH0C&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=gladiator+case+study&source=web&ots=0jBd3E-uqw&sig=_M-dmK884o1FfEtY8ICkj8Ri_QA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA27,M1

NBC Universal Cable Networks

Look what they own! And that's just the TV cable networks.
http://www.nbc.com/nbc/NBC_Universal_Cable_Networks/

Sunday 21 September 2008

The concentrated ownership of the media - charts on media ownership

The media ownership charts that you can see with this link offer ready understanding of this difficult issue.
http://www.uwm.edu/People/woodsa/chart.html

Brief essays on Mass Media Ownership and how it manipulate the young

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/themes/mediagiants.html

What is a Film Distribution Company?

This information was found on the Net and it some of it may be somewhat out of date. Still, it's a starting point.

What is a Film Distribution Company?
The motion picture industry is very much dominated by large and very diversified conglomerates, such as The Walt Disney Co., News Corp., Sony Corp., Time Warner Inc., and Viacom Inc. which finance the development of new products, in this case motion pictures, own vast libraries of older products, and often own distribution channels for bringing these new products to the public. Sometimes the distributor will finance the movie from beginning to end and other times, they provide a portion of the finances and subsequently receive a cut of the profits.

According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), films financed by major distributors cost $53 million in 1998, almost triple the price tag of 10 years ago. Some films such as Titanic may cost in the range of $100 million while others, such as The Blair Witch Project, may be produced for $15 million or less, especially when they generate box office sales of nearly $140 million as this one did.

Where do Distribution Companies get their finances?
According to Standard & Poor?s, 20% is derived from domestic theater rentals (the movie theater renting a copy of the film of a new movie), 20% coming from foreign theaters, 40% from home video, and television provides the remaining 20%. The distributor?s portion of the theater rentals usually comes to about 50% of the box office total.

They consolidate their costs by taking on the marketing functions for more films produced by other companies. However, they also may have a lower payoff if the movie should have extraordinary success.

Where is the power of the industry concentrated and what are its sources?
The power of the industry is very much dominated in the distribution companies, for the product, the film, can not be completely produced without the finances and influence of the distribution company. These vast entertainment conglomerates very much dominate the industry because they do have more clout with theater owners and TV networks, if they do not own their own subset within the very conglomerate. They can offer brand name recognition to the viewer, and have more connections to the creative talent and experience with effective management. Having copyrights to any popular characters or brand names may seriously affect the success and thus the power of the distribution company, as seen in MTV, CNN?s Larry King Live, and of course Walt Disney. Access to capital is also a very significant factor in a distributor?s potential power. By examining the operating cash flow and the severity of debt as well as the ease with which the company may repay its debt is often an indicator of possible power.




Monday 15 September 2008

British Films In Production

Gladiator's director, Ridley Scott talking to Russell Crowe during production.

This is a good site to find a film that you can track for its production, distribution, marketing and exhibition. Very useful for case studies.
http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilms/inprogress/

Wednesday 10 September 2008

This is a useful site for studying Music Programmes on TV

Excellent resources and the tutor is the chief examiner!
http://longroadmusicontv.blogspot.com/

Film Distribution

For links on film distribution in the US and UK see my AS and A2 Film Studies blog. The link is in the top right hand column of this blog.