Vertical and Horizontal Integration

Vertical Integration
In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of growth and management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or (market-specific) service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It is contrasted with horizontal integration. Vertical integration has also described management styles that bring large portions of the supply chain not only under a common ownership, but also into one corporation.

Horizontal Integration
In business, horizontal integration is a strategy where a company creates or acquires production units for outputs which are alike - either complementary or competitive. One example would be when a company acquires competitors in the same industry doing the same stage of production. Another example is the management of a group of products which are alike, yet at different price points, complexities, and qualities. This strategy may reduce competition and increase market share by using economies of scale.

Mrs D

I continue to be very impressed by your thorough research. Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing it applied to an essay question soon.

Study of the Film Industry

Unique selling points of the film:

• Includes a wider genre so it appeals to a wider audience.
• The actors are well know and are well paid so the film must be good as the actors are popular.
• Chris Hemsworth-inherited audience.

It is a sequal, so it already has an established audience.
Connection with Marvel Comics-The 8th installment in the Marvel Comics Universe.
CGI spcial effects has high production values.

Production companies involved:

• Marvel Entertainment Subsidiary of Walt Disney Corporation.
• Marvel Studios Subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment

Distributed (theatrical and DVD release)-Walt Disney Company are the Coglomerate.

Thor (Post 15)

The Thor 2 official Facebook page.

Thor (Post 14)

The Thor 2 Official Twitter page.

In Fear (Post 4)

This is the In Fear trailer.

In Fear (Post 3)

This is a screenshot of a review for the film.

In Fear (Post 2)

This is a screenshot of the main cast and the characters they play.

In Fear (Post 1)

This is a screenshot of the IMDb In Fear page.

Focus of Exam

Focus of Exam
Exploring the state of the film industry
Looking at how today's film industry is changing
Comparing small budget with blockbusters
The people who own and make films

What I need to do
Looking at cinemagoing
Keep up to date with recent releases
Keep up to date with news about cinema
Read film magazines
Own consumer habits

Key Terms
Technology
Ownership
Conglomerate
Independent and Mainstream
Convergence
Synergy
Cross-media
Audiences
Production, Distribution and Exchange

Thor (Post 13)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gameloft.android.ANMP.GloftTRHM
Thor 2 official game

Thor (Post 12)

Thor 2 Loki featurette

Unit Introduction

Unit Introduction (Main Case Studies, Thor 2 and In Fear.)
Out of 50 (20 marks for question, analysis and explanation. 20 marks for examples and 10 marks for terminology.)

·        There will be one question on the exam about the film industry.

·        It is worth 25% of your overall mark.

Production, Distribution, Marketing and Exchange.

Convergence- different technology coming together.

Synergy- different media coming together.

Sony- multinational company.

·        29% of cinema audiences are aged 15-24.

·        More than half of 15-24 year olds visit the cinema once a month.

·        In 2012 the UK Box Office took over £1 billion

·         646 films were released in the UK last year.

·         Saturday is the most popular night, 24.1% of Box Office.

·         Sunday 17.6%.

·         Friday 16.4%.

·         Wednesday 13.5%.

·         Monday, Tuesday and Thursday about 9.4%.

In 2012 the most popular genres with Box Office:

 

·        Action 34.5%

·        Comedy 17.5%

·        Drama 14.2%

·        Animation 12.2%

·        Horror 4.4%

·        Rom Com 1%

In 2012 over £300 million was spent on prints and advertising by film distributors.

Think Like A Man, The Hunger Games and The Avengers were the most tweeted movies in 2012.

·        People spend on average 16 minutes in the foyer.

·        About 40% of a cinema’s profit comes from refreshments.

Top 3D releases of 2012

·        Marvel Avengers Assemble

·        The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

·        Prometheus

·        The Amazing Spiderman

·        Life Of Pi

3D accounts for just under £1 in every £5 spent on cinema tickets.

·        BBC iPlayer had 6 million requests every say in 2012.

·        Just 4% of all film viewing is at the cinema.

·        35% of TV sets sold in the UK are super-sized.

·        On average, people watch 4 hours of TV per day.

Top 3 films of 2012 (Skyfall, Dark Knight Rises and Marvel Avengers Assemble) accounted 18% of all Box Office spend about 1 in every £6 spent.

14% of retail buyers bought a film they had previously seen at the cinema.

·        60% of 16-30 year olds believe film content should be free when accessed online.

The most pirated films of 2012 according to Bit Torrent are:
·        Project X, 8.72 million downloads
·        Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, 8.5 million downloads
·        The Dark Knight Rises: 8.23 million downloads

These are all shared viewing experiences.

Cinema going is a shared experience with an average of 3 people per party.

Comi-con (Tom Hiddleston came in his character) helps publicity.

Look at interviews with characters and directors.

Look at the websites relating to the film.

Wikiedia pages.

Social networking.

Trailers and featurettes.

Soundtracks.

Additional formats.

 

 

Thor (Post 11)

As of November 18, 2013, Thor: The Dark World has earned $147,306,753 in North America and $335,100,000 in other countries for a worldwide total of $482,406,753 worldwide. It surpassed its predecessor within 19 days of release.

Thor (Post 10)

In March 2013, Marvel announced the release of a two-issue comic book prelude by writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost and artist Scot Eaton in June 2013. In April 2013, Marvel released the first trailer for Thor: The Dark World. Forbes said, "This trailer fits nicely into that larger marketing push for Marvel’s brand. It puts all of the recognizable characters from the first film front and center, presents the action as a team event reminiscent of the Avengers, and once again Loki—who was quite popular with audiences—makes an appearance." The Los Angeles Times said, "Evident throughout the trailer is director Alan Taylor’s influence; the Game of Thrones director’s hand can be seen in the battle sequences, and Asgard—a bright and shiny kingdom under Thor director Kenneth Branagh—seems grittier in the sequel."
In July at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International, Hiddleston introduced footage from the film to audiences in character as Loki. Also in July, Gameloft announced that a mobile video game titled, Thor the Dark World: The Official Game, would be released in conjunction with the release of the film in November.In August 2013, Marvel released a second trailer for the film as part of YouTube's Geek Week. Forbes said, "this 150-second trailer is basically just an extended version of last April’s 106-second teaser" and that "this trailer fails to showcase what’s new this time around... making audiences question if they really don’t have much else to offer. Later in the month, producer Kevin Feige and cast members Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins presented additional footage at Disney's D23 Expo.Also in August 2013, Disney announced plans to promote the film with an attraction at Disneyland. The attraction called "Treasures of Asgard", located next to the Stark Industries exhibit inside Innoventions in Tomorrowland, opened on November 1, 2013 and features displays of Asgardian relics and transports guests to Odin's throne room, where they are greeted by Thor.The seventh episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., titled "The Well", takes place in the aftermath of the events of Thor: The Dark World. It first aired on November 19, 2013.


The world premiere of Thor: The Dark World took place on October 22, 2013 at the O

Thor (Post 9)

Development In April 2011 before the release of Thor (2011), Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige stated that following The Avengers (2012), "Thor will go off into a new adventure." Kenneth Branagh, director of Thor, responded to his comments, saying, "It is kind of news to me. Here's what I would say to that: It's that I'm thrilled they're that confident. I shall wait for the audience to tell us whether there should be a second one, and then if that's a nice conversation to be had [among] all of us, that'd be thrilling. But I've got too much Irish superstitious blood in me to assume that Thor 2 will happen. But if Marvel says so, then I guess it must be true".Feige later explained that Marvel Studios would gauge how well Thor did at the box office before announcing sequels, but stated, "Don Payne is working on story ideas for a part two. We've got various options with Ken [Branagh] to discuss coming back, but right now the focus is on the first one. Don is, slowly but surely, thinking about where to take the character next should we be so lucky". In June 2011, Walt Disney Studios set a July 26, 2013 release date for the Thor sequel with Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as the title hero. The Los Angeles Times cited the long commitment necessary for a special effects-heavy epic and the pressure to start the script process right away as reasons for Branagh's departure, although he was initially enthused by the chance to direct the sequel. The following day, Marvel formally hired Payne, one of the credited writers of the first film, to script the sequel. In August 2011, Brian Kirk entered early negotiations to direct the Thor sequel for Marvel Studios and Disney. The film would be Kirk's first time directing a big-budget motion picture, after having directed television series for HBO, Showtime and the BBC, including Game of Thrones. In September 2011, Tom Hiddleston confirmed he would return in the sequel, speculating that in the film, "Loki will have to take responsibility for what he’s done". Patty Jenkins, the director of Monster and the pilot episode of AMC's The Killing, entered early negotiations with Marvel Studios and Disney to direct the film, after Kirk had passed due to contractual sticking points that arose during negotiations. The same month, Feige stated the sequel would "take Thor literally to other worlds" and would "primarily be the journey of that character, of he and Jane Foster and how the new dynamic with his father is working out, as well as what are the broader stakes for The Nine Worlds". In October 2011, Joshua Dallas, who portrayed Fandral, stated he planned to return to Asgard in the sequel. On October 13, 2011, Disney moved the release date for the film to November 15, 2013. The same day Marvel confirmed that Jenkins would direct the sequel and Natalie Portman would return to star.

Presentation for before our Swede

Our poster for our Swede

Prezi for class presentation

Swede Post

Mrs D

Well done. This is very detailed. I'm impressed.

Thor 2 (Post 8)

This shows the filming of the movie.

Thor 2 (Post 7)

This is a poster i saw up in London

Mainstream film research

Mainstream films are films that are distributed to movie theatres which give these films wide releases. However, the definition of a mainstream film can vary by country. For example, a mainstream film from China wouldn't be considered a mainstream film in India. But from a global perspective, mainstream films could be defined as Hollywood films, because it is these films which make up the majority of the most widely distributed films in the world. This makes Hollywood films the worldwide mainstream.
Mainstream media, or mass media, is generally applied to print publications, such as newspapers and magazines that contain the highest readership among the public, along with radio formats and television stations that contain the highest viewing and listener audience, respectively. This is in contrast to various independent media, such as alternative weeklynewspapers, specialized magazines in various organizations and corporations, and various electronic sources such as podcasts and blogs (Though certain blogs are more mainstream than others given their association with a mainstream source

Research of a film out this week (25.10.2013)

Ender's Game:
Ender’s Game is classic, iconic sci-fi from the world-wide best-seller directed by the man behind X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The world has been through it, having been ravaged twice by aliens. The future holds more of the same unless they can come up with a leader of extraordinary talents. That leader seems to be Ender (Asa Butterfield), a young gifted boy. Separating him from his family and sending him to battle school, the elders hope to create a saviour for the planet but what sort of toll is it taking on the boy himself?


Cast List:

	Hailee Steinfeld	...	Petra Arkanian
	Abigail Breslin	...	Valentine Wiggin
	Harrison Ford	...	Colonel Hyrum Graff
	Asa Butterfield	...	Ender Wiggin
	Moises Arias	...	Bonzo
	Ben Kingsley	...	Mazer Rackham
	Viola Davis	...	Major Gwen Anderson
	Andrea Powell	...	Theresa Wiggin
	Nonso Anozie	...	Sergeant Dap
	Aramis Knight	...	Bean
	Jessica Harthcock	...	Launchie / Dragon Platoon / Eros
	Jimmy 'Jax' Pinchak	...	Peter Wiggin
	Brandon Soo Hoo	...	Fly Molo
	Han Soto	...	Colonel Graff's aide
	Conor Carroll	...	Bernard

Thor 2 (Post 6)

This is a screenshot of the cinema booking you can make to watch the film at Vue Cinema.

Thor 2 (Post 5)

This is a magazine's website posting about the premiere of Thor 2.

Thor 2 (Post 4)

These are all interviews with the actors

Thor 2 (Post 3)

This is the trailer for Thor 2

Thor 2 (Post 2)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1981115/

This is a llink to the Thor 2 IMDB page. This site tells you all the actors in the film and what else they have appeared in. You can also watch trailers.

Thor 2 (Post 1)

Natalie Portman
This is an advert which includes one of the main characters from Thor 2.


Start of filming our Swede

Today we will start to film our swede using Georgia's camera. Antonia will be taking the pictures to show our progress.

Overall Summary of storyboard

Today, we had some technical problems, our pictures didn't match the sound, so we had to redo the sound and cut some out so that they matched. Maddie drew the pictures and I went over it with sharpie.

Making the storyboard

We have now finished our storyboard, and we have the sound in the background. We made our storyboard by watching the trailer and drwaing all the main things that happened. Then we timed them so that in the storyboard, the pictures would appear at the right time with the sound. We scanned our images into the computer and opened them with paint. We then cut out each image to make all the different pictures in the storyboard seperate. We then had to use MoviePlus X6 to put it all together. We added the pictures and made them the right length, and then we added the sound in the background.

Anamatronics

Drawing our Storyboard

In todays lesson, we drew and comlpeted our Storyboard for our Mean Girls swede. We have 21 different sections, and the audio of our swede will be the trailer of the movie playing in the background. Next lesson, we will write at the bottom of each section of the Storyboard the time that it needs to appear at. We also went over all the pencil lines with sharpie, to make sure that it would stand out and everything would be clear. We will also, next lesson, book Michelle, so that we can start to put the whole thing together.

Planing our swede

Our swede is Mean Girls. This lesson, we started to plan our swede. We decided on all the main scenes, characters and quotes from the movie we would include in our swede. We watched the trailer from the film and also watched a clip with all the best quotes from the film which we have incorporated into our planning. We wrote out on an A3 piece of sugar paper all our planning, so that next week, we can start the storyboard. 

Swedes

A swede is a shortened, around 5 minute version of a film. It has all the main parts of the film and all the main characters and tells the story, just in less time then the actual film itself.

This is a swede of Home Alone. I like it because it's  really funny and it explains the story well but doesn't get boring. It allows you to watch only the swede as this tells you everything to do with the story, so you don't have to watch the whole film. It involves all the main characters and doesn't miss out any crucial parts of the film, so all the details that you need to understand the film are contained in the swede. It's a really good film and that's what made me like this swede even more.



This is a swede of Mean Girls. This swede is good because it's funny and is exactly the same as the film. It tells the whole story well and includes all the main characters. You can clearly tell from the start that this is a Mean Girls swede. It has only the main points, so it lets you follow the story without having to watch the film completely. It's easy to understand and because I like this film so much, I like the swede.

Blog on Production, Distribution and Exhibiton

Production
Link: The white sheet given in class
Planning (pre-production), filming and editing (post-production). It is the process of making a film and everything that goes with it.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmmaking#Production
In production, the video production/film is created and shot. The production office will be free to create any unique blend of roles to suit the various responsibilities possible during the production of a film. A typical day's shooting begins with the crew arriving on the set/location by their call time. Actors usually have their own separate call times. Since set construction, dressing and lighting can take many hours or even days, they are often set up in advance.With workdays often lasting 14 or 18 hours in remote locations, film production tends to create a team spirit. When the entire film is in the can, or in the completion of the production phase, it is customary for the production office to arrange a wrap party, to thank all the cast and crew for their efforts.

Distribution
Link: The white sheet given in class
Selling the film to companies ready for exhibiton.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmmaking#Distribution
This is the final stage, where the film is released to cinemas or, occasionally, to consumer media (DVD, VCD, VHS, Blu-ray) or direct download from a provider. The film is duplicated as required and distributed to cinemas for exhibition (screening). Press kits, posters, and other advertising materials are published and the film is advertised and promoted. Film distributors usually release a film with a launch party, press releases, interviews with the press, press preview screenings, and film festival screenings. Most films have a website. The film plays at selected cinemas and the DVD typically is released a few months later. The distribution rights for the film and DVD are also usually sold for worldwide distribution. The distributor and the production company share profits.

Exhibition 
Link: http://www.myfirstjobinfilm.co.uk/exhibition.html
Cinemas fall into 1 of 2 categories: national chains; and independent exhibitors. The specific programming will depend on the target audience, with large chains often filling their multiplexes with blockbuster fare and individual independents more likely to cater to art-house crowds. A natural entry route to exhibition is to work in a cinema. Chains employ significant numbers of people to handle ticketing, confectionery sales (where cinemas tend to make the bulk of their profits), and film projection. Those working for independent exhibitors may be more involved in its programming as the cinema establishes a distinct identity for itself.

Pupil Reflection

Me and Georgia

• What are your favourite films?
• Me

1. The Conjuring: Because it's scary and makes you sit on the edge of your seat. I like how the whole film is spooky and not just aspects of it.
2. Mean Girls: Because I love the characters in it and it's really funny.

• Georgia

1.  Mean Girls: So funny and a teen comedy.
2. Charlie St Cloud: It has Zac Efron in it.

• How often do you go to the cinema?
• Me:A few of times a month.
• Georgia:Once every two months.

• What genre of films do you like?
• Me: Horror, Rom Com and Teen Comedy. I like these because Horror and Thriller are spine chilling and I like films that make me jump.
• Georgia: Comedy or Romantic tear jerkers. I like to laugh and they're really funny.

• How much do you spend on films?
• Me: Around £10 to £15.
• Georgia: £10 a month.

• Do you stream films? If so, what sites do you use?
• Me: Yes, on Love Film.
• Georgia: Yes, on Netflix

• What are your thought on Piracy?
• Me: I think it's wrong because it's loosing money for the film institution.
• Georgia: Good for me because I get free films.

Skills Audit

I found choosing the music video and TV advert easy, as I watch a lot of TV and listen to a lot of music, so I knew what was out there, so I could easily pick my favourites. But I found choosing the TV Drama and the Film Trailer the hardest because I do watch Dramas, but I've never really thought about the representation in them, and I also watch films, but I've never thought about the trailers and what they show. I think it's easier to pick out a favourite music video because everyone has some idea what theirs could be, whereas picking out a film trailer is hard because you usually focus on the film, not so much on the trailer.

TV Drama

This clip from Emmerdale shows sexuality. This is the scene from Emmerdale where Paddy finds out that Aaron is gay. Aaron beats up Paddy for suggesting it, though later in the episode admits to him that he's confused about his sexuality. It shows how if people have the right people around them who can understand them and help them realise that it's ok. Aaron tries to cover up his sexuality at first, but realises that Paddy would never judge him, so he tells him the truth.

Film Trailer

I have chosen this film trailer because I think it really engages the audience and is very intense. The rhyme said in the trailer along with the spooky music box playing creates an eerie atmosphere throughout the trailer. It doesn't give too much about the film away, so it makes you want to go and see the film by enticing the viewer. When it gets to the middle of the trailer, I like how the music speeds up as the trailer becomes more intense. And I also like how right at the end, they save the scariest bit for last, when the woman's face appears over his shoulder. This is effective because it will engage the audience even more. The trailer makes the film sound scary and spine chilling, so it would appeal to the right audience of mainly teenagers.