The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – Seven Key Areas – By Niamh Sygrove

1. The Issues Raised By Media Ownership In Contemporary Media Practice

The type of film made and its potential success, all depends on the influence from whoever owns a media company. Reason being, the bigger the film company actually is, the more likely they are to end up producing bigger films in the industry, that most of the time end up being successful. These films are more likely to be successful rather than other films, simply because they follow the rules of Mark Kermode, ones that would make a film absolutely impossible to lose money from. Kermode’s rules are the following: it must have a newsworthy budget, it must have spectacular visuals, it must not be a comedy, and it must include an ‘A list’ star. As all of these big film companies have a lot of money, they can have larger budgets for their films, unlike other companies who don’t have as much. Because of this, they have plenty of money to spend on all of the different aspects of the film, which can likely lead the film that they are producing to become very successful as a whole.

Walt Disney could be considered as a great example of a big film company. They are one of the most renowned film production companies within the entire history of the film business. They now hold over 15.3% of the entire US/Canadian market share, and they produce extremely successful movies like Frozen and Tangled. Walt Disney are a company who manage to create these successful, popular films, that will always be remembered by the public. They are seen as a company who produce a lot of family films that are adored by millions of people all over the globe. Because they are so well known within the media, they are always most likely to be a success, regardless of what their next films storyline may be about. This is because the public automatically presume that it will be good, just because it has the Disney name attached to the film, and so they will go and see it, giving the film even more money, making it another success within the film industry. Walt Disney then have tons of money to produce even more films in the future, meaning that their films will be able to have a large budget when it comes to producing them.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was produced and distributed by Lionsgate. Lionsgate is one of the top producing companies, and is well known for the films that they create. This film alone had a budget of $130,000,000 million, which therefore classes this film as a high budget film. The film managed to gross a total of $424,645,577, which is more than triple the budget and because of Lionsgate being a well-known company, they were able to get a lot of publicity for this film, so that lots of people would have heard about it and got excited over the movie being released. This meant that more people were likely to go and actually see the film, because they thought it was good, or because they were already a massive fan of the other films that Lionsgate have produced in the past.

2. The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, is a 2013 American superhero film, based on the Hunger Games trilogy (novels) written by Suzanne Collins, produced and distributed by Lionsgate Movies. It is the second instalment in the Hunger Games Trilogy.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing: Who publicised and distributed the film? How did these companies work together? What roles did they undertake?

Lionsgate announced that a film adaptation of Catching Fire would be released as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire on November 22, 2013, as a sequel to the film adaptation of The Hunger Games, with principal photography to take place in September 2012. Simon Beaufoy was hired to write the script for the film and wrote two drafts before leaving after Gary Ross, director of The Hunger Games decided not to direct the sequel. The shooting timeframe was co-ordinated between Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox, in order to allow time for Jennifer Lawrence to shoot X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to Fox's X-Men: First Class, in January 2013.

On November 16, 2012, the first teaser trailer was released with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 and revealed the official logo and tagline for the film. Lionsgate announced a sweepstakes competition where 12 fans would have their name listed in the film's credits. On January 11, 2013, Entertainment Weekly released a 2013 Preview edition of their magazine, with the first look of Lawrence as Katniss and Claflin as Finnick on the cover as well as several stills showcasing scenes from the film. On February 22, both Hitfix and the official Facebook page debuted two viral posters of the Victory Tour featuring Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta).

On January 28, 2013, CapitolCouture.PN, a promotional site for the film's fashion and culture, opened and could only be unlocked with a passcode. Once in, a picture of a blue chair appeared and told readers to check back on March 4. On March 4, 2013, the site began to release portraits of the various characters.

Alongside the announcement of the teaser trailer premiering at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards, Lionsgate revealed a new website called TheHungerGamesExplorer. On April 10, the website was updated and fans had to tweet using the hashtag #HungerGamesExplorer to unlock new stills from the movie. A still could be unlocked every day leading up to April 14, 2013, the teaser trailer's release date.

The teaser trailer thus debuted at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards on April 14, presented by Liam Hemsworth, and the trailer was posted on TheHungerGamesExplorer and YouTube after the ceremony. "Beyond Fire" by T.T.L. was played as the trailer music.

An exclusive new trailer debuted at the San Diego Comic-Con International on July 20, 2013, also being released online on that day.[58] Walmart released the first TV spot on their Facebook page on October 14, featuring Coldplay's song, "Atlas".

On October 27, 2013, during the fifth inning of game 4 of the 2013 World Series, the final trailer was released. Three days later, on October 30, 2013, a new IMAX poster for the film debuted.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire audience breakdown – The movie rating itself was a PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some frightening images, thematic elements, a suggestive situation and language. As the film is an action-adventure/sci-fi movie, the audience range is larger for the male audience, however, because of the famously used stars like Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, it also features a large female audience. The age range for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire varies between 13-35, as it is considered a “family film”, however, teens around 15, up to the young adult age of 21 are most likely to enjoy the film because of its features.

Sex & Nudity3/10

A woman briefly undresses on an elevator, we see this from the back. Her genitals are covered, but we see the side of her breast, her lower legs, shoulders, and back. Two men and another woman watch her: One man, who is much older than her, watches in amused approval and the other man is in awe and shock. The other woman looks pointedly away.

A boy and girl are shown in bed together three times. However, it is implied that there is no sexual activity.

Sensuality.

Violence & Gore7/10

The violence includes deaths by stabbing, shooting, drowning, animal attacks, and poison, as well as torture, whipping, threats, and explosions. Most of the violence is shown on-screen but doesn't show much gore.

A thick fog forms and a young woman reaches out to touch it. She screams and blisters form. Her group runs from it. All are burned by it. One is left unable to run. An old woman sacrifices herself to save the group. She runs into it and we see her disappear

A group is attacked by monkeys. We hear screams. The monkeys are stabbed, hacked, kicked etc. one of the party is held under water by one of these creatures until someone stabs it. A woman jumps from a bush and is bitten and mauled by a monkey. We see blood on her neck. She is carried to water were a young man holds her hand as she dies. We see a flying vessel carry her body away.

Three characters appear on a beach covered in what appears to be blood. A woman's throat is cut. We do not see the act, just her attacker behind her. He is shot in

the chest with an arrow. No blood. He just falls into the water. A man is whipped in a district square. We see his gashes. A young woman intervenes and is

punched in the face then struck with the whip. The whipper threatens to shoot her. She tells him to but he is stopped before any more violence occurs.

An elderly man is dragged to his knees and then shot. We just see the gun fire. We later see his body taken away.

A woman shoots at a turkey and has a vision of shooting a young man in the chest. She screams and is calmed down by a friend.

Dead rabbits are shown with some blood. A man and woman are forced to hear their loved ones scream for an hour. A man is beaten several times. His body is dragged away and he is seen with blood on his

face.

Profanity4/10

2 bleeped out F-words, 1 use of "screwed over", 2 "damns", 2 uses "hell", 2 uses of "Son of a bitch", 1 "bloody", 2 uses of "shit".

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking4/10

The trainer for the fighters is always drunk/drinking A girl takes one sip out of an alcohol bottle, but doesn't like it, so she stops.

Frightening/Intense Scenes7/10

The violence includes deaths by stabbing, shooting, drowning, animal attacks, whipping, and poison, as well as torture, threats, and explosions.

Many intense scenes such as battles and deaths. Not forgetting that there are also many emotional and tear-jerking scenes.

A man is brutally beaten to death by peacekeepers, which was very unexpected, frightening and sad.

The movie does not have a happy ending, as the protagonist learns that her home has been destroyed while she was in the arena. It can be very shocking, as it's shot in a quite dark manner, to first-timers who didn't read the book.

Peeta's heart stops. Mouth to mouth is used to revive him. This scene is quite intense.

3. The technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange

3D (3 Dimensional)

3D Media is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception. Derived from stereoscopic photography, it is when two cameras are used to film a scene from two different perspectives. It is also a computer generated image. Special projection hardware is used to complete the illusion of depth such as glasses to use during the film. 3D film are not limited to just feature film, it can be adapted to be used in different aspects of media. 3D film was introduced in 1915, however it did not see much success until the 21st century, where its popularity grew as it was used in large blockbuster films, culminating in the unprecedented success of 3D presentations of Avatar in December 2009.

Blu-Ray

Blu-Ray disck (BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It is capable of showing high definition 1080p resolution; much greater than the original DVD’s which could only show 480p resolution. Another feature is the improved audio quality.

Internet Streaming

Internet streaming is multimedia that is streamed by a receiver while being delivered by a provider. A client media player can begin to play or watch the chosen media before the content is fully downloaded.

Downloadable Content

Downloadable content is additional content for video games and films, such as film soundtracks and character accessories on specific games. This could be on iTunes or Google Play Store, or any other downloadable content provider.

How they affected the distribution of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

All these types of multimedia distributors had a large effect on the success of Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. In 3D alone, in the opening weekend, the movie made a gross of $, and a further $ from DVD sales and $ in Blu Ray sales. Add all of this together and you get $, which is approximately of the final gross for the movie, meaning that they more than broke even with the budget just through these methods, showing that these types of distribution are just as vital to the success of a movie as the basic method. And the movie is still making money to this day through downloadable content, and internet streaming, so they are a sustainable source of income as well as an easy one.

4. The significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences

Since films were first released, film companies have had to alter the ways that the audiences are able to watch their films significantly. Common ways of viewing films now are things such as Video on Demand, DVD’s/Blu Ray, online streams, downloading films as well as the typical visiting the cinema. These ways generally tend to be cheap which is important as many families don’t have the money to all go to the cinema, so for a considerably lower price, they can rent a film via websites such as Netflix or Lovefilm, or they could purchase the DVD/Blu Ray from a shop or online. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was released at cinemas in both 2D and 3d. It was then released on DVD and Blu-Ray. As it was a large budget film, it wasn’t released on VOD websites like Netflix for a very long time, because they tend to lose a lot of profit from uploading their media to sources like VOD. However, it was eventually added a year after the movie was released on DVD/Blu Ray, when the popularity of the movie started to drop in size, because of the third film: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, and this kept its profit going, as people would pay for memberships on these VOD apps/sites.

5. The importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences

Color Force’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was produced and was one of the biggest films of 2013. Color Force is owned by Lionsgate, so therefore this automatically tells us that they had a large budget for this film, as Lionsgate are the 7th biggest film production companies. Lionsgate have had

high budget films out in the business for a very long time now, so it would be unusual for them to do anything low budget. The amount of money that went into Catching Fire was $130,000,000, and for a movie to actually make a gross, they have to make over twice the money of the budget, something which Catching Fire did with a $424,645,577 gross in the US alone.

Other small companies were involved with the film, in which they created the soundtrack, posters, e.t.c., however they weren’t as strongly credited as Lionsgate were for actually producing the film. This shows that small companies do in fact work alongside the big ones, but they don’t take much credit for it, keeping them below the bigger companies, and some aren’t even credited at all.

Overall, the importance of cross media convergence is vital to film production as it’s all the small companies working together to produce posters, soundtracks e.t.c, with larger global companies working together and producing together, which gets a larger audience due to the size and popularity of the big production company.

6. The issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions

Film production is the practice of promotion specifically in the film industry, and usually occurs in coordination with the process of film distribution. Sometimes called the press junket or film junket, film promotion generally includes press releases, advertising campaigns, merchandising and media, and interviews with the key people involved with the making of the film, like the actors and the directors. As with all business, it is an important part of any release because of the inherent high financial risk; film studios with invest in expensive marketing campaigns to maximize revenue early in the release cycle. Marketing budgets tend to equal about half the production budget. Publicity is generally handled by the distributor and exhibitors.

Catching Fire is the second movie from the Hunger Games trilogy, and was first promoted in 2013 through trailers, posters and music. On November 11th, the cast and crew went to London, UK for the premiere of the movie. The film then premiered in Brazil on the 15 th, followed by the USA on the 18th of November. Multiple countries all across the globe then followed afterwards. During the time of the release for this movie, Twitter and Facebook accounts were taken over promoting the movie with the likes of Q&A sessions, competitions and short video clips and images. This gave the movie a

load of hype over social media. A website was also created to promote the movie and give out more details if people wanted them about the film. The film was then released on DVD and Blu-Ray and was featured on iTunes to download. Later on it was featured on Netflix for home streaming.

It was shown throughout the media in which the USA and the UK mainly use online for marketing, whereas China and European countries followed the ideas of trailers, reviews and online screenings of the film. They are also interested in A-list stars that are well known globally, ones that the Chinese people would know about. A big part of the marketing of English speaking films is to make sure that there are appropriate subtitles on the film, for countries that cannot understand this language. Catching Fire being a large budget film, and having lots of marketing and press, was bound to have large amounts of money funded into the quality subtitling for the Hunger Games movie franchise.

7. The ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour

Firstly I think that the influence big companies have on the types of film made and its success is huge, a prime example of this is if you compare Dredd to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It is clear that due to the sizes of the companies producing these films, their success potential differed. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire for example, was released on the 11th November 2013, but marketing however started when the film was promoted all over social media and TV adverts beforehand. This started to create hype for the film months before the release, and then there was further advertising closer to the release as well. All of this advertising led to the fact that Catching Fire took $424,645,577 at the box office. When compared to Dredd (produced by smaller companies), which only made $41 million, we can see a drastic difference that production companies make when it comes to the success of a film.

I think that the main advantage that being made by a big company brings is their ability to invest a large amount in the budget; this is also shown in the Dredd vs. Catching Fire comparison, as Dredd had $45 million, and Catching Fire had a comparatively massive budget of $130 million. In my ophinion, the big companies only have to follow a few guidelines to make a film a success (based on Mark Kermode’s theory), whereas lower budget films have to do more things to ensure success.