BFI Media Studies Conference

Thursday 4 th July 2013

British Film Industry by numbers – Sean Perkins

Digital Cinema Screens (UK) – 4 (2002) – 3,538 (2012)DVD Player penetration (% of households) – 26% (2002) – 90% (2012)

Tablet and Smart phone has also increased dramatically

Cinema going:

1.58 billion admissions (1945)

193 million (1970)

72 million (1985)

169 million (2010)

Film viewing

Cinema – Annual film viewing in the UK (2011) – 3.4%Television - Annual film viewing in the UK (2011) – 77%

The UK Film Economy

UK accounts for 7% of global film revenues USA – 35% (Although decreasing) China – 3.2%

UK Film Exports

USA is our main market – 42% Asia is growing – Around 6% UK films took 15% of global box-office revenue in 2012 - $5.3 billion –

13% of this figure were studio backed films

VOD

Starting to emerge in 2012 OFCOM – Quarterly statistics on illegal downloads - Research!

Share of Box-Office in 2012

‘Skyfall’ (2012) accounted for 9%Rest of the Top 20 – 46%

Other 546 releases outside of the Top 100 (546 releases) accounted for just 8%

UK Box Office Market Share

2012 – USA – 61.5% 2012 – UK Studio backed – 22.7% 2012 – UK Indie – 9.2%

2001 – 2012 – Look at film releases and relationship for UK Qualified Film Market Share

1) Ben Wheatley – Case Study – “Multi-Platform” – Research!2) ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (2012) - Research!

UK Indie Films – 2012

If a film costs £10m (Budget), the average release cost is £2.3m 57% of films in the UK were made with budgets of less than £500k

Top 20 Films at the UK Box-Office (1975 – 2012)

Research!

Distributor Market Shares (2002 – 2012)

Majors (2012) – about 75% of the market

Exhibitor Market Shares (2002 – 2012)

Major Circuits - about 81% of the market

Number of specialized releases – 2001 – 2012

Re-releases have increased dramatically - Research! As have Documentaries – ‘Searching for Sugarman’ (2012) – Case

Study

Genre – 2012

1) Action – 27.7% of total Box-Office – ‘Skyfall’ made a significant contribution

Co-Production Deal – Tax breaks/relief - Research!

Conclusion

Digital technologies are transforming film production and consumption The UK is still heavily reliant on the US Others?

Online Marketing of Film

Case Study 1) – Curzon

In a ‘co-pro” with Artificial Eye Their USP is that they’re an “On-the-go” and market across different

platforms. They offer a home viewing experience and network of their films to

access from home through their Smart TV App - http://www.curzoncinemas.com/samsung/

They’ve released over 50 “day and date” films in cinemas – for example ‘A Late Quartet’ (2013) which was:

1) Released in 50 public cinemas2) CHC (Curzon Home Cinema)3) Also available on Sky Store and Film Flex – the deal being a minimum

guarantee of money4) Box office: £418k

Case Study 2) – Distrify – VOD Service

http://distrify.com/

1,500 – 2,000 films sold in 153 countries Check out the Guardian online’s ‘The Screening Room’

Tom Grievson – UK Film Marketing

Key – “How do you find your audience?” – Then, “How do you reach that audience?”

For example ‘Spellbound’ was targeted at teachers and built a strong viral campaign within the education sector.

Metrodome - Grievson has been responsible for the poster and trailer campaigns for a number of hits such as ‘Donnie Darko’ and ‘Chopper’

Warner Bros. campaigns – such as ‘I am Legend’, ‘Inception’ and ‘The Hangover’

‘I am Legend’ was initially a campaign that had a small Will Smith – however this was changed to a larger Will Smith.

Marketing (Studio) – 35% Exhibitor – 65%

E1 – Marketing campaigns such as ‘The Angels Share’ – KEY!

Marketing was largely concentrated on Scotland – to the extent it out performed in it’s opening weekend over ‘Prometheus’ (2012) Dir. Ridley Scott

Key Term: Lifecycle Marketing – for example how are you going to keep your audience interested post-cinema release – “Day-and-date” release is meaning that the control over marketing is tighter.

Rule of thumb:

Theatrical release – 16 weeks – DVD Release – 6 months – TV Release

“Day-and-date” release is shrinking this window.

Case study – ‘Donnie Darko’ (2001)

Executed through a targeted Guerilla campaign – for example they printed out A4 sticker campaign that cost little to no money.

Lots of references to the film within the campaign

‘Inception’ (2010)

High Concept (Wyatt – 1994) film Create a Blockbuster Action Event Reveal then tease – Reverse the trend Strong social networking campaign 60 second TV spot After opening weekend Sustained TV Spot - “The spinning top” (The

signature moment at the end of the film) was used to create a further talking point

Key Fact – Usually a films numbers at the box-office will drop by 40% - ‘Inception’ only dropped by 20%

Social media – in particular Facebook – was used to create a link between the film and current affairs issues. For example there was a heist in Paris.

The likes on Facebook doubled within 10 days of the release

‘The Impossible’ (2012)

A lot of sensitivity surrounding the Tsunami Focus and ‘positioning’ was:

“One Family’s incredible true story of survival” – the marketing was always geared around this idea of survival.

Make everything feel epic Focus on scenes in the TV spot that would create an emotional

response US Poster campaign was far more different to the UK Poster

campaign – e.g UK Campaign was much more star driven US Trailer revealed the ending! Good Case Study as the campaign used Twitter to help promote the

film – VITAL to show this!

Future:

‘Trans Media’ – Research this term!

Other Case Study

‘Bones Brigade’ – Produced by: Top Spin Media

- Merchandise associated to the film – for example Tony Hawk signed Skateboard.