American sniper 

The issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice;

Who owns a media company influences the type of film made and its potential success (how much the film will make). This is because the bigger film companies are more likely to produce bigger films that are generally more successful and also these companies build up a reputation of producing these big films. These films are more likely to be successful because most of the Films made follow the rules that Mark Kermode said would make the film impossible to lose money. These rules include that they are a newsworthy budget, spectacular visuals, not to be a comedy and include A list star. The big film companies have a lot of money meaning that they have big budgets or the films that they produce. In the film “American sniper” is a 2014 American biographical war drama film directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Jason Hall. Budget included $58 million. The film became a major success, with a worldwide gross of over $547 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 2014 in the United States ($350 million), the highest-grossing war film of all time and Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date. At the 87th Academy Awards, American Sniper received six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for Bradley Cooper, ultimately winning one award for Best Sound Editing. The critics rated this film also very highly.  

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. is an American entertainment company that produces film, television and music entertainment. Responsible for the making of many successful films such as the dark knight rises, Inception and also all of the Harry Potter films. As one of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank, California. Warner Bros has several subsidiary companies, including Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, Warner Bros Television, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock Entertainment, and DC Entertainment. Warner bro’s pictures are responsible for the production of The American

Sniper Warner Bro’s owns half of The CW Television Network showing that they are a very successful if not the most successful production company in media along with others such as 20th century fox, paramount and universal. All of these big six companies are a subsidiary of a major conglomerate, an example of this would be that 20th century fox are a subsidiary of news corp. The six big studios equate to the ownership of 63% of global box office figures in 2012. These take around 70% of UK box office revenue every year. The companies are subsidiaries of massive conglomerates with billions of dollars meaning that they can produce these big expensive blockbusters year after year essentially making them untouchable in the film industry. 

The American sniper is a perfect example of a blockbuster film produced by Warner Bro’s. It made a huge amount of profit after spending 58 million on the production of a film. As a result the film was made at a high standard using all the most updated technologies to add realism to help engage the audience and make the film at a higher level of quality. Due to this it won the award for being best sound editing at the 87th academy awards. 

An example of a smaller film production company being  Overture Films, LLC was an American film production and distribution company and a former subsidiary of Starz, LLC (a former subsidiary of Liberty Media). It was launched in November 2006 by Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett. Through its affiliated companies Anchor Bay Entertainment, Starz Entertainment Pay Channels, Starz Media, and Starz Play, Overture Films made its films available worldwide to viewers across multiple platforms via their home video, premium television, and Internet distribution channels. This companies most notable film being The Crazies and thats about it. Reasoning behind the lack of success from this company causing it to defunct 4 years after its making might be due to a lack of cross convergence as it didn't build a good reputation through a certain successful film.

The american sniper is a film produced by Warner bros. pictures. Similar to many big films such as inception, harry potter films and dark night and man of steel. This films all have massive budgets such as inception having a budget of well over 150,000,000 dollars and man of steel having a budget of well over 200,000,000 dollars. This means that the production company of American sniper has a reputation of production big budget successful films. This makes it more marketable because this company has proven that it can make films that are seen as good in the public eye meaning that people are more likely to want to go and see this film. Whereas if this film was produced by a company such as overture films it wouldn't have the same appeal as it would with warner bros. pictures meaning sales would be impacted negatively.

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

Because the big six studios are all subsidiaries of major conglomerates they benefit from cross convergence in media. The film Batman vs

Superman is a perfect example of this because Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is an upcoming American superhero film featuring the DC Comics characters Batman and Superman, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. this is cross convergence in media because both of these separate characters have an established reputation in the super hero scene through the making of many films which they each individually star in. The batman franchise has made a number of films, an example being dark night rises, this film was massively popular and grossed over 1,000,000,000 dollars from a budget of just 200,000. Superman has also done the same with his remake from the old films being released this being called man of steel. It was again massively popular and grossed over 600,000 dollars again from a similar budget as batman the dark night rises.

This film (batman vs superman) is unique in the way that it has been marketed for many years through the use of these characters in other films such as man of steel and dark night rises. this is because these films give a massive background to the plot (man of steel) and the characters themselves (both man of steel and dark night rises franchise). The only other film that will have this sort of marketing plan would be marvels avengers as this is also a five year or so marketing plan to give background on the plot of the avengers at teacher character within that group of hero’s.

The film company warner bros. pictures will make a great success from creating this film batman vs superman because again it will be seen as a massive breakthrough film within the science fiction fanbase as this film supposedly puts 2 of the biggest DC comic characters against each other in a film, this is very rarely done and will be an important instalment to this franchise. This film also acts as a prequel to superman man of steel film so that film will of also acted as cross convergence in media as it links to this previous film, which was also very popular in the box office. 

The American sniper didn't really have this sort of marketing as it was an original film series. But possibly you could link this film with other war films as there is not many recent successful ones. the outlying being maybe hurt locker or even Fury. This could be a positive selling point for American sniper as it may link through cross convergence with the plot of these other war films as they are mostly historical and have very similar plots. To make American sniper a more unique selling point they could market the film as it is the best action war film, this would use these other films in cross convergence. example of this is As of 2015, this is the highest-grossing war movie of all time worldwide, and the highest-grossing war movie in the US (unadjusted for inflation), beating Saving Private Ryan (1998).

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

3D (3 dimensional filming)

3D films have existed in some form since 1915, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry because of the costly hardware and processes required to produce and display a 3D film. Nonetheless, 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema, and later experienced a worldwide resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s driven by IMAX high-end theaters. 3D films became more and more successful throughout the 2000s,shown through the success of 3D presentations of Avatar in December 2009 and January 2010. This making it more appealing to go and see in the cinema as it is a unique experience that you cannot achieve at your home and adds a different aspect to the viewing.

Blu-ray

Blu-ray or Blu-ray Disc is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was designed to supersede the DVD format, in that it is capable of storing high-definition video resolution (1080p). High-definition video may be stored on Blu-ray Discs with up to 1080p resolution (1920×1080 pixels), at up to 60 fields or 60 frames per second. DVD discs had been limited to a maximum resolution of 480i, or 576i, also enhanced audio quality. This adds an extra bit of quality to dvd’s making them more appealing to buy than to see in the cinema. 

Internet streaming

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb "to stream" refers to the process of delivering media in this manner; the term refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself, and is an alternative to downloading. A client media player can begin to play the data (such as a movie) before the entire file has been transmitted or released.

These 3 affect the distribution of American sniper in many ways. Firstly the evolution of 3 dimensional technologies make the viewing more expensive but mostly unique to cinemas unless the user is prepared to spend loads on this technology to be fitted in their home which is very rare. American sniper was shown on 3555 screens on the release weekend alone and some of them would have been 3D. The use of this technology will increase cinema ticket sales but may decrease sales of dvd copies of the film American sniper. Secondly the use of Blu ray discs would have the opposite affect of 3 dimensional viewing as it would increase dvd sales which may reduce cinema ticket sales as dvd quality may be just as goo and you can watch the film as many times as you like if you are prepared to wait for the dvd release. Finally the most negative of the 3 being internet streaming. this would affect the film sales dramatically as people can view the film before its actual release for free. This would reduce sales of both cinema tickets and dvd. This method is growing in popularity especially in teenage audiences. 

Theatrical PerformanceDomestic Box Office$350,126,372International Box Office$197,200,000Worldwide Box Office$547,326,372

Home Market PerformanceDomestic DVD Sales$28,658,096Domestic Blu-ray Sales$29,968,257Total Domestic Video Sales$58,626,353

These figures show us that the american made slightly less than 10 times more through use of technologies such as 3D increasing number of box office. The films total budget was 58,000,000 and they made this back many times over through box office and went evens on dvd sales alone. meaning the film was a great success despite threats of internet streaming.

The significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences;

Film companies have had to alter the way that they release films over the years. common ways of watching films that were not means of viewing in the past include VOD and online streaming and downloading films over the internet. American sniper was released on both normal dvd and also blur-ray dvd, also was realised in the cinemas on 2D or 3D. As it was a very successful film it wasn't released on VOD (video on demand) sites such as love film ad Netflix. This is often done in order to increase sales of a film that hadn't reached the amount of success that the production companies expected so American sniper does not fit into this bracket. But what may happen is at a later date as the film starts to simmer down and the company want to make a bit of extra profit it may be released on these sort of websites, this is mostly how the big production companies manage to stay on top by making profit still on older films, an example of this being Captain America being released on Netlfix way after its original release date.

The importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences;

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly called Warner Bros., Warners, or simply WB) is an American entertainment company that produces film, television and music entertainment. As one of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner. Warner bros. pictures are the producers of the film american sniper. This company is owned by time warner, whom of which are one of the big six production companies. This is shown through the success of gross within comparison to a big budget film.

Village Roadshow Pictures is a leading Australian co-producer and co-financier of major Hollywood motion pictures, having released over 85 films since its establishment in 1986 including, as co-productions with warner bros. also Malpaso Productions, originally known as the Malpaso Company, is Clint Eastwood's production company. these companies were also influencial in the production of the film..

Special Effects Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging (opticals) Moving Picture Company (MPC) (visual effects) Pacific Title and Art Studio (visual effects) Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) (visual effects) Image Engine Design (visual effects) (as Image Engine) Lola Visual Effects (visual effects) Capital T (uncredited)

Production Companies Warner Bros. (presents) Village Roadshow Pictures (in association with) Mad Chance Productions 22 & Indiana Pictures Malpaso Productions RatPac-Dune Entertainment

Only the big companies are credited, despite the work of smaller companies invisual effects and marketing etc, this again demonstrates the size of the big

six. Anexample of this being Capital T who helped with special affects but are

uncreditedin the film. overall cross media convergence is very important as the big sixcompanies need help from the smaller companies in order to produce these

bigblockbuster movies and also the relationships between the larger companies

in themedia.

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

Film promotion 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 actors and directors. As with all business it is an important part of any release because of the inherent high financial risk; film studios will 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.

the first trailer for this film was 18th December 2014. A teaser campaign is an advertising campaign which typically consists of a series of small, cryptic, challenging advertisements that anticipate a larger, full-blown campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event. These advertisements are called "teasers" or "teaser ads". A teaser trailer for an upcoming film, television program, video game or similar, is usually released long in advance of the product, so as to "tease" the audience. Other ways in which films are marketed recently are on areas of social media such as twitter where there might be a question and answer with some of the cast or directors, or even on youtube a livestream trailer or again q and a. This will engage a younger audience in the marketing of the film. other types of global media include the use of merchandise, trailers and posters. it is shown in media that the most popular means of marketing in the US and UK are online videos.

The american sniper trailers from what I have seen will invites a wide range of audiences but mostly focused on maybe 16-25 year olds as it has action but a certain element of history about it and also a high level of interest.

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

This refers to how you consume films, whether it is as a social activity. aftervisiting a shopping centre or on an mp4 player or streamed through the internet.people visit the cinema as its more of an event to fill your time and keep up with

the latest trends. Experiences of the way in which media is changing vary from the differences in prices but also in the new technologies in which our generation is throwing at us. It’s not just in cinemas that we watch films anymore. When films first came out it was only at the cinema that

people could consume film, then in the 1970’s it was widely available on VHS. VHS was then outdated by DVD and then it became available in HD (high definition) which has now become outdated by blue-ray. It isn’t just on the big screens of cinema that film is available but also on the big screens at home as televisions are getting bigger, so the film experience can now be replicated at home. Film has also moved onto the smaller screens of phones and mp4 players by downloads. Due to this film has to attract its viewers again by issuing deals for example orange Wednesdays and student Thursdays. Now media companies are buying rights to show films on their television channels for example film flex and sky movies. All of this takes away cinemas viewers and can place them in the same cinema situations at home. Marketing of films has also changed our experience as we can almost be brain washed into watching “blockbuster” as they are everywhere, therefore Warner bros and similar tycoons can almost monopolise the market as smaller film companies like Shane Meadows can be overshadowed as they cannot afford to market their films with such authority.