How do you consume films/movies?

Make a pie chart with a key showing the different ways you consume movies…

Think about…Cinema, Netflix, TV, Stream illegally, Torrent, Sky, OnDemand, Youtube, DVD, VHS Casette etc…

How do you consume films/movies?

How do you think institutions want you to consume movies?

Think about how your pie chart might change!

The Digital Audience

Let’s recap. A definition for each of these…

• Produsers

• Fragmented audience

• Push/Pull Marketing

• Digital Distribution

• Piracy

Setting the scene

• The Digital Audience mainly wants three things when it comes to watching movies: they want them affordable, easy to use/consume, and available how and when they want it.

• The Hobbit was the most pirated film last year with 8.4 million downloads (Torrent Freak)

• It's unclear how much of a dent movie piracy is making on box office revenue - box office earnings were record-high in 2013 with nearly $11 billion in revenue.

• Orange Wednesdays (example of synergy) allowing audience members with orange broadband or mobile phones to get 2 for 1 tickets to the cinema on Wednesdays.

432 million unique internet users explicitly sought infringing content during January 2013

What is being done to stop piracy?

The ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ and Megaupload Problematic however – the internet is not static, data can be moved and adjusted.

FindAnyFilm.com is a site where you can find films to watch legally – whether on the web, bought from a retailer or at the cinema.

Netflix and LOVEFiLM (Which we will discover later)Blinkbox – newer releases faster, a little more expensive. Part of Tesco.

“The television and movie community is working every day to develop new and innovative ways to watch content online, and as the internet’s gatekeepers, search engines share a responsibility to play a constructive role in not directing audiences to illegitimate content,” - MPAA chairman Chris Dodd.

The Digital Audience

Choose one of the following questions and create a brainstorm in pairs to answer…

• Is piracy as big a threat to the film industry as they suggest?

• Should we consider illegal downloads and file sharing as a ‘new’ form or distribution?

• Where do we go from here? What does the future hold in terms of piracy and the film industry?

Distribution and Consumption

• Netflix has become increasingly popular in English speaking countries, especially Canada, where it is actively used by 20% of English speaking households.

• Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has said that ever since Netflix launched in Canada 3 years ago, BitTorrent is down 50%.

LOVEFiLM Case Study

LOVEFiLM Case Study

• LOVEFiLM has over 70,000 titles!• You can still download even if you don’t have a rental

subscription to LOVEFiLM. Prices start from 79p and go up to £1.99 for a feature length film.

• LOVEFiLM also offers a competitive DVD post rental service.• A full subscription costs £4.99 for unlimited access to digital

streaming.• It operates a separate service LOVEFiLM Box Office where

you can digitally rent new and old movies for 48 hours via a computer for the additional price of £2.49-£3.49 (much like the service provided by Sky Box Office, iTunes or BT Vision).

Netflix Case Study

Netflix Case Study

• Netflix has over 100,000 titles in its catalogue with a large focus on TV shows from both the UK and USA.

• As of September 2013, Netflix reported global streaming subscribers at 40.4 million (31.2 million in U.S.).

• Critics have said what Netflix lacks in films is made up in its sheer mass of TV content and high quality speed.

• It costs £5.99 per month for a subscription to digital stream content.

• Content is available on multiple devices from the one subscription fee.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puv1lS00ho0

Questions!

1. Who do you think the two companies are trying to appeal to?

2. Draw up the following table and write down positives and negatives for digital content streaming sites

Positives (Netflix/LOVEFiLM) Negatives (Netflix/LOVEFiLM)

Distribution

• Put the cards in order – how does the traditional film distribution system work ?

Traditional Distribution

1st Cinema Release2nd DVD release / Blu-Ray release3rd Pay-per-view TV release4th Video on demand release5th Free-to-air release

Theatrical Window is 4-6 months!

New Strategies

• More and more films are being released as a ‘simultaneous release’ meaning they get released in theatres, on DVD/VOD and other platforms on the same day or within a shorter time frame (shrinking of the theatrical window) than traditional release strategies, which indicates that studios are seeing a trend in media consumption.

http://natoonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Major-Studio-Release-Windows-Graph.jpg

Case Study

The Road to Guantanamo Bay (2006)

The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on 14 February 2006. It was broadcast to the UK on Channel 4 on 9 March, attracting 1.6 million viewers and released on DVD and the Internet the following day

Case Study

The House of the Devil (2009)

It was made available through VOD on October 1, 2009. The film wasgiven a limited theatrical release in the On October 30, 2009. The DVD and Blu-ray of the film were released on February 2, 2010. A promotional copyof the film was released on VHS in a clamshell box like the ones that many early VHS films of the 1980s came in.

Your Task

Using the BFI site linked below, choose one film you are interested in or have seen. Click on it’s link for the case study. Read this document to learn about it’s marketing and distribution strategy. These case studies are incredibly detailed and RELEVANT. An incredible resource.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/film-industry/lottery-funding-distribution/insight-reports-case-studies-audience-research/new-ways-reaching-audiences-distribution