Monday 8 December 2014

The Grand Budapest Hotel Essay

"Successful media products depends as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices" to what extent would you agree with this statement,  within the media area you have studied?



I think film success is largely bound on the distribution to a particular audience and marketing. I think that these two elements are the most vital aspects to the film becoming a box office success. Different films have different distribution levels depending on the size of the company for example 20th century fox, they have a significant amount of control and influence due to them being such a big company they can distribute films on a global scale, this makes sure that films can be accessible by all audiences. 20th century fox is one of the most widely recognised and respected brands in the film industry, they have connections all over the world so they can insure that the film is marketed well in the media and on television. 20th century fox is well known for making successful films such as the Simpsons movie and the X-men franchise so it was a good company to use because a lot of people will go and watch it based on it being made by 20th century fox. The avengers is a film famous for its advertisement campaign. The advertisement for the avengers was very clever. Films prior to it were released for example iron man trilogy, thor, hulk etc. By these films being released it made people very exited and more eagerly awaiting the release of the avengers. The film made over $1.5 billion at the box office which is very good considering they had a huge budget of $220 million.


 A film that backs up my point that distribution and marketing are vital is the film DREDD. The film was produced by entertainment distributors and lionsgate production. The film was never going to be huge success because the budget was only $45 million, This meant they could not advertise the film as well as they would have liked because they just didn't have the budget, and they were not able to compete with films that have a much larger budget. The advertisement of the film was not the key issue. However the distribution of the film was very poor, it was only available in 3D in the majority of cinemas which put people off because 3D is not the success story it once was. This meant that a lot of people would have to travel far away to watch the film in 2D which is a huge inconvenience. However the films lack of success can not be blamed solely on poor distribution, the film was released near the time of the film 'the raid' which has an extremely similar storyline which again put people off watching it.




The Grand Budapest hotel had various marketing techniques to promote the film, the film was released in blue ray, this was popular because it allowed the customers to watch the film in multiple formats including regular dvd and blue ray players. The film was also promoted by releasing memorbillia from the film online for example fake moustaches and recipes from the cakes sold in the film. Large scale models of the hotel used in the film were transported to cinemas around the world so that it gave the customers a feel of what the hotel was like. These three key concepts were vital to the films $172 million box office profit, which is very good because it was a low budget film of $31 million. This film is a great example that if a film is marketed and distributed properly then a film of a low budget can be a success.


I think that if a film such as avengers has a huge budget it is going to be a success and people will watch it no matter what the marketing campaign is like. However for films such as The grand Budapest hotel the marketing is far more important and if its done correctly it can be a huge success.






















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