Tuesday 3 March 2009

Introduction To Case Study

In a lesson with Nina, we started looking at Hollywood. in this lesson we all discussed what our own ideas and perceptions on the place and words that we associate with it. some were:
  • exaggerated
  • superficial
  • the American dream
  • walk of fame
  • wealth
  • superstars

we then went on to talk about the main Hollywood production companies and studios, going into detail about who owned them and why they had so many links to other forms of media throughout the world. these were:

  • Universal Studios; owned by general electric, a very well known multi-national American technology and services conglomerate. as of September 2008, it was the worlds tenth largest company and is also known as NBC.
  • Fox Studios; is owned by Richard Murdoch's News International, a company specialising in mass media and owning numerous newspapers all over the world.
  • Paramount; is owned by the same company that own MTV, Nickelodeon, Blockbuster Video and Showcase cinema, Viacom.
  • Disney; a huge transnational corporation and household name the world over, that owns Beuna vista and Miramax, which in turn is arguable the worlds largest independent film company.
  • Columbia Pictures; owned by Sony, which also took over ownership of MGM in September 2004.
  • Warner Brothers; part of the worlds largest media company Time Warner.

We noticed a relationship between the conglomerates who own these production companies and the other companies in which they own. main stream film making, at the end of the day, is about making a profit and having as many fingers in as many pies as possible, can be extremely helpful in both marketing and packaging your product. producing, distributing and exhibiting their own films and controlling every aspect of the production process is known as Vertical Integration. this is why these companies own other smaller companies. it saves a huge some of money on things like buying rights to names and hiring other companies to do certain jobs, enabling a profit increase.

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