Starting a Media Company

By Adam Joseph Reed

There are many different types of ownership when it comes to media production. The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is a public service. This means they don’t show any advertisements between their shows (except for short ads for their own productions). The BBC is also funded through the British people buying TV Licences. ITV are sponsored by outside companies so that they will show and advertise their products in-between programs.

In the film industry you also have companies that own and distribute movies. There are independents; these are small companies that work outside the major studios and often produce very none mainstream movies. Film 4 is a good example of this is with their 2012 film ‘Sightseers’ which features moments of very dark comedy (known as black comedy), 2 unlikeable protagonists, and a very anti-Hollywood ending.

On the other end of the scale you have corporate film companies such as Working Title. They are much larger companies that often have a lot more money to spend on their productions. Due to the increased budget on their films they need to make as much money back as possible, leading to the films being more formulaic and mainstream, so they will appeal to as wide, and as many audiences as possible to earn their budget back and make a large profit.    

  

When making a film or TV production you will need a source of funding. There are many places of which to find this. One example is you could launch a kick starter campaign. Kickstarter is a website where you can post your project idea online and an amount of money that you need to raise to get the production off the ground for people to view and if they are interested back your production and donate money towards getting it made. However, there is a major flaw in using the site to fund a project as “Funding on Kickstarter is all-or-nothing”, (What is Kickstarter Page, http://www.kickstarter.com/hello, point 3) meaning if your project has backing and has received some donations but doesn’t reach its goal then all of the money donated will transfer back to the backers and you will have made no profit what so ever.

Another form of funding is product placement. This is where a company pays you to feature a product of theirs in your production so that they can use your film as an advertisement for their brand.  Often this method is quite subtle, like having the main character of the piece drink/consume the product in a scene. A large disadvantage is, if overused or being shown too frequent then it distracts the viewer from the plot and borders on being intrusive. Film director Quentin Tarantino believes that when it is too obvious “it becomes ridiculously obvious and then it can break the reality.”

An example of product placement becoming distracting is in the 2013 film ‘Man of Steel’ which features a fight between the protagonist and the villain’s henchmen. The scene takes place in a small town and in most of the shots you have the characters standing in front of a giant ‘Sears’ logo that takes up half of the screen. In fact as the fight progresses they end up battling it out inside of an ‘Ihop’ which they again show us the logo of several times and bares nothing to the plot.

Whereas product placement has an advertisement during or inside the movie, a company can sponsor your production. In this case they will still help fund your movie but their adverts will take place before or after your film. The benefit of this is of course you still get the money and you don’t have to cram a company’s brand into the project itself. Also this means the company has less chance of affecting your production to force their product in the film and to make sure it is represented in a good light. For example a company would prefer the protagonist to advertise the product because most of the time he is represented as being good. Often they will demand that the protagonist and not the villain use their item so that the audience will be more pressed to buy it. Having a sponsor will ensure that you have complete control over your production without any company trying to change any parts of it.

An example of a company sponsoring a production is at the beginning and end of every advert break of ITV 1’s ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here!’ there is a short 10 second advert for Iceland.

I performed a survey online with ServeyMonkey.com (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DTC3DR5) to find out what 16-24 year olds favour watching on TV and at the Cinema. I managed to ask 14 people in total. The first question queries what gender the participant is. 11 were males and only 3 were females. When asked what their favourite genre of film is out of the options horror, comedy, Sci-fi, romantic comedy, thriller, and action. Thriller came in at the highest with 7 people choosing it. 6 people voted for comedy, horror, action and sci-fi all got 5 votes (My survey was multiple choice, so is the reason the votes don’t add up to 14). Of TV show genres, 8 chose comedy, 6 chose drama, 2 picked cartoons, and 1 picked reality TV. Ten of people who answered my survey fit into the 16-18 age range, 2 are in the 19-21 range, 1 is 22-24, and the final person fits into other.  

Using the research I have performed, I propose we, at Newcastle College should make thriller comedy hybrid movie. The target audience should be the 16-22 age as my survey proves that they would be the most interested in viewing it. It is easy to build a small cheap set and with large places on campus like the TV Studio to store/film them in. For the talent, it would be easy to ask the Acting department situated in the same building if we could borrow anyone who would be willing to take part. It would give them more experience to put on their CV or Show-reel. 

I believe the film should be put onto the website https://vimeo.com/ because it will be free to view, therefore more people will be inclined to watch it, and a lot of professional filmmakers use the site to host their work and comment on other people's work, tips to make their productions better.