Meida Ownership, Production and Exchange Essay

Discuss the issues raised by media ownership in the production and exchange of media texts in your chosen media area:

There are many issues which can occur in production and exchanges in media texts

An example of when issues were raised in media ownership was in Matthew Vaughans comic book adaptation action packed film ‘Kick Ass’. The production company ‘Marv’ (owned by Matthew Vaughan) made up the original budget for the film which amounted to $10 million which is extremely small. Having no backing from any of the major film companies meant there was a problem with the production as there would not be enough funding for the film to actually be created and exhibited.

Luckily for Matthew Vaughan, Plan B Entertainment, a film production company owned by Hollywood ‘star’ Brad Pitt, joined in with the venture and raised the budget from $10 million to $30 million. Although this budget is still small, it allows enough money to pay for the production and promotion of the film as well as the exhibition of the film which allowed more people to go and see the film which ultimately made the film a success.

The low budget meant that issues were raised with the cast. The stars of the movie were relatively unknown and therefore did not have a huge fan base and did not bring masses of viewers to the cinema to see the film. For this reason, there was fear that the film would be unsuccessful and not be a big hit at the box office.

However, with the use of big, successful Hollywood actors who work for low budgets such as Nicolas Cage, the film would instantly gain more publicity. Nicolas Cage is a very successful actor who, after having money troubles, now works on small films with low budgets that tend to be fairly successful- ‘Kick Ass’ an example of this. Because Cage only required a small section of the films budget (unlike he would a few years ago- in 2009 he was one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors earning an estimated $40 million) it meant that the rest of the budget could be used more in the production as well as other, less known actors.

Another issue with the casting in ‘Kick Ass’ due to the budget was having Aaron Johnson as the main character Dave Lizewski and his alter ego ‘Kick Ass’ the superhero. Aaron Johnson, a young actor who the audience would have probably recognised from the John Lennon film adaptation ‘Nowhere Boy’, is young and relatively inexperienced. The issue with this is that Vaughan wouldn’t know how good a job he would do starring as the main character in a film of this type- something which he is extremely unfamiliar with. His performance could have either made the film brilliant or made the film horrendous. The risks taken by Vaughan to put him as the lead roll could have been the reason behind the unsuccessful film.

Also, the other main character of ‘Hit Girl’ and Mindy McCready was played by another unknown, upcoming child actress; Chloe Grace Moretz. Having only had minor roles in previous films, this was another risk taken by the films producers. If her performance wasn’t up to the standards, critics and viewers wouldn’t enjoy the film and wouldn’t promote through word-of-mouth and so the film wouldn’t have been as big of a success as it was!

Also, a lot of the cast who were playing Americans were British actors. This is because issues with the budget meant that Americans who would have expected a bigger pay check than the British actors would have been too expensive. Also, with Matthew Vaughan being a British director, it meant that people who he would have worked with in the past would be happy to work with him because they are loyal rather than the money aspect of the job.

Another issue which was raised about the exhibition of ‘Kick Ass was the age rating. With ‘Kick Ass’ being an action film adapted from comic books, the idea audience would have been young teenagers, however this was not the case. Instead of the 12 or 12A rating which would have been expected, ‘Kick Ass’ was a 15. This meant that the audiences who were able to see it may not have been attracted to the film and not wanted to go and see the film. This could have made the film extremely unsuccessful.

However with the release of ‘Kick Ass’ on Blu-Ray and DVD, the people who were unable to see the film in the cinema were able to buy it from a shop. Because they couldn’t go and see it in the cinema, they would have to buy it on DVD or online and so made the film more successful after the release.

Also, something which didn’t impress film critics was the language used throughout the film. Having a twelve year old girl swearing would have been slightly off putting for certain people (even if it was what made the film so humorous) and would have put them off going to see the film. May critics said that the bad language should have been taken out of the film- as well as being kinder to ears, it would have lowered the age rating and made the film available to a larger audience- however Vaughan and script writer Jane Goldman decided against it as it was one of the main features of the film.

As well as this, the sound track consisted of songs notably from many other films. This is because the small budget didn’t allow for songs to be produced purely for the film. There was one song- the main song- used in the film which was recorded for the pure purpose of the film and was recorded by star of the time; Mika. This was good publicity for both Mika and the film as he was fairly successful in 2010 when ‘Kick Ass’ was released. However using songs from other films could have been risky because some of the songs were used from well known movies.

Lastly, the small budget meant only small amounts of CGI used. This could have made the film have a poor effect on the viewer; however this was not the case as the poor quality of some of the fight scenes were what made the film funny and appealing to the audience.

Another example of where there were problems with media ownership, production and exchange was in Ben Wheatley’s action/horror film ‘Kill List’. With a budget of just £500,000, there was hardly any money to get any well known actors or actresses and so had to use unknown actors in the film (including Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring and Michael Smiley). This meant, as there were no huge stars, no amount of fans would have gone to the see the film as no one who was in the would have created a large amount of excitement for the film.

Also, the small budget left no money for promotion meaning, again, that no buzz was created amongst potential audiences. The lack of promotion meant that no one really knew about the film unless they went to small, art house style cinemas to see a film of the same genre and saw the advert for it as a trailer before their actual film.

There wasn’t a proper premier because there wasn’t a large, well known cast and the potential audience was limited. This also meant that there was no buzz created for the film. The only place where the film was ‘premiered’ was at the Film 4 Fright fest- It was held at the Film4 Fright Fest because Film4 were one of the film production companies that put money into the film along with Warp X and Rook Films. They all put the money together in order to create the film- meaning that the people who were interested in the genre would have seen it. This was a good way to promote the film to the target audience, however this audience is only limited and so would not have been a guaranteed success.

Having this issue with the audience meant that only people over the age of 18 were able to go and see the film, however I think that people who are most interested in horror films are slightly younger teenagers (like 16 year olds) and people who are 18 and over wouldn’t necessarily be attracted to this genre of film.

Also, the extreme violence and strange plot meant that some film critics loved it and some hated it. It was important for the success of the film that it got good reviews as that was one of the only ways people would be attracted to go and see the film. Luckily, most thought that the plot and violence was good and gave fairly good reviews meaning that some of the people who read the reviews went to see the film. Could the good reviews from critics have played the major part in the film grossing over £16,000?