Financing Is The Key Component

Contents

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Conclusion

Introduction

Financing is the key component that determines the level on which the film is produced, because the budget determines the level on which it is shot. It is the main feature that makes the art film that targets the niche market different from the Hollywood blockbuster that aims at reaching the wide audience. Financing is critical not only for production of the movie which refers to the actual making of the media product.

It is also critical for marketing, which is the key component in distribution of the media product. It influences the actual reception of the movie, real popularity among the audience, and potential reactions of the audience and the critiques. So, financing is a complicated task that is the responsibility of executive producers. When the script for the movie is chosen, producers make everything possible to make it fit the budget, which is sometimes difficult to achieve. Because of the nobody knows, producers would have no ideas about whether the film will be successful after it released, which means that the main issue in marketing and choosing the right strategy is the thing that determines the future success or failure of the movie.

These two categories have nothing to do with the artistic value of the particular work. It is more about the box office and the revenue that investors actually receive. Thus, it is possible to state that issues connected with financing do not only influence its quality, but also allow to evaluate the commercial success of the movie. It allows to call financing and marketing the basic components that are important toward the films. Financing There are hundreds of movies that are based on the love story at late 20th centuries, Titanic, directed by James Cameron, can be called one of the most well-known romantic movies that were produced at that time and it was the film about one of the most dramatic catastrophes of the 20th century.

So, it allows to assume that there are other reasons that made Titanic popular except its narration of love story that makes the audience cry and feel compassion to the protagonists. First of all, it is crucial to understand that cinematography aims at impressing people. The effect includes audience’s visual, emotional and hearing senses. As the result, it has become the evident blockbuster because of the romantic script, well- performed actors and iconic theme music. In fact, all these components require money, which means that it is the budget that has made the movie to the high professional quality.

Furthermore, failure chance of the film would be high, since all innovations and production that made Titanic popular were expensive and everything was made without being sure that these expenses would be paid off. Thus, the main thing that was evident about financing of Titanic was that the production of the movie would be expensive. Because, Titanic is a huge ocean ship that was the technical revolution of that time and it was necessary to show the grandiosity of the construction in order to show the dramatic event. One of the objective difficulties during the production of the movie was building the ship and showing the ship wreck. Special effects that were used for this movie could be called innovative for the end of 1990s when digital graphics were not that developed as it is now. For example, the full-scale model of Titanic was constructed in the studio.

All these things required money to build and to support, which was the serious challenge for the movie’s budget. In addition, the script was also adapted to the conditions in which the movie was actually shot. It shows that it was a challenging process that required much time, attention, and professionalism from the cast. All these components of the working process required financing from the movie’s budget and it was the duty of the executive producer at that time. In order to advertising the film, participation of stars includes Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie is necessary but costly.

Horner wrote the soundtrack for Titanic that has become extremely popular and Celine Dion recorded the composition Heart Will Go On and it also became the important factor that contributed to the overall popularity of the movie (Allen, 2014). It is evident that all these people who worked for the film had to receive money for their services, even though there is no precise information about it in the public access. Investment Finding money for the production of Titanic was a challenging task for producers. 20th Century Fox studio asked for the loan that constituted almost 65 million dollars from Paramount Pictures that wanted to have the part of movie rights and to share the profit. It was the example of the co-financing deal that is rather popular in the production of movies in Hollywood (Allen, 2014).

However, Titanic had an exceptionally big box-office after it was finally released, which proved its popularity. The movie made 2 billion dollars in the end and people who were working on the production of the film could not even believe in it. In fact, it was the financial success with the production budget that was 200 million dollars (Allen, 2014). This type of investments allows to decrease potential risks if the box office of the movie would not be sufficient for covering all expenses, which means that minimizing the risk of financial failure and finding the balance between making a good movie and saving money is important to investment of one film.

Marketing Marketing is important in distribution of the movie. One of the evident examples that support this claim is the choice of the time when the movie will be shown in the cinemas. As a result, summers and Christmas holidays are considered to be the periods when people watch movies more and thus the chances for making the film popularity increases significantly (Allen, 2014). The analytics write that actions movies that have a big budget and thus have many special effects tend to become more popular during summer, since people had more free time and they were on holidays.

This principle was also applied to the post-production of Titanic (Allen, 2014). It is possible to apply the same principles to starting of DVD selling campaigns and starting the broadcast on television. It is crucial to find the time when people are not busy at work and they have the required mood to watch the movie like Titanic. For example, it is the movie for adults, which means that it is better to show it on the satellite channel or on the TV channel in the late evening. Titanic was released according to the rather traditional scheme. The official date on which people could see the movie in the cinema was after the series of preview screenings that happened before the premiere. It allowed the film producers to see the reaction of the audience on Titanic and to make the prognosis concerning the potential success of this movie and its box office. Actually, the reaction of the audience showed that the movie would be paid off almost at once. In 12 days after the release in July, the profit was more than 100 million dollars.

The expenses were paid off in one month and the film grossed over 250 million dollars (Allen, 2014). Moreover, the international marketing is also important in making the production profitable. Titanic was released in other counties and in some of them the movie has become the real blockbuster. China was among such countries, and in the end of February 1998 the box office of the film was more than 1 billion dollars (Allen, 2014). Thus, the success of the movie depends greatly on international marketing and it is crucial to target not only domestic audience, but to reach people worldwide (Allen, 2014). Almost one year after the official release in the cinemas the company decided that they would start selling video versions of Titanic.

The estimated profit from it was approximately 800 million dollars (Allen, 2014). The time was also chosen wisely, and the maximum of sales were on Christmas holidays, when people wanted to spend time at home, watching a good movie (Allen, 2014). the cable service of Titanic was two years after the cinema released and one year after the beginning of video sales. It was the optimal choice of the period during which the maximum of tapes would be sold. The rights for showing the movie were sold to Sky Box Office channel and to HBO America, which was also the part of financial pay off (Allen, 2014). Also, people had to pay for every time they watch the movie on Sky Box Office channel in April 1999. Only half a year later, in October, it became available on Sky Movies, it was the channel where people had the opportunity to watch Titanic by the subscription instead paying every time they want to watch it (Allen, 2014).

After the first wave of popularity disappeared, the company started to release DVDs with director’s cut editions and other special editions. This new perspective on the old popular movie has become the means that allowed the producers to increase the profits from video sales almost twice (Allen, 2014). Furthermore, the terrestrial premiere of Titanic in the United States was in 2000, because NBC bought the rights for showing the movie and the TV premiere was during the weekend on Thanksgiving (Allen, 2014), which leads to Titanic became popular again. All these examples show that the choice of releasing date and time is important in making the movie become successful. For instance, holidays and weekends were perfect time to watch the movie with family and friends.

As the result, the producers of the film had a good revenue from selling licenses for broadcasting Titanic and for selling DVDs with the film. Advertising and Promotion The marketing of Titanic can be called the example of marketing in the post-production and thus it is possible to apply it to more modern movies. The producers of Titanic also used advertising techniques that are often applied nowadays. Among the widest spread and popular means of promoting the movie were TV advertising, trailers, posters with the faces of the main actors and the huge ocean ship in the background (Ulin, 2013), because all these things supported the public interest of people in this film. Another important way to promote the movie and to support the public interest in it was the public interview. The leading actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio became extremely popular at that time, and they were the guests in different TV shows and radio programs, their interviews were printed in the magazines (Ulin, 2013), so the rising popularity of leading actors would help the film be successful. As it was already mentioned, the soundtrack of the movie has become iconic.

The composition My Heart Will Go On has become popular as the separate song. It was not always associated with the movie, but its popularity and first places in the musical charts added publicity to Titanic (Ulin, 2013). Evaluation of The Movie’s Success It is possible to state that Titanic was obviously one of the most successful movies in the history of Hollywood. It was truly popular in the end of 1990s and there was the real rush about this film. The leading actors have become the stars, teenage girls wore t-shirts with printed posters of the movie, and it was possible to hear the main soundtrack of the film on every corner. Thus, it was not strange that the overall reaction of the public media was positive. It showed the attitude of the majority of people to this movie.

Those people who did not like dramatic love stories simply did not watch it, while the others could not avoid mentioning the high professional level of the production.

Conclusion

On the stage of post-production, Titanic was considered by the investors to be extremely long and expensive. In fact, it is the normal part of the post-production period, when it is still impossible to understand whether the movie will become popular or not (Allen, 2014). There are no people who can predict that the movie will be certainly popular, because the film industry is full of unexpected circumstances because of nobody knows. However, movie production was on the highest professional level. Titanic has obviously become a very popular movie and it is possible to state that the finances that were used to produce this film were the key issue in making it the professional high-quality media content.

As the result, its box office was many times bigger than the initial budget and more than James Cameron’s expectation about $400 million in box office receipts worldwide (Allen, 2014). Coordination of financing, production, and marketing has become the important component of the success of Titanic. All details like the time of release, advertising and promotion, and choice of stuff have come the part of this success.