Dracula Untold (2014)

1 Issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media

practice
A films success often depends on which production company produces the film in
the first place. The bigger production companies such as the big six (Warner Bros.
Pictures, Paramount pictures, Walt Disney, Columbia pictures, Universal Studios,
20th Century Fox) will often have an unfair advantage over the other, smaller film
production companies in terms of what budget they are given and their access to all
of the best technologies and stars.
This is relative to Mark Kermodes rules that will determine whether it is
impossible for a film to lose money or not. Kermode says that it is impossible for a
film to lose money if it complies within four rules, these rules are: newsworthy
budget, spectacular visuals, not to be a comedy and to include an A list star. A
larger film company stands a better chance when creating a film that complies
within these rules as they will have the newsworthy budget to be able to have the
spectacular visuals and the A-list star and because their company is so well
known anyway, the film wont have to be of a genre that is simply there to attract
attention such as a comedy.
For example, Warner Bros. pictures released The Green Lantern in 2011. The film
itself was a complete flop, receiving bad reviews (especially from fans of the comic
books) and losing out on an estimated $90,074,414 after only grossing
$219,851,172 worldwide when their films original budget cost $200,000,000.
However, the film still had an A list star, (Ryan Reynolds), spectacular visuals and
special effects due to the company being able to afford the newest technologies that
were available at the time. This film was not intended to be a comedy, although
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parts of it did come across as slightly comedic. Whilst this film wasnt great, it was
still popular as it was produced by a very well-known company that had the
budget, the technology and the stars to attract some attention. This shows the
issues within media ownership as the bigger companies will almost always have a
larger hand over the small film companies as they have the fame and the money to
attract attention anyway, whereas a smaller company could produce a very well
made film which would gain more interest but they simply do not have a large
enough audience or enough of a reputation to gain a larger audience.
Dracula Untold was made by Universal Pictures along with Legendary Pictures in
2014. This movie gained a huge audience before the movie was even released as it
was made by well-known production companies that are renowned for having
produced some of cinemas greatest movies such as Jurassic Park (1993), Jaws
(1975) and more recently Les Miserable (2013). Dracula Untold complies within
Kermodes rules as it includes A list stars such as Luke Evans and Charles Dance,
it has spectacular visual effects as well as having a newsworthy budget of an
estimated $70,000,000. This film is classed as an action/drama/fantasy; therefore,
it is not a comedy. According to Mark Kermodes rules, it is impossible for this film
to lose money. On its opening weekend in the USA, it made $23,514,615 on the 10th
of October 2014. By the 21st of November, it had grossed around $55,942,830.

2 The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in

production, distribution and marketing
This movie was made in collaboration by Universal Studios, Legendary pictures and
Michael De Luca productions. Universal and Legendary pictures are very well
known, especially with Universal being one of the big six production companies in
Hollywood. This tells us that his film will automatically have a very high budget and
popularity/success rate as it is expected of a film that has been produced by one of
the big six. Dracula Untold almost made back its entire budget in its opening
weekend in the USA, bringing back $23,514,614 to the box office. This is quite
good considering the estimated budget for this film was $70,000,000.
Legendary Pictures are not one of the big six, but they are still a very reputable film
company and have produced massive blockbuster movies such as Jurassic World
(2015), Godzilla (2014) and Interstellar (2014). Similarly, Michael de Luca
Productions has worked on movies such as: Fright Night (2011), Ghost rider
(2007) and Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). This makes it easier for the film to be
marketed as the audience will see the film companies that have produced it and will
therefore have a pre-determined idea of what kind of quality the film will be.

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Because Universal and Legendary are both extremely well known, the fact that they
are working together will reinforce the audiences confidence in the quality of the
film.
Multiple smaller companies worked with the three main production companies in
order to produce the posters/trailers/marketing campaigns etc. However they are
not really credited as they worked in collaboration with main production
companies.
This cross media convergence is very important as it allows multiple companies to
work together to produce something that is really important throughout each stage
of a films production, marketing and distribution.

3 - Technologies introduced in recent years at the levels of

production, distribution, marketing and exchange
Blu Ray:
Blu Ray is a more enhanced version of a movie which shows the footage in high
definition. In a film with so many special effects and visual creativity, blu ray is a
must in order to experience the extent of the effects.

Internet streaming:
After this film had been released, it was then made available on internet sites such
as Netflix, Lovefilm and the Sky Box Office.

Downloadable content:
The soundtrack for this film was very popular, especially as the main theme,
Everybody wants to rule the world was sung by Lorde, a very popular face within
the music industry currently.

4 Proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and

audience
Cameras:

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Witness cameras were used to capture the action when the actors werent wearing
markers, eg: Canon 5Ds, GoPros for reference photos, etc.

Visual Effects:
Framestore in London was used to supply most of the VFX in terms of CGI.
Multiple scans were made of Luke Evans to in order to create his transformation
scenes during the movie. They used various facial action coding system poses
which allowed the VFX team to make Luke look like a vampire. Reference photos
were used in order to digitally create the exterior locations such as the castles and
valleys. The production department used an extensive version of Google Sketchup
to come up with the designs

Marketing:
This movie was advertised using clips from the movie in the trailers as well as
using posters. The posters were digitally edited using elements of Photoshop along
with stills from the movie.

5 - Importance of cross media convergence and synergy in

production, distribution and marketing
This is a stand-alone movie, meaning it has no sequel or prequel and it is not a
spin off from another movie. On the one hand, this makes it easier to advertise and
market the film as you have a chance to make a good first impression with the
movie as opposed to having an unsuccessful prequel which would affect the way
the audience would respond to the second movie. However, on the other hand this
makes it harder to market the film as you have to get the audience interested in
something theyve never seen before.
This movie was advertised mainly through posters and film trailers; however, a
recurring theme was present throughout each advertisement. They all featured
Luke Evans with the use of bat motifs and symbolism of his vampirism. This
created an iconic image which the audience already associated with vampires. I
think that what partly drew the audience in to see this film was the fact that it
starred Luke Evans who had recently become A list because of his role as Bard in
the Hobbit movies and because it was released in October, which is near the time of

Libby Tuft

Halloween. Around this time of year, people are looking for scary films, and whats
more iconic than Dracula when it comes to Halloween?

6 Issues raised in the

targeting of national and
local audiences
(specifically British) by
international or global
institutions
The marketing stage usually
occurs within the distribution phase of a films release and will usually be dealt
with and organised by the exhibitors and distributing companies. In a way, the
marketing and distributing of a movie is just as if not more important than the
movie itself especially as the marketing budget can come up to around half of the
movies overall budget, giving it a considerable amount of money to make sure that
this vital stage is successful.
Dracula Untold was marketed in the USA, UK and Japan as they are its main target
audiences. In the UK and the USA, marketing was slightly easier as the A list stars
Charles Dance and Luke Evans are very well known and popular. Also, the song
used in the teaser trailer is sung by Lorde, a current, popular singer whose
presence in the marketing of the movie helped the film to gain early publicity and
make more money back from the sale of the song. There are two official sites for
this movie, one of which is a UK/US (English) site, whereas the other is a Japanese
site, which caters for the eastern audiences.
This movie was marketed mainly throughout the use
of teaser trailers, posters/billboards and the
publicity of the song sung by Lorde, which peaked at
position 65 in the UK charts, 27th in the USA and
14th in New Zealand (where Lorde comes from). The
official trailer on YouTube has reached around
9,224,473 views online. This doesnt even take into
account the amount of views that it received when
advertised on TV. The popularity of the Dracula
story in its many different versions had a massive impact on the success of this
films marketing campaign.

Libby Tuft

Because this movie was advertised to a global audience, it was mainly advertised
over TV and online trailers as you can access everything online from almost
anywhere in the world and it is a very popular media source. As the movie is
spoken in English, an issue would be that the movie would have to have sufficient
subtitles for non-English speaking audience which would take lots of time and
money. However, given the newsworthy budget and global audience, the film would
have been translated and given substantial subtitles for the majority of countries
that received it.

7 The ways in which the candidates own experiences of media

consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience
behaviour
I agree that the bigger, more renowned film companies such as the big six do stand
a better chance of producing, marketing and distributing movies as I myself will
partly judge whether I want to see a movie based on what company logo I see at the
beginning of a trailer. This is because we associate the success of a movie and its
expected quality based on what the company has produced previously. Smaller film
companies will start to advertise and market movies before they have even finished
being made because they need the extra time for it to become known and popular
as their target audience wont have heard of the movie company. By the time the
film has become known to the mainstream audience, it will have already been
advertised for around a year whereas a larger audience could bring out an advert
for a film a couple of months before its release date and still generate a huge
audience that often outnumbers the audiences that a film produced by a smaller
company will ever gain. For example, the How to train your Dragon film have been
one of DreamWorkss recent successes over the last few years, however they took a
lot of marketing through toys, spin off TV shows and multiple trailers/posters to
gain an audience even though the books were successful, it still needed more. The
third of the How to train your Dragon series comes out in 2016, but advertising
campaigns have already started now, a year early, as DreamWorks knows that it
has a lot to compete with such as the new James Bond movie Spectre which only
released its trailers and official song a couple of months ago and has already
received a huge audience and publicity.
Dracula Untold was bound to be successful in the box office as it gained instant
publicity due to it being produced by Universal along with Legendary Pictures and
Michael De Luca productions. And was advertised mainly around the time of its
release (October 2014) as it was linked to the fact that October is the month of
Halloween and the film is related to the supernatural.

Libby Tuft

Personally, I think that going to see a movie at the cinema is the best way to see a
new release as they are shown in good quality in a good atmosphere where you can
witness the special effects such as 3D and in some case 4D experiences. The
appearance of Blu-Ray however has meant that a lot of people have decided to wait
for the film to be released on DVD so that they can see it in the comfort of their own
home whilst still having the high resolution experience. Online
streaming/downloading has also become more prominent, especially with todays
young adult audiences as there are now more ways in which illegal copies of movies
can be accessed and not much can be done about it therefore the companies lose
out on money as people arent going to the cinema to see it. However, a lot of the
time people decide to illegally download a film because it takes too long to come out
on DVD and the audience gets impatient. Whilst Blu-Ray, 3D TVs and the addition
of special features have made it more tempting and easier to get the same level of
experience when watching a film at home, I still believe that going to the cinema is
the best way to watch a new release as you get to see it sooner, there is a better
atmosphere of a whole audiences anticipation, you can witness effects such as
3/4D which you otherwise wouldnt be able to witness at home and you can see
trailers for other films that you might want to see in the future.

Libby Tuft