What are the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (British) by international and global institutions?

There are many different issues which are raised by production companies aiming films at either local or global audiences; here I am going to explain how this has been done with my two case studies.

My two case studies are Warner bros Animation’s The Lego Movie and BBC Films Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie. First of all as Warner bros animation is one of Hollywood’s top six conglomerates which suggests that they are a huge global institution which means they make films they would target at national audiences while BBC Films is a British independent production company and would make films which would target local audiences.

To help do this both my case studies produced and distributed very different types of films in The Lego Movie and Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie. First of all Warner bros animation The Lego Movie was a high budget, high concept film which was always going to be distributed to the mass international audiences. Whereas BBC Films Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie was made to reflect and create social realism which appeals to a more local target audience. 

First of all Warner bros The Lego Movie had huge financial backing which meant they had huge above the line and below the line costs, the above the line costs for The Lego movie includes costs for stars such as Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson whereas Mrs Browns Boys didn’t have half as much as they only had a budget of £3.6 million compared to The Lego Movies budget of over $200 million.

The Lego Movie was released on February the 7^th 2014 in the UK this was done just in time for February Half term at schools meaning its main target audience in families had time to go and watch the film also and the film was screened in millions of countries around the world, however after the 7^th of Feb there was still more screenings to come because other countries couldn’t use the subtitles they needed the whole script to be read done by new actors speaking their native language, whereas BBC Films Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie was released on the 27^th of June 2014 and was only released in English. This shows the huge difference between a distribution company thinking about when it should be released to most engage its target audience compared to just producing and distributing it as quickly as possible and it only appeals to local audiences rather than global ones.

During the distribution phase of both the films they both had huge advertising campaigns however due to the fact Warner bros uses horizontal integration they own all of the stages of a film making process which means they have full control over what they do to produce and distribute the film which is important because it means that they are able to plan how they are going to advertise and market certain films before the actual script for the film is finalised, whereas because BBC Films uses vertical integration they use a different company to do the distribution phase of the film which means a film has to be made before any thoughts can go into distribution and marketing. For example during the distribution of Warner bros The Lego Movie they released a normal television trailer for the film however they paid huge sums of money to ITV to transform a whole prime time advertising slot into actual Lego through the same Lego digital designer the film used which helped promote the film and the Lego brand however without the financial backing they wouldn’t have been able to do this. This helps show the difference between global institutions trying to advertise their films and independent institutions trying to sell their film to more local audiences.

Both the films used old fashioned posters and billboards to help try and advertise and sell the film during the distribution phase, both of the posters showed what the film was about and how the main characters were within the film which shows how both types of production companies identify good clear posters as an important way of targeting and selling their film to different types of audiences.

The premiers of the films helped the exhibition aspect of the two films , first of all Mrs Browns Boys had the premier for the film in the Savoy cinema in the capital of Ireland Dublin, this was done to show that it hadn’t forgotten its original Irish roots which is a huge unique selling point for the film. In contrast the high budget American film of The Lego Movie was first released in Copenhagen were the premier was held, this is because of the history of Lego and Denmark. The first pieces of Lego were first made in Denmark so the film about of Lego would more than defiantly first be shown there.

Synergy was used in a very creative way by Warner bros to help promote the film and help it appeal to global audiences.  For example Lego themed events were held in many different shops across the globe to raise awareness of the film and promote the brand of Lego. Next McDonalds released eight limited edition cups which came with every happy meal to also help raise awareness of the film and its characters, also costumes and clothing of particular characters were released, all of this helps The Lego Movie appeal to international and global audiences. BBC Films Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie is really different however also has many similarities. For example synergy was used in a very creative way such as: products such as a calendar of actions shots from the film has been released, a fancy dress costume of the main character Agnes Brown has been released and lastly many T-shirts with the Mrs Browns logo or picture have been released to promote the film and help it appeal to local audiences.

Furthermore the fact Warner bros is a global institution they can afford to really go crazy on the convergence side of distribution for example a video game of The Lego Movie was released, many different videos on YouTube were released of the main cast talking about their particular characters to help the audience gain a better understanding of them, lastly a theme song was released this is called ‘Everything is Awesome’ this helps show the ethics of the film and that you should think positive on life no matter what the circumstances. This was also used in cross media convergence because many different artists re-released the theme tune. Whereas in the local institution of BBC Films Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie convergence was used but on a lot smaller scale mainly due to the fact that they didn’t have the financial backing to do things such as this, but also they didn’t need to do as much to appeal to their local target audience whereas The Lego Movie needed too, to appeal to their global audiences.

In conclusion I feel that both the global institution in Warner bros  animation with the Lego Movie and the local institution in BBC Films with Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie are both very good at targeting their desired audience, for example through the use of distribution and things such as Synergy The Lego Movie are able to appeal to their international audiences whereas through social realism Mrs browns boys is able to appeal to local audiences.