Universal Studios

Ownership - P1(a)

Media ownership refers to all the companies and media products that are owned by. It's a process where a small number of individuals are in charge of a large part of the media market. There is multinational ownership where the company operates different countries and private ownership where the company is not controlled by someone else and is run by itself.Ownership is important to be aware of because it shows us what the company does in more detail.

Universal Studios Incorporated is an American motion picture studio that is owner by Comcast through its subsidiary NBC Universal. Universal Studios is one of the six major movie studies such as Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, etc. It was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass and six other, making it the second oldest movie studio in the US after Paramount Pictures. In 2004 the controlling stake of the company was sold to General Electric, renaming the super-conglomerate NBC Universal. Today 51% of NBC Universal is owned by Comcast and 49% is owner by General Electric. Universal Studios Incorporated was still the name of the production subsidiary owning some TV shows through NBC Universal Television Distribution. NBC Universal also own lots of other subsidiaries and media platforms such as entertainment networks, films, parks and news.

Operating Model - P1(b)

Operating model illustrates how an organisation operates in different parts of the company and how all the separate groups work together in a complex system to achieve a function. The purpose of the operating model is  to be aware how such a large company works on a massive project where different task are made in separate parts of the company and then are made into one part.

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   NBC Universal is the parent company that is a vertical integrated company which does not out source distribution. It has a few subsidiary companies which include Focus Features, Universal Animation Studios and Illumination Entertainment. NBC Universal works through synergy, creating films through its owned companies. This is being done by the production and marketing process. This shows elements of converge through the distribution of the film and selling merchandise. The Illumination Entertainment is an animation film production company, so it's responsible for the actual production and making of the movie. The Universal Animation Studios have the same objective. Focus features concentrates on distribution of the films and well as its production.

Chairman of the board

Steven Burke

Director

Michael Angelakis

Director

Arthur Block

Director

David L Cohen

Products - P1(c)

Media products are goods and services that the company produces they can range from such services as broadcasting to goods dvd's. The reason its important what goods the company produces is that it lets us know more about the company and what it does.

Universal studios mainly produces movie as well as it owns various theme parks, but their conglomerates own most of the American television networks and channels. NBC Universal has a wide range of media products to offer. It produces and distributes various media products such as entertainment networks, broadcasting, news and films. NBC has the weather channel, Universal Television, Cable and the Sports Network. The company also owns the Universal Studios theme park which brings millions of visitors to the studios.

Market Position - P1(d)

Market position is the rank of a brand or a company which depends on the volume of sales compared to other companies in the dame industry. we would be talking about the media market in this case. The company which has the highest output will have the highest market share. Its important to know about market share because it allows the firms to make decisions regarding the prices of its products, etc. 

Universal is currently on the fifth position from the list of all studio market shares. They have 12.6% of the market share which is fairly close to the leading companies and a total gross profit of $510 million. In 2014 they have made four movies. The top leading companies are the Warner Bros, Sony/Columbia, Buena Vista and the 20th Century Fox having only 2-5% more market share than Universal. This year Universal is not doing as well as in 2013 when they had 13.1% of the market share and had the 3rd rank. As you can see the differences between the top companies are fairly small. The Universal does not have a specific genre that it is targeted at.

Competitors - P1(e)

Competitors in a media market are rival companies who are in the same market and therefore their products are similar to yours. It's important to be aware of the competition so that the company can make their decision or react to the actions of another company.

The main competitors of the company are Warner Bros, Sony/Columbia, Buena Vista, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Lionsgate. They are all in the top ten of the studio market share. we are going to take a close look at the Warner Brothers which currently and as the year before have the highers market share. This is due to them having a very wide range of genres what means that the target audience is greater. Warner Brothers also own the Harry Potter franchise that is constantly bringing them profits.

Below you can see the top 8 movies of 2014 made by Universal.

As you can see below Warner Brothers have produced a couple of very successful movies in 2014. The Lego Movie for example has the same gross profit as the top two movies of Universal combined.

So Universal produced quite successful movies which have very large gross profits but Warner Brothers simply has more popular movies. Warner Brothers were founded and started working a little earlier than Universal so they might have more experience. They use a wide range of movies for example the Lego movie is a kids film and the Godzilla is an adults film so they already have a two different but large age groups.

Ride Along - P2

Purpose - P2(a)

Purpose is the reason for which something was done, it might be the reason for producing a movie or the reason for providing cable tv, the range of services can be quite large. Its important to know the purpose because it gives you more information about the product.

Ride Along is an American action comedy film directed by Tim Story. It's an action comedy so its purpose is to entertain the audience. In this movie a security guard must prove himself to his girlfriend's brother who is  a cop by riding along wit him on a patrol of Atlanta. The main purpose is escapism which is an idea shown by the uses and gratification theory. Therefore this movie allow audience to escape the reality and forget about all their problems while watching the action comedy. The profit from the movie is also a primary reason for the production of the film, the production company was able five times the money they spent on producing the movie. The genre of the movie is an action comedy and throughout the whole movie there are various codes and conventions representing this particular genre. Binary opposition is used in films as this to show two groups the good and the bad, which in this case are the police and the weapons dealers. This also creates a division between the audience because everyone has their own perspective of the characters personality and how they behave throughout the movie. So the main purposes of the movie are to entertain the audience, to let them escape the reality with it various problems and the second one is to maximise profits by selling as much copies of the movie as possible. 

Genre - P2(b)

Genre is the style or category of a media product. There is a variety of genres to choose from which include comedy, horror, documentary, etc. Its important to know the genre of a media product because it will affect the audience of the product.

Ride Along is an American action comedy film. Genre of a movie is the type or kind of a movie which is created by similarities in style, form and content of the movie. The genre is shown using a variety of codes and conventions. Film codes include mise-en-scene that in itself includes sich things as lighting, props, costumes and settings. Lighting is used to create a particular mood or a tone which represents the current situation or the character. The lighting in this movie is a bit darker than natural light would be. Bright light is normally associated with happy themes where this is an action comedy with various action scenes and intense moments so the lighting has to be not very bright. The use of costumes also plays a part in the genre of the movie. The main character is dressed in all black clothes and has a leather coat, this shows that he is rough and follows the genre of action. The location used in this movie are the streets of Atlanta which are quite dangerous so they fall under the action genre with many dangerous things to offer. Props also play an important part in the movie. This si an action movie so there should be action, the props used are weapons which create more action and tension while they are being fired. Ride along is an action comedy, therefore it will have features of both genres action and comedy. An action film includes one or more heroes being thrust into a series of challenges that typically include physical feats fight scenes and violence. An action comedy at the same time has emphasis on humor. So the film does have various scenes which have mostly action but still includes comedy. Even the scene with the shooting includes jokes about the character being able to know everything from video games. Mostly throughout the movie there is more comedy present rather than action which entertains the audience with the jokes. So by choosing this genre the producers are able to gain interent from different age and gender groups because it includes interests of many different groups.

Form - P2(c)

Form of a media products is associated with the feature of the product. The purpose of knowing the form of the media product is to know moe about the actual product and such restrictions as age and information such as duration.

Form is associated with the shape and structure of the film. The film has the duration of approximately 100 minutes and has been given a rating by the British Board of Film Classification of 12 what menas that the film has some violence and bad language that is not appropriate for children under the age of 12. The form of the movie affects the narrative and characters by keeping to the ideas and the guidelines of a particular genre. So the script has a purpose of creating an image of what the movie is going to be like. The age restriction means that the movie has inappropriate language or violence for children under 12 but this limits the range of viewers as the group from 1-12 years old can be excluded from the list. 

Style - P2(d)

Style is a particular manner in which something is done, the style of the media product would be usually connected with the genre. The importance of style in a media product is that it makes the product more interesting for the viewers.

The style of a film can be easily changed using the mise-en-scene: the lightning, costumes, props, camera movements and backgrounds. So by changing these you can change the style. This movie follows the classical hollywood narrative style. The story of the movie is being told in chronological order, therefore creating the effect of a relationship. Continuity editing is used throughout the whole movie. 

The lighting in this movie is mostly dark due to it being an action comedy with an investigation taking place during the film. There are no scenes where the area is bright. Below you can see a scene from the film which is less intense and has comedy in it. In this scene a drunk man is throwing things around in a market. This is a funny scene therefore has quite bright light in it.

Below you can see the final scene where the detective is being betrayed by his coworkers. The scene is very intense because they are about to enter a building where a weapon trade is taking place. This scene has more action rather than comedy so the lighting here is darker than in the other scenes. So due to this scene being intense and having action the lighting is dark.

Content - P2(e)

Content of a media product is basically a summary of the whole product, its important because it gives us more details about the media product.

The film "Ride Along" has a narrative structure what means that throughout the story we are shown a story in chronological order. The movie was filmed using a variety of shots showing the characters from a distance. The summary of the movie is that a high school security guard joins his brother in law that is a police detective for a ride along in the streets of Atlanta. Throughout the film James the brother in law is taking Ben to the toughest parts of Atlanta to show him what life of on the force is like. He never really brings him to places with real danger but at the end of the shift without realising it he takes a him to a real case to one of Atlanta's most dangerous criminal groups. Throughout the movie a large variety of shots and angles are being used. The mis-en-scene is used throughout the film, for example in the scene with the bikers many big man appear in leather coats, long beards and glasses. Special effects are used such as explosions from grenades and the shooting of guns.

A variety of special effects were used in the film. The last scene of the movie was a quite long action scene with shooting and small and large explosions. So when there was shooting special effects were applied to the guns to show the bright light coming from the guns to show the explosions happening when the bullets are shot.

Other special effects as explosions were included in the movie. There were a few explosions of cars and a big explosion of a building. These effects were created using having fire come out of the building and editing the footage using special software. Below you can see the special effect for the explosion of the building.

Mise-en-scene was used to create the character of the detective. All his clothes are black and he is wearing a black leather coat during the whole movie. This shows him as a rough personality, that he has no emotions because he is wearing all dark clothes. He he is shown as a rough and tough guy concentrated on his work and he is not joking around.

Meaning - P2(f)

Meaning is what is being meant by words, action or a concept. Its important to know the meaning because it gives us more details about the media products and makes us aware of the reason for a particular action or settings

The action is happening in a tough district in Atlanta so the language used contains a lot of aggressive words and violent phrases. Even small children are showed offending the police. The costumes also create a meaning, for example bikes are dressed in leather coats with beards, bandanas and sunglasses. The music used during an action scene has a fast pace and matches the action that is happening. Props like rifles and grenades shows that its an action movie. Meaning throughout this movie is also created using the colours, throughout the whole movie the lighting is genrally dark to show how intense some action scenes are. In an intense part of the movie the music is also intense following the action in the film.

Meaning throughout the film is also created such tools as connotation and denotation. For example at the start of the movie the passport dealer calls the police detective crazy. So he doesn't directly mean that he is mentally unstable he is thinking about the connotation of him being aggressive and doing something dangerous.

Production Process - P2(g)

Production process refers to the stages required to complete a media product. These stages include pre-production, production and post-production. Its important to know about the production process because it allows us to see how a story was turned into a film. we are able to see how first all the planning was set, storyboards drawn, scripts written and then a film created.


Below you can see a video of the making of the film "Ride Along" so there are some shots behind the scenes which show how the movie was made. It gives us the idea about the equipment that was used to film the movie and create special effects.

Below you can see two pictures. The first one is the behind the scenes where you can see how the special effect is being performed. You can see that a black rope is attached to Kevin and as he shoots simultaneously the rope pulls him towards the wall and gets him in the box. On the next picture we can see a screenshot from the actual film where the string is removed. So we can see Kevin aiming with the gun and as he shoots he is pushed backwards by the recoil. In the film there is no black rope in the video because it is removed to make create the effect that Kevin is really pushed away by the recoil from the gun.

Below you can see how the scene where Kevin asks the little kid questions about his brother was shot. As you can see there was a big white screen to control the lightning. Microphones are used to capture the sound when filming from a far distance. Using this equipment creates good lightning for the film that can be seen in the second photo.

Reception Theory - P3

The concept of an active audience was extended further by the reception theory. There was research on how individuals received and interpreted text and how the interpretation was affected by such factors as gender, age and ethnicity.

There is a relationship between the text and the audience. The text is first being encoded by the producers and then is decoded by the audience. There can be a massive difference between the reading of the same text. So the producers have to keep to recognised codes and conventions to meet the audiences expectations relating certains aspects of a particular genre.

The Hypodermic Needle Model - P3

The Hypodermic Needle Model explains how an audience reacts to mass media. It suggests that the audience passively receive the information from media sources such as the internet and don't try to process or question the data they have received. Basically the theory suggests that information simply passes into the mass conscious of the audience unprocessed despite the intelligence of the individuals who receive the message. So the audience are largely influenced by media and are easily manipulated and can be controlled.  This occurs because the audience are passive while they receive the information.

Uses and Gratification Theory - P3

The aim is to approach to understand mass communication. The theory focuses on the consumer rather than the message that is passed. So we are interested what people do wight the media. People use media to fulfil their specific gratification.

Uses and Gratification has to fulfil one of the following:

Identify - To be able to recognise a particular product or a person.

Educate - To be able to take possession of information and understand it

Entertain - The consumption of the product should entertain the consumer and allow them to forget about the worries in the lives temporarily

Social Interaction - A media product is able to allow a topic of conversation to be created between people.

Hegemonic Model - P3

The hegemonic model is associated with domination in communication. The model of communication states that the elite of the society what idead dominate the public sphere. These can be huge ideas such as race-superiority capitalism or democracy or any other social norms. The idea was first introduced by Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s when he argued that the social elites such as the church were telling people how to live. This was done to keep control over the economical and political sector in the public sphere.

Demographics - P3

The targeted audience are categorised into six different categories which include A, B, C1, C2, D and E. These categories depend on such factors as economics status, occupation and education.

I think that the movie Ride Along will be watched by the categories D and E because it is an action comedy the upper classes will not have time to watch this movie because of their busy lifestyles. This is not a movie that they would find time to watch. The lower classes on the other hand would have more free time to watch this movie. The group students would be interested in watching this movie because of the amount of free time and the want to escape the reality for a few hours and forget about all their problems.

Gender - P3(a)

Different genders will have different social and cultural differences. It's importan to know for which gender the movie will be made of not for both to be able to creare a movie which will be interesting for both men and women.

The genre of this movie is an action comedy so it is most likely to be watched by both the male and the female audience. The male audience will enjoy all the action that the film has to offer, while the female audience can enjoy the comedy part of the movie and the various jokes and funny scenes So this movie will be watched by both genders because it contains the interests of both genders; the action for the males and the comedy for the females.