Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practises

Media products such as Star Wars will only create a sufficient amount of revenue when they're production practises are just as effective as their marketing and distribution. Although certain production companies will need to think more carefully than others on specific areas.

In my opinion, the fame of the film franchise, directors and actors are much more significant to the actual skill of their roles. This is because audiences are always questioning who's in charge of the production of films, and sometimes will only go the cinema to watch for example a Disney film. Therefore if the film franchise is not known what so ever, the marketing and distribution will be much more important over anything else for them, else they will struggle massively trying to find people to come and watch their film. However, film franchises who are already famous can concentrate specifically on the production rather than the marketing of the film, this is because, as said before, many people will always go to watch a film just because of the franchise who have made it. Such as a spiderman film. Therefore, the franchise needs to concentrate mostly on making the film satisfactory for its viewers, the first step to doing this is by choosing an audience, for example the four quadrant and by making the film interesting to each member of the target audience, and making the title live up to its expectations. Never the less, if production must still be of a high standard, as if it wasn't, there would soon be bad review to prevent further people going to watch the film. In comparison to Star Wars the force awakens, we can see that a film on such a high budget does not need to worry about focusing their costs on a certain aspect and can spread their costs through both marketing and production, and due to this shows that media products rely just as much upon production as much as marketing, as the both combined together to a high standard has been proven to do amazingly well as shown by the revenue of $2.06billion generated by star wars the force awakens.

Furthermore, research into target markets will have an impact on the production process a film company proceeds to concentrate on. Research shows that 61% of people prefer action and adventure movies in comparison to any other film and therefore most film companies will go ahead and distribute their film towards this particular market. However, doing this is very easy and seems all good until the company decides to look at their competitors, this is because action and adventure is such a tough market to work in as there is such a high volume of competition. As shown by the release of point break in December 2015, the film really struggled to gain any publicity due to the release of Star Wars the force awakens at the same time. The reason for this is because Disney were so clever with their marketing practises that it simply took all eyes off any other films that were released at this similar time frame. The way they did this was by appearing on almost every tv show interval, producing many teaser trailers, appearing on thousands of billboards/posters and appearing on many internet pop ups/ads and being all over social media. Their most clever use of marketing was the introduction of a unique selling point at this particular time, as no other film within this time period had though of the idea of creating many teaser trailers that weren't only attractive, but also appealed to audiences all over the world. This was also shown by their posters, as they could attract various audiences through making their posters appeal differently to different companies. For Example, for China they created a poster that included the a background image of the great wall, which as anyone knows will instantly draw eyes from a Chinese persons point of view as its such an iconic thing towards them. By targeting China, this allowed the potential of 1 billion extra viewers to watch their film, which is over a 1 8th of the worlds population. Therefore, overall; Disney's marketing practises were simply exquisite and played a huge role in their success and they depended massively upon the use of it when attracting more viewers.

The importance on marketing is also shown by the film "John Carter" which was also produced by disney, who made a huge mistake when marketing their film. Firstly, the trailers never really captured anyone and the premise never made a lot of sense to audiences. Therefore, there was no reason what so ever for people to spend their money to go and watch the film. Also, the name "John Carter" was simply a shocking name for a film, extremely vague and boring. Therefore, again, there was no interest for any audiences what so ever, and was one of the main reasons the film is classes as a failure. Personally, i haven't watched the film, however good things have been said about it and therefore, this goes to show that without good marketing, any film without a reputation can fail, which supports my opinion on marketing practises playing a huge role in any film companies success, whether they are a large company or small.

Distribution of the film will depend on how many screens the film will be shown on, how many platforms the film can be viewed on etc.. Debatably the best company for wide spread distribution is disney, as they can single handedly distribute a film worldwide, this was shown by Star Wars the Force awakens as it was extremely difficult to go to any cinema nearby and find one that didn't have a screen showing the film. By distributing the film on such a wide scale proved to be very successful, this is shown by the way the film was shown on over 4000 screens on its first weekend and already managed to exceed a $529 million gross, which is the most ever made by any film in their first weekend ever. However films that didn't have the ability to do this, or simply didn't try hard enough, limit their success to a very low level, as without sales, there is no money to be made at all. Therefore, distribution in my opinion is the most important factor of all to a films success, because audiences will only go to a certain extent to watch a film that they want to go and watch, whether it be a star wars fan or simply someone wanting to go watch a not so well known film that interests them, there will always be limits to how far a person will go to watch a film. Therefore, by offering people the opportunity to go to their local cinema which is within a 10 mile radius, this opens many doors to success, and without offering it, there is guaranteed failure. 

Furthermore, the distribution of Star Wars the force awakens was much more simple to think about. This is because most people who watch Star Wars films are great fans of the movie, therefore are almost 100% likely to go and watch the film in the cinema, and to spread the world and bring along their friends and family. Therefore, Disney could concentrate on simply their distribution towards cinemas, as this was where the large majority of their revenue was going to come from. Because of this, they decided to produce concentrate solely upon making the film on IMAX, which is where the film is accessible on a much wider and larger screen, commonly at 65mm, as this is a perfect satisfaction for big fans of the movie prequal. The fact that Disney decided to concentrate largely upon producing their film to be accessible in many cinemas rather than blue ray and dvd was the main reason that the film is the second highest grossing film ever ($2.06billion). 

Star Wars the force awakens was shot on film, rather than digital. Which meant that the overall costs for Disney were significantly higher than what they would have been if they decided to film on digital. The reason they did this was because to bring back a feeling from the original films, which were also shot on film. This was another satisfaction for big star wars fans as they clearly enjoy the prequel due to the previous films, therefore are most likely not going to be happy with a big change. Disney need to try and bring back a feeling of old films was shown by the showing of the millennium falcon and the end scene of Luke Skywalker.

Not only did Star wars just decide to simply make their film accessible in thousands of cinemas worldwide, (Screenings in six different countries)they also considered who within that local area would actually go along and watch the film, as its easy enough making it accessible worldwide, but if people don't show up to the screenings, then theres no money to be made. Therefore, Star Wars the force awakens was made within the four quadrant. This means that males of any age will enjoy the film, and females of any age will enjoy the film and have a demand to watch it. This meant that not only have Disney managed to create a worldwide audience, they know also had the potential for any age or gender to also become an audience of the film. Therefore, this meant that they could create a significant amount of sales to what they would have without the four quadrant and could simply relax, and watch the revenue rise and rise. The way they did this was by firstly making the film a 12, therefore the majority of people could actually go and watch the film including young fans. They made it enjoyable for all genders by having the two main characters as a male and a female. They also made it exciting for all ages by including old characters for the older Star Wars fans, and the introduction of new energetic characters for young fans.

Due to disney horizontal integration, this meant that they had to be extremely careful with what changes they brought to the star wars prequel. If they were to completely change the storyline, and make a film that is hardly recognisable by die hard fans, it may still get a good profit, however it is unlikely that it could have even been boycotted and caused an up roar. However disney were very careful with how they went about their work, and the reason this worked is because they worked closely with George Lucas and took many of his ideas. Else otherwise it may well have been a disaster. This was shown by the comments on social media from Star Wars fans about the takeover from Disney over the Star Wars franchise, however reviews after the film had been distributed proved that Disney most certainly did a good job satisfying the fans.

Overall, both marketing, distribution and production practises are equally as important as each other, this is because neither would work without one another. If a film has good marketing but lacked any creativity in the production process, then its likely bad reviews will flow in and no one will go and watch the film. If the film is well produced but has shocking marketing practises, a large majority of people will not know about the film and therefore not many sales will occur. Therefore by having both to a high standard, this means that lots of people are aware of the film, and it will be satisfactory to the majority of its viewers. However, it also depends not the size of the company who distribute the film, as a company capable of making a high budget film are likely to spread their costs well and make a successful film easily, however a low budget film may  need to concentrate solely upon marketing to get themselves recognised.