Successful media production depends as much upon marketing

and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good

production practices.
I agree with the statement that successful media production (e.g. films)
depend as much upon marketing and distribution as they do upon good
production practice as which out good marketing no one would know
about the film to go and see it and without good production practices no
one would want to see the film or buy it forwards. The marketing has to be
targeted at the right target audience for it to have a positive effect. They
both have to be equal no matter the budget of the film for a film to make
a good profit.
Star Wars the force awakens was marketed across the world, with Disney
motion pictures in charge of marketing and distribution of the film and
with Disney being such a big house hold name after realising 158 films,
marketing seemed easier. Star Wars having Disneys name now attached
to it already brought in new fans. They realised an 88 second teaser trailer
in the uk, usa and Canada to build up a fan base. The trailer allowed fans
to see an insight into the film without giving always the story line. Disney
didnt allow fans to see who is the main characters without watching the
film. In October 2015 the official trailer was realised along with the poster
designed by Drew Struzan. The trailer reached 128 million views on
YouTube in 24 hours which broke records and caused a frenzy reaction.
The trailer was then realised in Japan in November 2015. Disney put a lot
of money into marketing in china and japan, they created life size
Stormtroopers for shopping centres but the film got a better reaction for
the uk, us and Canada. Disney partnered with other company to create
tie-ins and merchandise; google created a dark and light side search page
for people to choose what side they were on, with google being one of the
biggest companies in the world it gave the film recognition. They also
partnered with McDonalds, Hasbro and Topps cards. Vanity was the first
magazine to devote a cover to the force awakens, reaching out to a new
type of audience. Force Friday was the biggest day for the film as this was
when the merchandise was open in this Disney store, where Ray and Finn
attended to meet fans. The characters were made into wax work to be
displayed in Madame Tussauds after the film. An app was created to give
updates and notifications to fans about the new film and films that are still
to be realised in the future. With all the marketing that happened for the
film it was hard not to be involved in the Star Wars buzz.
Walt Disney motion picture has marketed and distributed all Disney films
since 1953, as vertical integration. Even through The force awakens was
shot on film it was distributed on digital to allow it to go out to all
cinemas as modern cinemas wouldnt have the equipment to show the
film on film. Film is also a lot more expensive to show and distributed as
one can off film costs around $1500 to send to a cinema which is 90%

more than it would cost to distribute on digital. As well as cost it takes

time to show the film as film. Vue cinema sold 45,000 tickets for the force
awakens in 24 hours when it was first realised in the uk, this broke vue
records. 6.5 million worth of tickets were sold in the first week. The film
was shown on 4,134 screens in the usa and 4,143 screens in the uk across
3D, Imax and large screens. The large number of screens the film was
shown on made it accessible to everybody.
Star Wars is a four quadrant film as it is targeted at everybody, from
under 25 male and female to over 25 male and female. The force awakens
is a mainstream worldwide film. This made their marketing more complex
as they had to reach out to everybody, however it maximised their profit
as everyone could see the film.
With a 306 million budget and a 31.6 million grand off government
money, the production practice for the force awakens was amazing. As
well as having Disneys name to it JJ Abram, who is an A list director with
high quality work also directed the film and Lucasfilms who has produced
all the past Star Wars films. The nostalgia of having the old cast as well as
the new cast allowed Star Wars fans to relate to the older films and keep
their original audience and fan base. While, the new characters and actors
havent been involved in other Hollywood films which means they have no
association with other characters which allows the audience to see them
only as the characters they see in Star Wars rather than an actor that we
see in many films.
Disney build what they could afford for the set of the film as they wanted
it to seem more real as well as using CGI. ILM was created by George
Lucas just for Star Wars films as there was nothing else like it, ILM was
used in this film and worked on in the Vancouver branch. JJ Abram
shortened the film in pro production as he wanted to keep the film simple
as many fans complained that the last film made my Lucasfilms was to
fake and complex. The film was shot in locations all over the world as well
as in the uk, and used real scale models, it was also film in pinewoods
studios, one of the best studios in the world and where many other films
like James Bond and Harry Potter have also been filmed. Although this was
more expensive and more work the film was shot by many different
cameras on film to keep the authenticity for the films as all the others has
been filmed on film.
The film score to the force awakens was composed by John Williams with
Williams and William Ross conducting, and Gustavo Dudamel appearing as
a "special guest conductor". The album was released by Walt Disney
Records on December 18, 2015 in both digipak CD and digital formats.
john Williams composed all the soundtracks for all the Star Wars films,
including other films like jaws and superman and ET.

The voice of BB-8 was supplied by comedians Bill Hader and Ben Schwartz
both credited as"BB-8 vocal consultants" in the film. The voice was
created by Abrams manipulating their voices through a talkbox, attached
to an iPad running a sound effects app. Both Dave Chapman and Brian
Herring controlled BB-8 in the film by wearing green suits that allowed
them to be taken out after filming.
As Star Wars, the force awakens, marketing and distribution was as good
and as important as it production practices the film made a worldwide
profit of 258 billion and is still making more money to this day. The film
made more money than the film before it. Yet films dont have to have
high budgets or big company name attached to them to make money, the
kings speech had a small budge and a production company that was
pretty unknown but still managed to make money like ice age with a small
budget of $90 million that made $859 million.