Cross media convergence and synergy are vital processes in the successful marketing of media products to audiences to what extent do you agree?

I agree to some extent, some films have used synergy allot and not had box offices figures to back the idea that it is vital, some small independent films have had a very little budget and not been able to afford these expensive marketing techniques and have still had amazing box office figures.

Firstly ill be looking at the pre production phase, my case study “The Hunger Games” (2012 Gary Ross), this was produced by Lionsgate and Color Force. Color force being the smaller company was entered into an agreement with Lionsgate to produce the film.  Its main role was to provide the finance and supplying equipment. Lionsgate uses Synergy as it own 19 media companies, this means it has the ability to provide equipment, music, distribution and exhibition on one of the tv channels it owns. This ability makes a company seems much more enticing for a smaller company to work with on a production as having all this in-house technology and expertise means it is cheaper. The rights of the story where bought for around $200,000. However it wasn’t this simple, Suzanne Collins the author of the book series had received many offers for the rights and she had declined them, however Gary Ross the man that later went on to direct the film won her over by promising her that the story would be kept as close to the original story as possible. Again this is synergy and convergence, this is the coming together of screen writers and authors to convert a piece of old media, the book into a newer format a film. The inbetweeners was previously a TV series it then was then made into a film, to keep costs low the original tv production company Bwark productions was also used to create the film with the financial backing of channel 4. This is another example of synergy in the successful production of a film. 

The distribution phase is where synergy and convergence is its most prolific, Lionsgate distributed the film, due to them owning a distribution company it would be easy to say that the price was reduced, however my second case study “The Inbetweeners” had a tiny production company called Bwark production, it didn’t need much of a distribution campaign, it had most of its advertising via word of mouth. The convergence of technology’s allowed a TV series like The inbetweeners to be converted into a film to be shown in a cinema. Many a distributor would love this to happen to their film as most of their job is being done by the audience meaning there job will be easier and cheaper. However The Hunger Games didn’t have as large word of mouth, it relied on a large advertisement campaign. This included old methods like: Billboards, posters on bus stops, posters on the buses, trailers in cinemas and on tv. It also included techniques which are becoming more relevant to the youth audience of this production, this involved things like facebook pages, twitter accounts and blogs for the characters. One of the best examples of synergy and convergence in this case study is from the use of twitter, Out of the 20+ people in the distribution team only one was picked to run the blogs. This person then decided that they should cut up the new poster and send it to 100 different twitter accounts, these twitter accounts where owned by film magazines, critics and cinemas, next is where the synergy comes in, all these people posted their part of the image and The Hunger Games twiter hunt started.  The internet had be used to promote a film on level never seen before, the best part about it is cost, Nothing.

In my opinion synergy and convergence is one of the most important processes in the successful marketing of a film, using synergy means that you can use separate companies which specialise in their area, giving an overall better experience to the audience, and in the case of the distributor information. As technology improves and new mediums for media are created i think convergence will become increasingly more important aspect, as films are shown on a large variety of platforms, looking back a year or two, some film consumption medium like Xbox, PS3, blu ray and 3d where un thought off, the programs for xbox and ps3 didnt exist, Blu ray and 3d was seen as to expensive to use in terms of the technology needed. Just looking at the future i think convergence of technologies will become more and more important as we evolve to consume media in different ways.