Conglomerates

 What impact does it have on the production of a film, if it is produced by a large global conglomerate? 

A conglomerate is a company that has ownership over several companies smaller than them, such as Warner Brothers who produced the film Wonder Woman. Conglomerates are usually well recognized and lots of benefits can arise when big institutions produce a film. Having a large global conglomerate means that you can use the wide range of facilities they hold, including sets for filming, famous actors... In addition to this, the contacts of people, directors, producers, camera men etc is endless creating an all-round high tech and professional film.  

An impact of large global conglomerates producing films is the high budget they can spend. The film ‘Wonder Woman’ had a budget of $200m. These large budgets enable the company to do several things to produce an established film. One of the things the producers were able to do to make ‘Wonder Woman’ a worldwide well-known film was the use of CGI. CGI is computer-generated imagery which is done by an artist who can build 3D models of people, products, environments and more. This feature costs so much because it takes a lot of time, a lot of people and expensive equipment. Just before the beach battle scene from ‘Wonder Woman, a CGI character swings from the top of a ledge down to the beach. The artist who created this character had to add a lot details to make them look real which must have taken a lot of time. The CGI in ‘Wonder Woman’ is just one aspect of the film that made it so popular and well liked. 

Another impact of being a large global conglomerate is the people who they can cast. They can contact already famous actors because of their brand image and the price they will pay for them. These actors are usually part of above the line costs because they will attract a large audience due to fan bases and are an important aspect to help the film be successful. For example, in ‘Wonder Woman’, the character who plays Steve (Chris Pine), was previously in ‘Star Treck’ Franchise and part of the ‘Princess Diaries”. He would of already had a fan base and attract an audience. ‘Wonder Woman’ also had famous athletes who had performed in the Olympics in the beach battle scene. ‘Warner Bros’ were also able to have an experienced, established director. The director of the film- Patty Jenkins had previously directed Monster 2003 and other movies. Her experience on directing adds to the success of the film.  

Furthermore, large institutions have the ability to be able to travel for sets and can have different scenery when needed. ‘Wonder Woman’ was shot in France, Italy and the UK. Travelling a cast that big (900 people were used for the beach battle scene) would have cost Warner Brothers a lot of money (and time).  Having all the right equipment in different locations may have been difficult for the company to move around so they may have had to buy extra camera equipment for the different locations which is another high cost. The cameras conglomerates use are usually ‘high tech’ cameras for the best quality as they target their films at such a large audience and want the film to have the best reputation possible.  

Warner Brothers wanted the film ‘Wonder Woman’ to be aimed at a mass audience and keep the rating 12 to appeal to a larger segment of the market. In order to do this, in all the fight scenes, no blood or graphic content could be shown. They did this to keep up a good reputation as it is such a world-wide known company. This is a time-consuming process and therefore costly.  

Overall, being a conglomerate has many impacts, the largest being the budget. With such a high budget, many things can be achieved making the film more appealable to their target market. The well-known cast and directors also would have appealed to the mass market, making the film more successful.