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Thursday 15 November 2012

How has working title adapted to changes in the film industry?

Working title was a small film company founded in 1983 that produced low budget films like My Beautiful Launderette. It now produces much bigger films like the boat that rocked and Anna Karenina since it was bought by universal studios. It has had to change a lot to keep up with a new generation of movie watchers and whole other countries as well.

One of the main changes for the media industry is where the films are actually consumed. When tv's were a rarity people would go to the cinema for entertainment, Now that we have services like VoD and Netflix we don't have to go to the cinema anymore and can simply just watch the film at home for much cheaper. This proves a huge problem for Film companies as they are making less money, but one way in which they adapted to get people back to the cinemas was 3D. By making a film 3D people wanted to go to the cinema to watch it as they would get a completely different experience than if the watched it at home, this is because very few people have a 3D tv as they are so expensive and controversial. Not surprisingly Working Title have made a few 3D films like Johnny English reborn so that they can adapt to the new film industry which is now ruled by 3D.

Cinema has branched out a lot and lots of films are now shown in almost every country. Working title has had to adapt it's films so that they appeal in these other countries as well as just Britain. They have done this by having big actors from America who will appeal to other countries like America and France. This is seen in The Boat that Rocked, it is a very British based film so to make it appeal to a wider audience they got A list actors in so that more people would go and see it in other countries. If they were to not do this then they would fall behind, this is an example of how working title have adapted well to changes in the film industry.

Films have started to become more and more generic, sequels and remakes are becoming more popular and common for big film companies as they are already well known and have an audience. In response to this Working title did Anna Karenina. If you didnt know Anna Karenina is a very famous russian book published in 1873 by Leo Tolstoy. This works well in Working titles favour as readers of the book will like to see the film adaptation, it has a big audience and is also a remake as 3 other Anna Karenina films have been done in 1935, 1948 ad 1997.

However Wrking title has also done the opposite by making completely original films like Hot Fuzz and The Boat that Rocked. The appeal of these to audiences is that they havent seen a film like it before so it is a new experience. Many smaller film companies have to rely on things like good original story lines as they cant afford big A list actors or the newest most amazing 3D cameras, so the have to make do with what doesnt cost anything extra, like camera angles/shots and the script. Working title can afford the big actors however but even the huge film companies do original ideas, like Inception which was released in 2010 by Warner Bros. Pictures. Sometimes original films do far better than the remakes as it is has a unique selling point.

Working title has done a good job at staying up to date with changes in the film industry, they have made films for the new generation, 3D films to keep up with the new craze, remakes of books and completely original new films. This is why such a small film company has grown so well that it was bought by Universal Pictures in 1999 for £600 million. This proves that Working title has adapted perfectly to most of the changes otherwise it wouldnt still be going or at least not even near as big and as succesful as it is now.

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