White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 7“symbolic capital”, is just waiting to beexploited. Perhaps it will be preciselythis return to the festive dimension thatwill bring the heritage back into play.7.4 The film marketWhen discussing the film market wemust first establish which market weare talking about, because unlike whathappens in many other industries, thesame film can be launched on variousmarkets. The film sector is divided intoa series of segments which coincidewith the various distribution channelsfor films. In the past two years we havewitnessed a proliferation in distributionchannels: in addition to the traditionalcinema-theatre, we have television,home video, pay-TV, video-on-demandand Internet viewing and othermultimedia formats. The increase inconsumer platforms has, on one hand,provided strong opportunities forbusinesses, which have discovered thevalue of the perpetual rights of theirlibraries. But, on the other, the sectorhas been further complicated by neworganisational and strategic challengesfor the effective management of thehuge quantity of film rights. Whatbecomes increasingly critical is theability to exploit the opportunitiesoffered by the new distributionchannels through the effectiveintegration of all the various skills inthe production chain. To do so, threekey elements for a film project must beestablished: the type of product, thetarget audience and the distributionchannel. In other words, it becomesincreasingly important to think in themedium to long term, attempting tounderstand what kind of film to make,the audience it is intended for, andwhat consumer platforms to use.Before suggesting some actionguidelines for successful filmproduction in an increasinglycompetitive and complex context, it isworthwhile analysing the key featuresof the Italian film industry and howthey have developed in recent years.Films at the cinema: trendsThe market for movies shown incinemas is the first, most critical filmmarket. On one hand, box office salesare still the largest part of overallproceeds for an individual film. A goodshowing in cinemas, moreover,produces an important springboardeffect as it will significantly influencethe film’s potential for success in otherdistribution channels. The cinematheatremarket is characterised by ahigh degree of uncertainty and risk,since there is no entrepreneurialformula for predicting whether a filmwill or will not top the box office orsimply meet with good reviews. Indeed,the film industry is studded with hugeflops and unexpected successes. Thishigh degree of uncertainty is due tovarious factors, including the difficultyof predicting filmgoers’ tastes. Inrecent years, moreover, the offering offilms at the cinema has grown further,and in Italy every year around 400 newfilms are distributed (on average morethan one a day). Therefore it isincreasingly difficult to capture publicinterest, which is continuallybombarded with new titles.The combined effect of these elementscontributes to creating a very complexWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 164