Technological convergence and synergy is extremely important for the institutions creating the film and the audiences watching as it allows the film to be accessed in many audiences ways by many different people. This increases enjoyment for audiences and profit for institutions.
My case studies come from Marvel Studios and MARV films. Marvel Studios was created in 1993 and was called Marvel Films until 1996. It is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios but owns Marvel Worldwide Inc. also known as Marvel Comics. They have created 3 multi-film-franchises, which have earned over $1 billion in revenue each. One of my favourite films from them is my case study Guardians of the Galaxy. The current present is producer Kevin Feige. MARV Films, also known as MARV was founded in 2004 and is owned by Matthew Vaughn, who also directs the films. Their most famous and successful films to date have been Layer Cake, Stardust, Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Secret Service (here on called Kingsman). Both case studies used a variety of synergy and technological convergence throughout the creation of their films, Guardians of the Galaxy and Kingsman.
Both Guardians of the Galaxy and Kingsman were adapted from comic books. Guardians of the Galaxy was created after writer Nicole Perlman created a script for it (which James Gunn, the director and writer, ended up re-writing). Kinsman came about after Matthew Vaughn was complaining about the loss of fun spy movies and wrote the screenplay based off the comic "The Secret Service". The Guardians of the Galaxy comic book had the same name. Both directors updated the audience throughout the pre-production and production of their films via social media, notably Twitter.
Gunn decided early on in pre-production that he wanted as much reality in his film as possible. This resulted in over 1,000 prosthetics being made and over 2,000 moulds. When in production, three of the main characters in the film- Rocket Raccoon, Groot and Thanos- were made using a lot of visual effects (VFX). This ended up making 90% of the films scene having some kind of VFX in them, with over 2,800 VFX shots created. Rocket Raccoon was created through a convergence of computer generated imagery (CGI) motion capture and rotomotation. His fur was created through CGI- a layer of short fur and a layer of long fun had to be animated separately before being put on top of each other, to imitate real raccoon hair. Groot was created with each branch being animated one at a time, to make the brunches appear like muscles. Thanks (shown as a hologram through the majority of the film) was partially created through motion capture with Josh Brodin's face being used to make Thanos' speech seem realistic. Despite the large amount of computer animated scenes, a lot of real life scene were shot as well. Some of the sets were completely created in real life, such as the prison, which was made of 30,000 pound of steel. Millennium Bridge in London was used as a location double for the planet Xandar. The camera used were mostly Arri Alexa T's with Spherical Panavision Primos lenses. However, during the 1980s scene at the beginning of the film, JDC Cooke Xtal (Crystal) Express anamorphic prime lenses as they were used to provide realistic aberrations.
During production of Kingsman, the film was also shot with almost entirely real scenes. The church scene, for example, was created of three large chunks of continuous shots, at 1,000 frames per second, sped up to make the video more appropriate to the 15 rating given by the BBFC. The scene set in near-space was done with blue screen with the balloon created using weather balloons as a guide. Kingsman was a lot more traditional with its filming, with a lot less CGI.
Kingsman was also a lot more traditional with its advertising campaign. Trailers for the film could be accessed through YouTube or seen on the television. Posters were also created for the film and TV interviews were also done. A Kingsman website was also created, including a Kingsman web game to test if you could become a secret agent. A sixty piece collection of clothes was also created with the tailoring company Mr Porter. Kinsman remains as one of the only film where you can buy full costumes from a film, that were made by the same people who physically made the costumes, specifically made to fit you.
Guardians of the Galaxy had a larger marketing campaign. Going along with the same traditional methods as Kingsman, with the trailer having been mentioned 88,000 times across social media within a 12 hour period of the trailer being released, Galaxy Getaways was also created. This website was a fake travel agency, meant to introduce the planets mentioned in the film to viewers about to watch the film. The launchpad sites were the locations of cinemas showing the film. The characters of Guardians of the Galaxy were also featured on a Subways meal. A variety of of different merchandise such as toys, stationary, and films were made, as was a game for the phone (Windows, iOS and Android) called Guardians of the Galaxy: Universal Weapon. The soundtrack of music not created specifically for the film was released called Awesome Mix: Volume 1 and since the release has been downloaded more than 1 million times. The sales of the trailer's main song "Hooked on a Feeling" were raised by 700%.
Despite being distributed by different companies Guardians of the Galaxy had a very similar release compared to Kingsman but on a larger scale. Guardians of the Galaxy was shown in 4,080 cinemas in North America alone, being shown IMAX, 3D, Large Format and D-Box. Kingsman was shown in normal cinema size only. Both were released on DVD and Digital HD, but Guardians of the Galaxy was also released on Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray 3D. Kingsman earned $413.3 million at the box office despite a budget of $84 million. Guardians of the Galaxy had a budget of around $300 million (after spending over their original budget) and earned more than $700 million.
Overall, despite using technological convergence and synergy differently, both were successful. They allowed their audience to become involved in the film in a number of ways which increased happiness and profit.
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