‘Media institutions are essentially profit driven’
Evaluate how commercial pressures have had an impact on the products in your cross media study.
Support your answer with reference to a range of examples from three media platforms.
In this piece of writing I will evaluate the commercial pressures that are put on films for them to make a profit. My case study involves the texts, Hunger, Shame and 12 Years a Slave.
Due to film making becoming more of a business than about the art, companies are not willing to take as many risks as they do not want to lose money investing in an unknown film story when they can easily release a known product that they know will make them money, therefore it is important for independent films to make themselves as much as possible for as cheap as possible.
Since ‘Hunger’ only had a budget of £1,500,000 it didn’t have much of its budget go to marketing or advertising it had to heavily rely on an online presence with its reception from critics and film reviewers. Hunger garnered much of its attention from the controversy that it sparked online, it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and caused a huge split between influential film reviewers. Many film reviewers loved and praised the film, Roger Ebert a hugely popular reviewer with a huge amount of fans as he is one of the most highly regarded film reviewer in the world, highly recommended the film and gave it his highest rating, where as many other film reviewers said that they walked out of the screening in disgust, this gave the film a larger online presence as there was much discussion about it and its controversy on film website like IMDb who had an editor write an article on the film and its controversy which was no doubt viewed by more people who didn’t know about the film originally. The film was also promoted by a popular reviewer who posted his Top Ten films of the