Prompt 2

Q. Importance of cross-media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and

marketing.

Ans. Cross-media convergence and synergy is important in all stages of film development since
it means that different media production, marketing and distribution companies can amalgamate
to produce and deliver their media product. To assess my point, I looked into a Hollywood
blockbuster movie, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, released on 10 May, 2019 in the UK and a
British Independent Film, Wild Rose, released on 12 April 2019. Based on the 23 years old
Pokémon franchise created by Satoshi Tajiri, the movie, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, serves as
a loose adaptation of the 2016 video game of the same name, which in itself is an example of
cross-media convergence and synergy, since it had two vastly diverse production companies
working together to convert a digital media product into a filming one. This included the
Legendary Pictures, recently subsidized by the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group in 2016
and the Pokémon company, a consortium between video game developers Nintendo, Game
Freak and Creatures, who own the copyright holdings of the entire Pokémon franchise. This
convergence explains the heavy budgetary profile of the film of $150 million and the apparent
box office gross earnings of $433 million. Likewise, the case of the Independent film, Wild Rose,
is not very different. Produced by Faye Ward of Fable Pictures, and supported by Film4, BFI
Film Fund and Creative Scotland, it's also a good example of synergy, except that these
production companies are not very diversified in terms of their cross-media possessions and
expansion, when compared to that of Pokémon Detective Pikachu.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu has served as a way to expand and evolve the Japanese
franchise, Pokémon into a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster. The production companies had a
large number of cross-media assets that confirmed the success of the film from its production
phases to when it hit the box office. Legendary has a wide range of cross-media subsidies to
begin with. They range from its digital division comprising of game development headed by
Kathy Vrabeck, a pop culture blog (Nerdist Industries), a YouTube channel (Geek and Sundry),
and a website (Amy Poehler's Smart Girls), to a comic book division called Legendary Comics,
Legendary Television that focuses on developing television productions and is co-financed by
Warner Bros Television, film marketing agency Five33 Ltd and the television production
company, ‘Asylum Entertainment’, best known for producing sports programming, reality and
scripted television series such as ‘Beyond the Glory’ and ‘The Kennedys’. Legendary East Ltd.,
is yet another of its assets, a joint venture film production company based in Hong Kong. The
purpose of the company was to co-produce films with Chinese companies to bypass Chinese
quotas on foreign film releases in the country. In 2016, it was taken over by the Wanda Group,
with the acquisition being in the range of $3-4 billion. Wanda has itself already gone through its
transformation from real estate developer to entertainment and leisure conglomerate. It acquired
big U.S. movie theater circuit AMC Entertainment for some $2.6 billion in 2012. The group’s
domestic Chinese exhibition circuit, Wanda Cinema Line, which although smaller, has a market
capitalization of $19 billion. This Wanda-legendary amalgamation has brought immense benefits
for both the companies, as they got to combine their cross-media expertise. A Wanda-owned
Legendary has been able to hatch China-U.S. co-productions that avoid China’s import quota
restrictions, and structure co-financing deals. With a majority interest in Legendary, Wanda has
acquired the capacity to produce content in, and for, the U.S. and China. At the same time,
ongoing ownership of Wanda Cinemas and AMC Entertainment has expectedly helped augment
this production capacity with a parallel theatrical exhibition reach. Wanda continues to expand
its cinema operations outside China, while collaborating its already owned assets with
legendary, to sponsor its film production division. In 2015, Wanda paid over $600 million for
Hoyts, Australia’s number two multiplex chain, and it was rumored to have toyed with buying the
pan-European UCI chain. Further organizational change involved creating three branches,
commercial properties, finance and culture. Of these, culture has the most subsidiaries,
spanning theme parks, the massive Qingdao Studios on China’s East coast, Sunseeker Yachts,
and Wanda’s $2 billion, 2015 purchases of sports rights groups Infront and World Triathlon.
Legendary, with its branded content and Hollywood prestige, offers the Wanda’s owner, Wang
Jianlin, the potential to further push Wanda’s vertical and horizontal integration. Legendary’s
properties lend themselves well to exploitation as theme parks and mall rides, the Qingdao
Studio facility has expectedly become Legendary’s default shooting location, while Wanda’s
anticipated growth in e-commerce and streaming video has benefited from Legendary as a
provider of exclusive content.

The film’s other production company, the Pokémon company, being the owner of the franchise
has also displayed the importance of cross-media convergence. Pokémon, the franchise, has
been the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, with $90 billion in total franchise revenue.
The original video game series is the second-best-selling video game franchise, behind
Nintendo's Mario franchise, with more than 368 million copies sold and one billion mobile
downloads and it spawned a hit anime television series that has become the most successful
video game adaptation with over 20 seasons and 1,000 episodes in 169 countries. In addition,
the Pokémon franchise includes the world's top-selling toy brand, the top-selling trading card
game with over 30.4 billion cards sold, an anime film series, a live-action film, books, manga
comics, music, merchandise, and a theme park. Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures, divide
their responsibilities with brand management, production, marketing and licensing of the
Pokémon franchise, to maintain the joint-ventured company, the Pokémon Company. The
company has separate subsidiaries that handle operations in different areas of the world, such
as The Pokémon Company International that supports the territories outside of Asia, while
Pokémon Korea, Inc. handles operations in South Korea.

In 2016, when Mary Parent got hired to be the vice-chairperson at legendary, she and her
colleagues and co-producers of the film, Cale Boyter and Ali Mendes, came out of the
constraints of trying to set up their project for the film as independent producers. They struggled
to acquire their live-action film rights from the franchise. But since Parent knew the Pokémon
Company’s General Counsel, Don McGowan from when she wanted to make the movie version
of Halo, and had also recently worked with Toho, the company behind the release of every
Pokémon movie to date, for the 2014’s Godzilla, they were able to get consideration by the
Pokémon Company. Hence, the creation of this synergy between these companies.
However, the examples of cross-media convergence and synergy in the Independent Film, Wild
Rose, weren't as vast and varied, which is apparent because it was a short-budgeted film,
produced by Faye Ward of the Fable Pictures, newly-formed production company in 2016. Wild
Rose is Fables first work on feature film and it was the film’s main producer. Faye has previously
spent many years at Ruby Film & Television alongside Alison Owen, before leaving to set up her
own shop. Former Origin Pictures executive Hannah Farrell joined the company in 2018, as a
creative partner. Shortly after setting up her own label, Sony Pictures Television took a minority
stake in the business, allowing Ward and her team to start amassing a slate of projects across
features and series.
The film is funded by the BFI and Creative Scotland, with National Lottery money, and Film4
Production. Co-Producers included Natascha Wharton from the BFI, Leslie Finlay from Creative
Scotland and Polly Stokes from Film4. These were the only examples of synergy I could find.
Unlike, Creative Scotland, a development body for promoting art and creative industries in
Scotland, and Film4, a film production company owned by Channel Four Television Corporation,
with no major subsidiary divisions outside television and film production, the only diverse
company in terms of cross-media assets is BFI, which being a film and television charitable
organization, promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the UK. It maintains the
world's largest film archive, the BFI National Archive, containing more than 50,000 fiction films,
over 100,000 non-fiction titles, and around 625,000 television programs. The BFI runs the BFI
Southbank (formerly the National Film Theatre (NFT)) and London IMAX cinema. In late 2012,
the BFI received money from the Department for Education to create the BFI Film Academy
Network. It runs the annual London Film Festival along with BFI Flare, such as the
youth-orientated Future Film Festival. The BFI publishes the monthly Sight & Sound magazine
as well as films on Blu-ray, DVD and books. It runs the BFI National Library and maintains the
BFI Film & TV Database and Summary of Information on Film and Television (SIFT), which has
a collection of about 7 million still frames from film and television. These cross-media assets
could be said to have helped in marketing the film, while also financing its production.

Technical convergence always plays an important part in film productions since the last decade.
Pokémon Detective Pikachu, for example, was made on 35mm film to give a lived-in reality
experience, while also incorporating some CGI effects, for the fictional aspect of the film. This
was so, because being a sci-fiction, game adaptation movie, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, had
two diverse phases of production to go through. These included an army of animators working
to bring the 2D cartoon and game creatures into reality as the post-production phase of the film
and the live-action screening and filming phase of the production process. Filming took place
from January to May 2018 on large and elaborate sets of Ryme City at Shepperton Studios and
Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, along with physical locations in London and Chatham Docks,
plus rural locations, such as Minley Woods in Hampshire and the highlands of Scotland. For a
Japanese franchise, the movie encompassed a stint in Hollywood, with the cinematography
supervised by Salvatore Totino and the production designer, Nigel Phelps. The film's
photorealistic CG animation and visual effects, comprising of some 1,550 shots, were overseen
by VFX supervisor Erik Nordby and delivered by multiple VFX companies, including the Moving
Picture Company (MPC) as the lead vendor, along with FrameStore, Image Engine, Rodeo FX
and Instinctual VFX. MPC Film had over 600 people working on the project. The VFX team
spent an entire year designing the characters before the filming even started, working closely
with the original franchise company, the Pokémon Company, in the process. Starting with the
original 2D anime characters and video game models as a base, they gave immense
consideration to animal biology, as well as real physics and specific proportions for the
characters’ movements and studied the fur patterns on animals like rabbits to make them look
more natural. In addition to voicing the character, Ryan Reynolds performed Pikachu’s
expressions through facial motion capture. They attached a camera to Ryan Reynolds head and
captured 80 different expressions, comparing them to the cartoon Pikachu's range of emotions,
which were very limited, they created a hybrid set. The non-talking voice of Pikachu was
provided by Japanese actress Ikue Ôtani, who voices the Pikachu that appears in the
long-running Pokémon anime series. To get accurate reflections in the Pokémon's eyes, they
also took 360-degree images of the set and mapped them back into the orbs. They shot the
movie on 35-millimeter film instead of digital to add a grittiness, and it was filmed on location in
Scotland and England as much as possible to ground the more surreal elements in a lived-in
reality. They had CG animals in the foreground or integrated into the background of a real
environment. Another crucial factor in blending the characters with the real world were the
props. The team used a mix of both digital and practical objects. While you still see these
semi-inflated props in a few shots, the rest are CGI. Most of the first shots were filmed in a real
valley in Scotland to set the scene, but they created massive rigs for the actors to move around
on, which were later combined with CGI. The veteran cinematographer hired, John Mathieson
framed Pokémon Detective Pikachu in Anamorphic 2.40:1 aspect ratio, using Panavision
Panaflex Platinum 35mm cameras. These were fitted principally with Panavision E- and
Anamorphic lenses but supplemented with Anamorphic Wide-Angle (AWZ T2.8, 40-80mm) and
Anamorphic Telephoto (ATZ T3.5, 70-200mm) zooms, as well as spherical Panavised Cooke
10:1 and long Russian Elite zooms. As for the 35mm film stocks, Mathieson selected KODAK
VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 for the mainstay of the film’s studio-based scenes, and
VISION3 50D Color Negative Film 5203 to capture the day exteriors on location-based shoots,
especially the rural ones. During the test and prep period, Nordby shot a range of film-grain
patterns under different lighting conditions, which were scanned at 2K and used in
post-production by the different VFX vendors to help create a seamless blend between the
live-action, synthetic CG and VFX elements. Film processing was done at Kodak Film Lab
London, with Pinewood Digital providing 2K scans of all footage. There was a small degree of
greenscreen to shoot, but not as much as one might expect from a live-action animation movie,
as a lot of the time they shot in real locations. The lighting package was provided by Pinewood
MBS and Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden. The Digital Intermediate (DI) on Pokémon Detective
Pikachu was performed by colorist Skip Kimball at Deluxe/Efilm in LA. Also because of the work
done by the different VFX vendors, particularly the use of the film grain samples, the CG and
VFX elements blended so well with the live action and really supported the gritty detective look
of the story. Technically, they had some of the most high-end visual effects in the world in this
movie, and the results look alive and completely photorealistic.

Wild Rose, being a non-fiction, didn’t involve any computerized animation process, yet had
some glints of noticeable technical convergence. Shot in RAW 4K anamorphic and framed for a
2.39:1 2K extraction, Wild Rose was predominantly shot handheld. The team used T2.2-3.5
Hawk V-Lite anamorphic glass, all on a RED DSMC2 Monstro 8K. Director Tom Harper, DP
(Director of Photography) George Steel, and colorist Simone Grattarola, who have already
worked together on projects including ‘War & Peace’ and ‘Peaky Blinders’, collaborated their
efforts in the production of the film. The film mostly required a range of simple software to edit
the film. They used Cine Grain throughout the whole film to keep a fair amount of contrast and
texture. The saturation was pushed to complement the vibrancy of the music on the film,
especially once they got to the scenes in the US where Rose-Lynn was fulfilling her dreams.
They also helped to darken or lighten several shots from a party scene which was shot over a
whole day, but needed to blend to look like it took place at twilight. They were only initially
grading the feature, but to help with delivery for production they became more involved with the
Conform and picking up VFX shots. Resolve’s editing toolset allowed them to trim some
sequences and keep up with the updating VFX shots from their Nuke and Flame suites without
having to round-trip to another NLE. There’s a moment in the film after Rose-Lynn comes back
from America, a very quick shot of her watching her kids watching TV. It’s a close up on a 35mm
anamorphic, so that the audience feels like they’re right there with her and feels all that emotion
as she reflects on her children.

Warner Bros, which has been in agreement with legendary to co-finance and co-produce films
since 2005, was one of the two main distributors of the film, Pokemon Detective Pikachu,
alongside Toho, the Japanese distribution company associated with the distribution of all the
Pokémon franchised movies. The rights to distribute the movie outside Japan were initially won
by Universal Pictures, but they were eventually taken over by Warner Bros., the distributor of
previous Pokémon movies. The movie was distributed worldwide, owing to the expertise of
these companies, with Warner Bros’ holdings ranging from television division of HBO Max, Film
production division including its studios at Burbank and Leavesden, theatre ventures etc. and
Toho, with its subdivisions such as the Toho-Towa Company Ltd., Japanese exclusive theatrical
distributor of Universal Pictures via NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan and Paramount Pictures,
Toho Pictures Incorporated, Toho International Company Limited, Toho E. B. Company Limited, and
Toho Music Corporation & Toho Costume Company Limited. TOHO Cinemas Ltd. is responsible for
the management of the theatrical operations of other companies of the Toho Group. On April 4,
2003, Toho purchased Virgin Cinemas for 10.3 billion yen, renaming the company as Toho Cinemas.
Since then, parent company Toho and other companies have developed cinema complexes under
the Toho Cinemas brand. The synergy between the two companies, alongside legendary had also
been seen in the past, from when in 2010, Toho had made an agreement with both Legendary and
Warner Bros., the studio's distribution partner, to produce an American-made Godzilla film. All in all,
Pokémon Detective Pikachu was released in Japan, on 3 May, 2019. The US premiere was held
on May 3, 2019, in New York and featured a yellow carpet. It was available in RealD 3D, Dolby
Cinema, 4DX, and ScreenX formats.

In contrast, the movie, Wild Rose, was clearly not diversely distributed. The domestic deal was
negotiated by NEON with CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of
the filmmakers. International sales of the film were handled by eOne’s Sierra/Affinity who
distributed to the rest of the world outside of eOne territories. The film had its world premiere at
the Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2018. Shortly after, NEON acquired the
distribution rights to the film. It screened at the BFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2018
and at South by Southwest in March 2019. It was released in the United Kingdom on 12 April
2019, by Entertainment One and in the United States on 21 June 2019, by NEON. It was shown
at major and independent cinemas in Glasgow: Cineworld, Odeon, Showcase, Vue, the
Grosvenor and the Glasgow Film Theatre and was available on Digital HD from Amazon Video
and iTunes on September 17, 2019.

The synergy and cross-media convergence were also very evident in the marketing of the film,
Pokémon Detective Pikachu. The film, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, had its teaser poster
produced by Legion Creative Group, released in November 2018 and a second poster,
produced by the Art Machine marketing agency, was released February 2019. It also had a
Real3D poster and Dolby Cinemas posters released soon after. Unsurprisingly, the Pokémon
parent company announced it would be releasing a whole new line of products tied to the
movie, including new card games, apparel, toys and more, all scheduled to come out about a
month before the movie hit theaters. Legendary, confident that the movie would be a hit, put a
sequel in development in January, three months before the first one came out. Beginning in
mid-February, Warner Bros. started running paid ads including a TV spot that showed the basic
premise outlined in the trailer. Nintendo also announced two new games, Pokémon Sword and
Pokémon Shield, in late February as part of the overall renewed push around the franchise. The
popular mobile Augmented reality (AR) game Pokémon GO got in on the action, with maker
Niantic announcing it would add movie-themed levels for people to play. In late February, Ryan
Reynolds uploaded a video onto his YouTube channel that features interviews with himself and
his wife, Blake Lively. While the movie itself wasn’t at SXSW (South By Southwest) in March,
Warner Bros did place posters for it there that featured a Snapchat code that, when scanned by
users with the app, unlocked an Augmented reality (AR) experience featuring the main
character. The studio sponsored Neon Carnival, the super-exclusive party hosted by Brent
Bolthouse, in April, bringing the stars of the movie as well as signage and live-action Pikachu for
people to be photographed with. One more video from Reynolds was uploaded, with a tutorial
showing how he gets ready to play Pikachu, including drawing dots on his face and then
working with a top-notch visual effects studio. On March 15, 2019, it was revealed that
Legendary will release a graphic novel based on the film. Promotional partners for the movie
marketed the film through their own relevant market sources. 7-Eleven introduced photo filters
featuring the movie’s title character and an augmented reality experience that had Pikachu
roaming around stores. It also offered a handful of exclusive movie-themed products, including
the new Hi-Hat Mocha, identified as Pikachu’s favorite drink. Google launched the POKÉMON
Detective Pikachu Playmoji pack for its augmented reality Playground app on Android devices,
allowing people to insert Pikachu and other characters into the real world. Casetify introduced a
new line of Pokémon-themed smartphone cases just in time for the movie. Pillsbury put
cut-and-bake cookies on store shelves featuring Pokémon images and available in
movie-branded packaging. Burger King put figures for six characters from the movie in its Kids
Meal. Outdoor billboards and online ads featured similar artwork to the posters. Reynolds put
out another video in April of all the different Pokémon characters that had been recruited for the
movie. AMC Theaters hosted advance screenings the week before release to help generate
some word of mouth among audiences. Those happened around the same time the studio
promoted the movie’s New York City premiere with a series of social updates following
Pikachu’s trip to the red carpet. More Pokémon hijinks were on display in an extended
commercial a week before the movie was in theaters that didn’t feature much of the story but did
include lots of jokes about Pikachu’s addiction to caffeine, signaling the studio felt humor was a
key selling point for audiences. While the movie is focused on Pikachu in particular the
campaign has nodded to the vast array of creatures and more that fans of the franchise have
been obsessed with for more than two decades. Each of the posters, trailers and commercials
have been dissected as fans and commentators seek to find some clues to mysterious imaging
in the posters and trailers of the film. This activity has even been encouraged on the movie’s
official website, which offers a magnifying glass visitors can use to explore the theatrical poster
to find all the hints and clues. Warner Bros. has offered Reynolds himself as the central focus of
the campaign, because of his bold personality and popularity as being the Deadpool
protagonist, among audiences, using the actor’s personal YouTube and other social media
profiles as the platforms on which to launch various commercial, artwork and other materials.
On May 7, 2019, a Warner Bros. YouTube channel named ‘Inspector Pikachu’ uploaded a video
purporting to be a bootleg recording of the film, when it only depicted Pikachu performing
aerobics to upbeat 80s music. Reynolds aided in the prank, posting on Twitter as if he was
alerting Warner Bros. and the film's official accounts about the alleged bootleg. The video
received 4.2 million views in less than a day. In this way, the final video published where
Reynolds takes the approach of a social media influencer is meta in that he’s poking a bit of fun
at the concept even though in reality that’s exactly what both studios have counted on to help
reach audiences.

On account of the cross-media convergence and synergy in the production of these movies,
their success was sure to happen. Pokémon Detective Pikachu, was released on Digital HD on
July 23, 2019, and was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD on August 6, 2019. The
film debuted at the DVD and Blu-ray charts upon the week of its release, and was the second
top-selling home video title in August 2019, after Avengers: Endgame. As of August 2020, the
DVD and Blu-ray releases of Detective Pikachu have earned more than $30 million in the United
States, alone. Detective Pikachu grossed $144.1 million in the United States and Canada,
combined and $288.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $433 million, against a
production budget of $150 million. The film received a PG rating from the MPAA, it is the first
Pokémon film released, in the United States, not to receive a G rating. On Rotten Tomatoes,
subsidiary website of Warner Bros, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 302
reviews, with an average rating of 5.99/10. It was the first international theatrical live-action
video game adaptation to maintain a ‘fresh’ rating and it was the highest rated video game
adaptation on the site, until it was surpassed by ‘The Angry Birds Movie 2’. On Metacritic, it has
a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on reviews from 48 critics, indicating ‘mixed
or average’ reviews. On the other hand, Wild rose was released on multiplex cinemas although I
couldn't find the number of screens it was played on, it was shown on various independent
cinemas across Glasgow. The film made $1,635,117 million in UK and $5,488,332 million in
USA so it earned a total box office of $7,123,449 million and the film won British Independent
Film award and this movie was downloaded 25,452 times on torrent. Wild Rose received
positive reviews from film critics. It has a 94% approval from 161 critic reviews on Rotten
Tomatoes, with a weighted average of 7.78/10. Metacritic reports a score of 80/100, based on
32 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews. The leading actress, Jessie Buckley, herself
earned a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination for her performance.

In conclusion, cross-convergence and synergy among various production, distribution and

marketing companies is crucial in delivering their media product and ensuring its success. My
assessment of the case studies on the Hollywood blockbuster, Pokémon Detective Pikachu and
the Independent film, Wild Rose, shows that, when two media conglomerates come together,
they are better able to attract more consumers than a single conglomerate. This is because they
are well known to the audience and will be in a superior position to encourage them to consume
the product produced. Companies can work together in marketing their media product widely,
reaching out to vast media outlets and platforms, such as social media, merchandise retail
companies and other sponsoring companies. Cross media convergence and synergy allows
production houses to distribute their films effectively to a wide range of platforms such as
cinemas, Netflix, Facebook. This has further allowed media giants to reach out as many
customers as possible and raise their market share. Music production companies often work in
conjunction with film companies during production, whereas other VFX companies, animation
companies etc., can provide technical assistance for the production of the movie. Therefore, for
a high budgeted movie of about $150 million, like Pokémon Detective Pikachu the box office
success of $433 million was pretty apparent, as compared to the low budgeted movie, like Wild
rose, which grossed $7.1 million in the box office, against a less than $50 million. All because of
some gigantic media companies coming together to conjugate, with their widely diverse
cross-media holdings in all sects of the entertainment media industry.