How does ownership impact upon a film companies working practices?

How does ownership impact upon a film companies working practices?

Warp films, along with working title, do extremely well in the USA due to their individual outlooks on England. Working Title, a company owned by universal, have a more positive outlook on England, romanticising the city of London to be traditionally English, which may be described as ‘Curtis land’. Actors such as Hugh Grant are in many Working Title films, attracting many women due to the charming vibe that is given off through his acting. Furthermore, the plots in Working Title films are all very similar. Films including ‘Love Actually’ and ‘Notting Hill’, not only have the same actors, but similar plots in the rom-com genre. This suggests that the same audiences are drawn in to each of their films, due to the familiar atmosphere in their actors and plots. This is the case for many Working Title films due to their ownership by Universal. This causes Working Title to make many similar films, with little risks involved in them due to them being a mainstream company and they would not be prepared to lose out on money. Working Titles financial stability is very steady due to Universals investment with them causing them to have a 25 million dollar budget for each film with permission. This means that Working Title is unable to go over this budget so they are unable to take risks with their films. Warp films, on the other hand, take many risks involving films such as ‘This Is England’, which shows a realistic representation of the country and the company is based around film itself over profit. Working Title, however, always make their money back through UK box office takings.

Working Title films are aimed more towards a foreign audience, as well as English. This is due to the popularity of their films abroad being larger than in England. Their films are designed to be strong exports so they do not lose out on money due to their investment from Universal and their budget. Working Titles comedies and romantic comedies are their most expensive output, which shows that they are unable to take risks with other genres of film as this is also their most successful output. Warp Films, however, aim towards the English audience as their films show a realistic representation of the country, which a UK audience would be able to relate to. Warp films have a narrow distribution, rather than a mass distribution like Working Title. Nevertheless, Working Title does take two risks on films and two films that will definitely succeed every few years. This shows that ownership may not totally impact the risk taking of a company’s working practice.

Universals access to easy music shows that it benefits Working Title as they are able to use this music in their films. Warp, however, have many other media outputs in their company, such as a record label. This means that Warp are also able to access music easily, which is a huge benefit to both of these company’s work as it shows that it will cost less for their soundtrack and the audience will be familiar with the kind of soundtrack that they will use. For example, Warp Record Label may use Arctic Monkey’s as a soundtrack because they have directed videos like ‘When the Sun goes down’ for them. Working Title, however, have a larger range of music to choose from due to Universal being a large company and having more access to different genres of music. However, Warp show that you do not have to be owned by company’s such as Universal to have access to music because Warp have formed their own independent record label, which has been of great success without any ownership upon them.