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The Entertainment Value Chain

Module description

This module offers you a wide-ranging exploration of the entertainment value chain, a crucial concept for understanding the nature of the international film business. It will show you how to describe and define the value chain that flows through every film, and specifically to identify where value enters the chain, how it is locked in, to whom it belongs, and when and how that value is unlocked. Drawing on case studies that demonstrate how value is conceived in the international film business, the module enables you to consider how creative elements contribute to each stage of a film’s financing and distribution; and how content forms the basis for production and marketing decisions. The module includes talks and master-classes with established industry figures working in independent film production and a five-day trip to the Berlin Film Festival.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to:

• Guide you in understanding the entertainment value chain, and to develop an extensive knowledge of how a film has ‘value’, what that value consists of, and how best it can be maintained and developed in the independent film business.
• Guide you in understanding that value is not an absolute term, but that there are values specific in themselves, self-contained and belonging contractually to single individuals or entities (e.g. ‘territorial distribution’; ‘video windows’); and there are other values which are less distinct – not wholly financial themselves, but with implications for the financial value which accrues to all individuals and entities (e.g. ‘theatrical value’, ‘tentpole’). We ask you to think carefully about how to describe and define the value chain that flows through every film, and specifically to identify exactly where value enters the chain, how it is locked in, to whom it belongs, and when and how that value is unlocked.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an advanced knowledge of the entertainment value chain as it is conceived in relation to the operations of the independent film business
• 2. Demonstrate an advanced knowledge of the academic debates in the field, and the key issues pertaining to an analysis the entertainment value chain
• 3. Demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge of the versatility of value as a concept, and how it is shaped by its location within the entertainment value chain
• 4. Critically analyse value in relation to case studies that exemplify particular aspects or characteristics of the entertainment value chain
• 5. Explain in detail how a film’s value can best be developed and increased as it travels through the stages of sales, distribution and exhibition

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge of the ways in which the independent film business needs to be understood as constituting discrete but interlocking phases of development, production, and post-production, and to be able to apply this knowledge to produce advanced analyses of key case studies
• 7. Demonstrate an advanced approach the study of the independent film business in terms of the inter-relation of various commercial, technological, artistic, and regulatory factors, and conduct research and engage in critical discussion and debate
• 8. Demonstrate advanced and precise skills in the assessment of film finance, sales, distribution and exhibition practices

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 9. Through essay writing, demonstrate advanced research and bibliographic skills, an advanced and intellectually mature capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument and to write clear and correct prose
• 10. Through research for seminars, essays, and reports demonstrate an advanced proficiency in information retrieval and analysis
• 11. Through research, seminar discussion, field-work, interviews, and essay writing demonstrate an advanced and intellectually mature capacity to question assumptions, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and to critically reflect on your own learning process

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Turnaround: The whole chain*
• Film Development
• Production, packaging and planning
• Finance and International Sales – this week comprises a field trip to the Berlin Film Festival
• Distribution (Markets and Territories)
• Exhibition I (Theatrical)
• Exhibition II (Ancillary)
• Exhibition III (Festivals and New Forums)
• The Whole Chain: a case study

*comprises of three sessions

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Primary texts:

• Peter Biskind, Down and Dirty Pictures, Bloomsbury, 2005. 
• Peter Bloore, The Screenplay Business, Routledge, 2012.
• Jake Eberts & Terry Ilott, My Indecision is Final: the Rise and Fall of Goldcrest Films, Faber 1992. 
• Angus Finney, The Egos Have Landed: The Rise and Fall of Palace Pictures, Arrow, 1997.
• Angus Finney, The International Film Industry: A Market Guide Beyond Hollywood, Routledge, 2010.
• Jonathan A Knee, Bruce C Greenwald & Ava Seave, The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies, Portfolio, 2009.
• John Pierson, Spike, Mike, Slackers And Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema, Hyperion, 1998.
• Christine Vachon, Austin Bunn, John Pierson, A Killer Life – How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond, Simon & Schuster 2006.

Selected secondary texts:

• Steven Bach, Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heavens’ Gate, Cape, 1986.
• Peter Biskind, Easy Riders and Raging Bulls, Bloomsbury 1999.
• Peter Bart & Peter Guber, Shoot Out: Surviving Fame & [Mis]Fortune in Hollywood, Faber & Faber, 2002.
• Joe Johnson and Martine Orange, The Man Who Tried to Buy the World: Jean-Marie Messier and Vivendi Universal, Portfolio, 1993.
• Geoffrey Macnab, J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry, Routledge, 1994.
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Films We Can See, Wallflower Press, 2000.
• Julie Salamon, Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood, Doubleday, 1992.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE page: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4553

Key words search

Entertainment value chain, film business, Berlin Film Festival