"sex, lies, and marketing" response

1. 1989 was considered a transitional year for independent distribution because, regardless of the "video market," many of the independent distributors overexerted themselves in the production of larger budget films and nearly resulted in the death of the entire independent production distributors altogether.  However, while many of the distributors were filing for bankruptcy, other distributors, such as Miramax, were able to make a major impact on the overall structure and look of independent filmmaking in the late 80s and through the 90s.  In economic terms, an "indie-blockbuster" is, by definition, a film that, on a smaller scale, replicates the exploitation marketing and box-office performance of the major studio high-concept event pictures.  The industry responded to the "indie-blockbuster" by having each of the major studios purchase a specialty division in order to take advantage of the niche-based distributions that the "indie-blockbuster" played into.

2. The criteria that guided Miramax's  acquisition strategies in the 1980s were exploitation marketing tactics to promote their movies and a positive public image.  Miramax staged publicity stunts, such as Claudia Ohana posing for Playboy for promotion of the film Erendira.  Many film historians are unable to find out which events were staged and which events were actually real.  Also, during the 1980s, Miramax focused on securing distribution rights for films produced outside of the company.  The films had to be "quality" films while promoting a director's unique vision.  Miramax also sought out films that were nonclassical in nature and covered subjects that would be deemed unconventional by Hollywood.  They tried to cover as many niches as possible.  Additionally, the Weinstein brothers limited their spending, chose to continue acquisitions instead of producing their own films, and restricted their release schedule in order to continue beating out the other distributors who were going bankrupt.

3. sex, lies, and videotape was co-financed by RCA/Columbia House Home Video and Virgin.  RCA/Columbia was not happy with the use of the word "videotape" in the film's title and asked for it to be changed.  When the film became too controversial and made its way into the film festival market, Miramax was able to pick the film up and market it as best they could.  Miramax pursued the rights to distribute sex, lies, and videotape so aggressively because the Weinstein brothers saw the film as a potential independent blockbuster powerhouse.  They marketed the film in ways to get it out of the "art house" niche to reach a larger audience, and the distributor also played itself up as the "primary force" behind the films development in order to enhance its image.

4. Some of the key promotional strategies for Miramax's advertising of sex, lies, and videotape were a trailer cut to fit the market that the film would best fit into, a one-sheet that would reach multiple niche markets, and a press kit that would promote the film as though it were a Hollywood blockbuster.  The markets it appealed to simultaneously were: the art-house audience and the youth audience.  To reach the art-house audience, Miramax included all of the film festival awards the film had received and the press responses from some of the most well-known newspapers and magazines on the film's one-sheet.  To reach the youth audience, Miramax focused on two aspects of the film through text on the film's poster: one of the best films of 1989 and a focus on how edgy the film happened to be.  "Finding the high concept in low budget films" means to find a way to have the film reach as many markets as possible by finding aspects of the film that might interest people the film was not intentionally made for, meaning the supposed "indie" audience.

5. Miramax eventually released the film on 350 screens while opening the film slowly to let the appeal build on positive reviews and word of mouth.  The film was released over six months.  This is different from "saturation booking" where films open in nearly every theater in major cities and some minor cities in an attempt to reach as many audiences as possible to get as many bodies into the theater seats as possible regardless of what the reviews might be.

6. Malin's comments were prescient for two reasons.  First of all, Malin's statements not only showed the possible demise of niche films but also explained why the middle-level studio films were not as successful, meaning they did not have as big of a market abroad as the action packed, event blockbusters carried.  Secondly, Malin's "exploitation of the rhetoric of quality" was a reason for his supposed foresight.  His words depicted the independent films as something special to be set aside from the rest of the products coming out of the film industry.  So, he showed that it wasn't the niche film that was struggling but that the film industry itself was suffering with the poor showing of the middle-level films and its dependence on overseas marketing to make money.

7. By the mid-1990s, the term "independent" actually functioned as a "discursive tool" for the press and the film industry.  With the bifurcation of the industry, the "independent" film sometimes came across as merely a label placed upon a film even though the term no longer held any real definition.  The fact that all of the "independent" films in the 1995 Oscar race were released by subsidiaries owned by major media corporations is the ironic part of 1995's "Year of the Independents."  The repercussions of the bifurcation of the industry were: the development of an interrelated but fundamentally distinct aesthetic by each industry (superstars and super explosions vs. well-known actors with "explosive" stories) and the development of films for clearly defined niches as a result of coming out of one of the two different sides of Hollywood from specialty divisions.