High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood

250 Pages·1994·13.719 MB·English

by  Justin Wyatt

High Concept
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Texas Film and Media Studies Series
Thomas Schatz, Editor
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High
J U S T IN W Y A T T
Concept
Movies and
Marketing in
Hollywood
University of Texas Press, Austin
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Copyright © 1994 by the University of Library of Congress
Texas Press Cataloging-in-Pnblication Data
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America Wyatt, Justin, date
High concept: movies and marketing
Fifth paperback printing, 2006 in Hollywood / Justin Wyatt. - lsted.
p. cm. - (Texas film studies
Requests for permission to reproduce series)
material from this work should be sent to: Includes bibliographical references and
Permissions index.
University of Texas Press ISBN-13: 978-0-292-79091-9
P.O. Box 7819 ISBN-10: 0-292-79091-0
Austin, TX 78713-7819 1. Motion pictures—United States—
www. utexas.edu /utpress/about/ Marketing. I. Title. II. Series.
bpermission.html PN1995.9.M29W9 1994
791.43'068'8-dc20 94-11131
® The paper used in this book meets the
minimum requirements ofANSI/NISO
Z39A8-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of
Paper).
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To Jeff and to the memory of Lindie Leigh
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THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
Contents
Acknowledgments i\
1. A Critical Redefinition:
The Concept of High Concept 1
The Entertainment Industries on High Concept 8
The Critics on High Concept 13
Economics, Aesthetics, and High Concept as
"Post" Classical Cinema 25
Micro- and Macro-Analysis: Style, Marketing, and
Differentiation of Product 16
"The Look, the Hook, and the Book" 20
2. Construction of the Image
and the High Concept Style 23
Advertising as an Influence on Style 24
"YouVe Got the Look": Perfect Images in High Concept 26
Stars and Style 31
Music as an Element of Style 36
Excess in High Concept: The Promotional Music Video 44
The High Concept Image: Character Types and Genre 53
Style, Classical Hollywood, and the Art Cinema 60
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Viii High Concept
3. High Concept and Changes in the
Market for Entertainment 65
The Marketplace and Traditional Definitions 65
Conglomeration and Film Content: The Roadshow,
The Youth Picture, The Blockbuster 69
Uncertainty in the Marketplace: The Development
of the Contemporary Industry Structure 81
Differentiation of Product 94
High Concept as Product Differentiation 104
4. Marketing the Image: High Concept
and the Development of Marketing 109
Changing Distribution Patterns 110
Awareness Marketing: High Concept in Print 112
Maintenance Marketing: Selling through Music and Product 133
Merchandising and Ancillary Tie-ins 148
5. High Concept and Market Research:
Movie Making by the Numbers 155
The Growth of Market Research 156
The Model of Market Research within the Film Industry 158
Case Study: Determining Boxoffice Revenue 161
Theorizing the Positive Influences on Boxoffice Gross 162
Specification of the Model 164
Estimation of the Model and Results 167
Manipulation, Control, and High Concept 172
Factors Influencing the Decline of Market Research 176
6. Conclusion: High Concept and the
Course of American Film History 188
The Transformation of the Auteur 190
Television and the Ideological Agenda of High Concept 194
The Alternatives to High Concept 198
Notes 203
Index 227
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Acknowledgments
As this book has developed from
doctoral research at UCLA, I would like to thank those faculty members
who helped shape the initial project: Steve Mamber, Trudy Cameron,
Howard Suber, Kathryn Montgomery, Carol Scott, and particularly Janet
Bergstrom. Prior to UCLA, several teachers and professors fostered my
interest in film, economics, and the intersection between the two:
Erwin Diewert, Shelagh Heffernan, John Mills, A. J. Reynertson, John
Weymark, and Joanne Yamaguchi.
I am also grateful for the generous feedback and encouragment which
I have received over the years while developng high concept. Randy
Rutsky, my co-author on an initial article in Wide Angle ("High Con-
cept: Abstracting the Postmodern/' Wide Angle 10, no. 4 (1988): 42-49),
has been especially supportive. I also must thank many other colleagues
for their comments and suggestions: J. M. Clarke, Jon Lewis, James
Naremore, Victoria O;Donnell, Donald Mott, Bruce Austin, Kenneth
White, Hamid Naficy, Nina Leibman, and Joanne Yamaguchi. At the
University of North Texas, I have been blessed with wonderful col-
leagues, including Steve Fore, Don Staples, and Gerry Veeder, an im-
pressive chairman, John Kuiper, and a tireless research assistant, Yosh-
iko Nabei.
Several members of the film and television industries graciously
shared their views on matters related to high concept, including Peter
Guber, Jerry Bruckheimer, Diana Widom, Maggie Young, Perry Katz,
Peter McAlevey, Sid Kaufman, Adam Gold, Hilary Estey, Rob Jennings,
and the late Mardi Marans.
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