Ex_Machina Research

Producer:

Andrew Macdonald
Allon Reich

Director:

Alex Garlend

Distributor:

Universal Pictures

Cast:

Alicia Vikander
Domhnall Gleeson
Oscar Isaac
Sonoya Mizuno

Budget:

$15 million USD

Locations:

Pinewood Studios - England, UK
Valldal, Norway

Technology:

The film was shot like ordinary live action. There were no special effects, greenscreen, or tracking markers used during filming. All effects were done in post-production. To create Ava's robotic features, they filmed the scenes both with and without actress Alicia Vikander's presence, which allowed them to capture the background behind her. The parts they wanted to keep, especially her hands and face, were then rotoscoped while the rest was digitally painted out and the background behind her restored. Camera and body tracking systems transferred Vikander's performance to the CGI robot's movements. In total, there were about 800 VFX shots, of which 350 or so were robot shots.

Number of screens - opening weekend:

USA - 1,255 screens

Number of screens - peak number:

2,004 screens

Box office figures:

$36.9 million USD

The Seven Key Areas:

1. The issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice;

Ex Machina was made by Film 4 productions and DNA Films. Film 4 is a British film company that is owned by Channel 4 Television Cooperation, over the years it has made numerous amounts of successful movies such as Attack The Block, The Inbetweeners Movie, How I Live Now and many more. Most of the films made from this company all have small budgets showing the lack of size and money this production company have, this means that money has to be saved by purchasing low amounts of props and setting with the majority of the budget going towards high quality technology in order to gain the professional special effects. To access a range of technology and gadgets this small production team can work with another film company to form a larger budget by combining money and time. In this case Film 4 productions worked with DNA Films to make the Ex Machina movie. DNA Films is another small company founded by Duncan Kenworthy and Andrew Macdonald, it is known for being the most successful production company in the UK. They have made large amounts of films such as Love Actually, Far From The Madding Crowd and 28 Days Later. Although these two companies do not make a huge budget like the Star Wars movies it still provides enough to make impressive Science Fiction imagery with the special effects used in order to create Ava.

2. The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing;

The distributor of Ex Machina is a large company called Universal Pictures. By using a huge production company to distribute a film it enables the majority of the intended target audience the ability to catch a glimpse of the movie and think about whether they are interested in seeing it or not. By having Universal Pictures distributing the film it hugely helped as they were able to provide over 100 years of experience and expertise of film knowledge and the do's and don'ts of the film industry. Due to this film not being a franchise there has to be a load of marketing and advertisement in order to gain money and engage the targeted audience. From the use of Universal Pictures they are were able to create different types of marketing strategies so that numerous amounts of people saw the advertising methods, they did this in many ways such as publishing trailers, posters etc. There was also online advertisement where a banner for the movie was shown on social media e.g. YouTube, Facebook and more, this attracts young adults due to the film being rated a 15. This was able to be created due to the use of a large company distributing the film, perhaps if there was a small company marketing Ex Machina it wouldn't have been as successful.  Universal Pictures have had many accomplished movies before such as Jurassic Park, E.T, Furious 7, Jaws and many more. These are the highest-grossing films in North America and Worldwide.

3. The technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange;

Due to the small budget for the film the technologies used in production didn't include ant special effects, green screens or tracking markers during filming. The effects used were all done in post-production after the filming had already been done, this included Ava's robotic body features - to make it as realistic as possible they filmed each scene twice (one with Alicia Vikander and one without). This enabled the production team to capture the setting behind her so when in the editing stage they were able to edit her hands and face to look robotic. The rest of her body was digitally edited away so the background was seen through her body - this made her look transparent and less human. In order to capture Ava's body language they used tracking systems for their cameras which translated her movements to CGI movements. The whole movie was filmed on digital film due to it being cheaper for the distribution companies, this also made it easy to translate for the cinemas as most of them cater for digital films due to the majority of other film companies filming in digital film.

4. The significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences;

As society has changed over the years the audience view films differently due to people preferring to stay at home and purchasing a film instead of travelling to the cinemas, by not going to the see a movie in the cinemas turns out to be much cheaper due to the cost of petrol, tickets and snacks. The price of tickets have increased massively over the years so less and less people make an effort to go and would much rather watching a film in the comfort of their own home. Movies are now easily accessible by downloading onto peoples personal electronics such as Phones, TVs, Laptops, Tablets etc. More and more people are now illegally downloading or streaming films due to saving money by not paying for a film service such as Netflix, Now TV or Amazon Prime. By downloading illegally it doesn't benefit the film companies due to no money being transferred from the lack of people purchasing the movies, this is why movie service providers are beneficial for the film companies as people have to pay a certain amount of money each month in order to stream all the different choices of films. People can also purchase the movies by buying the DVD or Blu-ray disks, Ex Machina was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 14, 2015 in the USA. These different ways of purchasing films allow the audience to watch it as many times as they wish while having not to pay every time.

5. The importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences;

Ex Machina was marketed in many different ways. There were the more traditional ways such as trailers, posters and adverts, these would have been featured on TV, billboards, the side of bus' and certain apps. This would make sure the movie would engage with a much wider audience so more people would see their first glimpse of Ex Machina due to it not being a franchise. This movie was also advertised by creating a profile of the character Ava on the dating app, Tinder. By doing this it enabled people to see certain clips of the movie by going on their Instagram after certain people 'matched' with Ava's character on the app. As well as movie clips the Instagram page also included critic reviews and pictures of the characters so that people who followed would become intrigued and have high anticipation for the movie. The point of doing this enabled young adults to be attracted to the film through the use of social media and technology as younger people tend to use their electronics daily compare to elderly people, it also attracted a modern audience to the film festival. The South by Southwest film festival were the people who provided the Instagram page by featuring their company on the posts making sure the audience were aware of Ex Machina being promoted at the festival.

6. The issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences by international or global institutions;

The film companies that distributed and made Ex Machina (Universal Pictures, Film 4 productions and DNA films) had very different responses after reacting to the Tinder profile of Ava's characters. Some people in the companies thought it was fantastic and modern way of engaging their intended audience due to the use of their social media, this is something that every young adult uses frequently and effectively. Although, other people seemed to think it was invading people's privacy due to using a dating app that has some personal information about certain people e.g. name, age, location etc. It was also considered that it may not hit a large scale of the audience as not everyone is featured on this particular dating app, also due to the gender of the character being female only males would be matched and intrigued to look into the film. This means the audience would not be wide enough due to the majority being male and not female. It also only affected people on a local scale who were in travelling distance of the film festival, this film is also only targeted at 15 or above so doesn't have a large intended audience so wouldn't be part of the national or global scale.

7. The ways in which the candidate's own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour;

In my opinion, I think that less people are travelling to the cinemas and are watching movies in the comfort of their own home, this is due to how expensive it is for tickets (especially for families). It could also be down to less people wanting to make the distance and wasting money on petrol - this would affect people who lived in the countryside instead of the city. This means more people will illegally download movies due to the easy access and the lack of money that it will cost, however this is bad for small film companies as they will lose more and more money which in the long run will effect the success of their business. There is also a large sum of people who still purchase DVDs and movie service providers however this may only be for certain movies that the audience find are the greatest e.g. Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Star Wars etc. Nowadays people only go to the cinemas for a long awaited film such as Star Wars or their favourite actor/actress are featured in a particular movie.