Production• Cross media convergence and synergy is important to

institutions and audiences in many ways such as production.

• Working Title films is part of a conglomerate with Universal Films, owning 67 percent of Working Title (Horizontal Integration). This means they have access to a higher budget and new technology such as 3D and 4D cinema releases and better CGI effects.

• Institutions like Working Title have advantages of using ‘cross media convergence’ to make more money in the box office, DVD sales from different countries and having better advertising methods.

• Compare this to the Hollywood produced film from Twentieth Century Fox, Avatar. Synergy has been widely used in the production of this film.

• James Cameron had to create a whole new camera system to capture the animated moments in the film. He created a 35mm motion capture camera in which the actors wore motion suits and the camera captured them in a template stage, which is sub animated and new to the industry.

• Advantageous because Avatar had a very large budget of $290 Million for production and $180 Million for advertising.

• Using cross media convergence and synergy benefits the audience as films can be released on DVD, Blu Ray and on the internet. There was a re-release of Avatar on DVD and Blu ray as an extended edition which cost $9 million to re-release.

• It was also shown in cinemas for a short period of time. This is beneficial because a larger audience can view the film and the institutions benefit as Twentieth Century Fox is their own distributor as well as production company which means they get 100% of the profits. Although there were other companies that were involved, they were for advertising purposes so Twentieth Century Fox would not have got much of the profit from Advertising.

• Avatar made $2.7 Billion making it the first highest grossing film ever made with Titanic (1997) making $1.8 Billion from the same director, James Cameron.

• Contrasting to this, Working Title is a joint venture with NBC Universal films (Horizontal Integration). Hot Fuzz (2007) had an £8 Million budget and made a gross revenue of over $80 Million which is a significant profit, although, Working Title are not their own distributors and needed help from Big Talk Productions, Ingenious Film Partners, Studio Canal and Universal Pictures to distribute, advertise and help produce.

• This is a disadvantage to industries such as Working Title as they cannot distribute to a wider audience on their own as they are a small company compared to Twentieth Century Fox. Hot Fuzz was released in the UK, France and The USA. Avatar was released in over 40 Countries, reaching wider audiences using more cross media convergence and synergy.