Black Widow: blog tasks

1) Black Widow had many companies included in the making of it, with Marvel Studios being the main one. However, Walt Disney owns Marvel, making it the main company in charge of the production of the Hollywood blockbuster movie.

2) A conglomerate ownership is when a major media company owns other smaller companies, called subsidiaries. This links to Black Widow as it is a Marvel Studios film, however Marvel is a subsidiary as it is owned by Disney, which is a conglomerate - meaning it is its distributor.

3) Different aspects of the Black Widow movie trailer that makes it clear that it's a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster movie includes the fact that the cast consists of many huge names within the acting industry - with the main cast being Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), David Harbour (Alexei/Red Guardian) and Rachel Weisz (Melina Vostokoff). Also, it clearly portrays the name of the company that it's produced by, Marvel Studios, which is a hugely known company loved all over the world for its comic books and movies - it is also one of the most successful companies, again making it clear that Black Widow is a Hollywood blockbuster film. The trailer shows a large amount of special effects, indicating that it had a big budget as the CGI (computer-generated imagery) looks very professional and well-made. Another aspect is the costumes worn by the characters, they are all very detailed and intricate, perhaps implying that the movie had a great number of experienced costume designers working on their team.

4) Black Widow was promoted to audiences through film poster releases, teaser trailers and the movie being plastered on across billboards. This was because it was guaranteed they would be seen by a massive amount of people who come across them. The cast also partook in a number of things such as press tours, interviews, talk shows and panel events to discuss the movie and promote it to audiences. Marvel also marketed it on all their websites, giving it a whole section filled with a gallery, character posters and a story synopsis. Social media played a huge part into promoting the film too as it grows all the time which ensures a larger audience, big social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter all consist of a significant amount of users which encourages a much bigger group of people to watch the movie.

5) Black Widow was made against a production budget of $200 million and it made only $379 million at the box office (which is considered to be less successful for Marvel films, as they usually tend to make as much as $1 billion) due to the fact that it was released during the pandemic which restricted many people from seeing the film.

6) I would consider it a fairly successful film in terms of Hollywood blockbusters, as the average amount they make is around $150 million. However, for a movie that is a part of the Marvel franchise, it wasn't as successful seeing as a lot of Marvel movies earn as much as $1 billion at the box office. The reason as to why this wasn't the case for Black Widow was because it was released when most places still had to undergo COVID-19 restrictions which meant that a lot of people were unable to go and see it at the time of its release, impacting its earnings immensely. Marvel would have also spent at least $100 million marketing the film globally and so profit levels were quite low.

7) The film industry in the UK is regulated by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification).

8) Black Widow was awarded with the age rating of a 12A, meaning nobody under the age of 12 can see the film unless they are accompanied by an adult. This was because it was deemed to have "moderate violence, injury detail" however it wasn't anything too graphic. Marvel mostly tries to stick to the 12A rating for their films as it is better for merchandising opportunities, ensures a potential better box office and 47% of cinema audiences were aged between 7 and 24 in the UK in 2014. Also, word of mouth and peer influence plays as a huge factor in gaining interest for their movies.

Grade 8/9 extension tasks:

1) I feel that Scarlett Johansson has the right to be frustrated with the multi-platform release strategy considering the fact that her lawyers reached out to Disney in 2019 with their own concerns of this strategy, however they still ended up going along with it. Also, this release tactic played a part in the general unsuccessfulness of the movie as a lot of people proceeded to rent the movie on Disney+ rather than watching it in theatres, which jeopardised the box office earnings and instead benefitted Disney.

2) IMAX is an important factor towards marketing as audiences may prefer to watch the movie in an expanded aspect ratio in order to fully take in and gather their own understandings of the movie properly, as well as to also feel entirely engrossed in the experience.

3) Marvel includes the movie trailer on their website in order to promote the film. They also provided featured videos, a plot explanation, a gallery consisting of shots from the movie, character posters and different ways to watch the film. They have also shown the release date for cinemas, Disney+, Blu-ray and digital.

4) Audience interaction is so important for film marketing especially in today's day and age as social media is something that is used internationally, this brings in a wider range of audiences from different places around the world to watch the movie. It is a good way to promote a movie as more and more people start to use the internet everyday so using it as a way to market a film cleverly makes more people aware of it and want to watch it. Also, many might watch it when it's trending, as it would be something that is the topic of conversation at the time as social media expands all the time, bringing in more people to talk about the movie. Positive reviews are especially important as a favourable reaction coming from the public encourages others to see the movie so that they can see if they'd enjoy it and develop an opinion for themselves.

5) The comments remark on the theme of spies and the espionage genre, describing it as alike to James Bond movies. This is interesting as it compares Black Widow to a typical James Bond film, as they share similar aspects in terms of characters, exotic locations, great action sequences, car chases, explosions and a villains' lair. Another riveting comment is about the controversy due to the presentation of Russian accents portrayed throughout the movie, and also the fact that they made one of the important characters, the villain's daughter Taskmaster, female whilst her comic book counterpart (Anthony Masters) is male. They described this to be due to the film's feminist and women independence theme. Another comment describes it as "easily one of the best 'stand-alone' Marvel films" and that it could make any non-Marvel fan become one; they also say that anyone who already likes Marvel would enjoy the movie. Given by the indication that it can make someone who doesn't like Marvel begin to like it, it implies that the film was well put together and enough to fully captivate someone who previously wasn't a fan. They also say that it is much better experience to watch the amazingly choreographed fight sequences on the big screen rather than on a small one, in order to become wholly immersed in it.

6) As an enormously die-hard Marvel fan myself, I don't agree with the statement that there are too many Marvel films. This is because there is a countless array of comic books that the movies are mostly based on, which contain never-ending amounts of storylines and plots, providing the opportunity for Marvel to display these on the big screen. Also, all the movies are important in regards to the entirety of the whole cinematic universe, which is why they are split into "phases" - what with Phase 1, 2 and 3 (also known as the Infinity Saga) all being wrapped up with the recording-breaking Avengers: Endgame which released in April 2019. Avengers: Endgame concluded many different storylines with opportunities for new ones, yet also perfectly ended some of the stories of a few characters we know and love - however origin stories and sequels based on these characters were also vital in order for them to achieve that. Phase 4, the start of the Multiverse Saga, just recently ended after the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever last month and Phase 5 is to be kickstarted by the upcoming film Ant-Man: Quantumania which is set to release next February. Nevertheless, character origin stories are essential to the plot as they account to something even more, and it helps us to get to understand the characters and their intimate yet uniquely written stories on a greater level. It's important for us as audiences to get to fully know these characters as they are bound to show up in later movies such as in any future crossover films, for now there are two that have been announced to be Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars which have been said to release in 2025/2026. Additionally, every storyline within the Marvel Cinematic Universe is connected and interlinked with each other in one way or another as they all take place within the same universe, so other characters or incidents from other MCU movies may be referenced or hinted at in another movie based on an entirely different set of characters. This is why I believe that there is no such thing as "too many Marvel films" as they are all part of a substantial franchise which is constantly evolving, providing a vast quantity of potential for future movies including further origin stories which will all make up something even bigger at the end.

Film Industry: Marvel Cinematic Universe blog tasks

1) At the time of this article, there were initially 21 films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with Avengers: Endgame being the 22nd movie to enter into this franchise.

2) Marvel is one of the most successful and well-loved film franchises of all time. It is hugely known globally and consists of a wide audience from all around the world. According to this article, the MCU has earned over $18.2 billion (equivalent to £13.7 billion) at the time it was written.

3) Back in 2007, Marvel was recovering after having been suffering from backlash and bankruptcy and had to sell the film rights of some of their most popular characters, some of which includes the X-Men which was sold to 20th Century Fox and Spider-Man, which had been sold to Sony. However, Marvel still owned other favoured characters, the ones who form the original Avengers, which consist of six heroes: Iron Man (Tony Stark), Captain America (Steve Rogers), God of Thunder (Thor Odinson), Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), The Hulk (Bruce Banner) and Hawkeye (Clint Barton). Marvel then brought these six characters together and grouped them for a crossover film to introduce them as a team in The Avengers (2012), which was the first out of the four currently released Avengers movies. This crossover had been in the works since the very start. After the release of Iron Man (2008), the first film which took place in the MCU and the one that also kickstarted it, the producers began to continue the story and give the audience an insight on what was coming. They did this by including a post-credit scene at the end of Iron Man featuring Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D (a secret global law-enforcement organisation) who is played by Samuel L Jackson mentioning the Avengers for the very first time.

4) In 1999, Sony had acquired film rights to the character known as Spider-Man. The studio began to make a Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire who first played Peter Parker/Spider-Man. His trilogy was hugely successful and so approximately five years after the last movie of the Raimi trilogy (Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man movies) released, Sony rebooted the franchise with Andrew Garfield taking on the role of the webslinging hero. However, Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man movies were a lot less successful, and following the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it was announced that the third movie was cancelled after the second faced backlash and critical disappointment from the media. But in February 2015, Sony announced a deal to collaborate with Marvel Studios and bring Spider-Man into the MCU by rebooting the franchise once again, yet still owning the rights to the character. This time, the character of Peter Parker/Spider-Man was to be played by Tom Holland, who has just recently completed his trilogy of MCU Spider-Man movies last year, after the release of his third movie Spider-Man: No Way Home on December 15th 2021 which was exceedingly successful and earned $1.916 billion at the box office. This movie was described by the cast as a "welcome back to cinemas" for some, as it was the first movie many people had gone to see on the big screen since before the pandemic. Tom Holland's Spider-Man has appeared across six MCU films, the first one being Captain America: Civil War in which his character was initially introduced into the MCU. Others include: Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home and also two Avengers movies: Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame - both of which were highly successful and each earned over $2 billion at the box office. Spider-Man: No Way Home allowed Tom Holland's predecessors, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, to come into his universe (the MCU) as their own Spider-Man characters and battle alongside him, both playing vital roles which further fully shaped the MCU Spider-Man's character arc and brought Tom Holland's first trilogy to a close, with talks of a second one in the air. It also introduced the multiverse, which is now a key plot in recent Marvel films that came after the Infinity Saga (Phases 1-3), as Phases 4 and beyond have now been named the "Multiverse Saga".

5) In 1994, Marvel had sold the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four to 20th Century Fox to avoid chances of facing bankruptcy. However in 2019, Marvel Studios regained the film rights to these two properties by buying them back for $71.3 billion; which will allow them to introduce these characters into the MCU in future films.

6) Disney had announced plans to release several Marvel TV series on their streaming service Disney+, with one of them being the announcement of "Loki" - a series which is solely based on Loki Laufeyson, the adopted brother of Thor Odinson, the God of Thunder. This series is based on an alternate version of Loki, who created a new timeline and wound up in a place known as the TVA (Time Variance Authority) following the events of Avengers: Endgame where "past" Loki managed to escape being captured by the Avengers for his crimes in The Avengers (2012) in which he played the leading antagonist. This past version of Loki managed to portal away after he had sought the Tesseract (the Space Stone, one of six Infinity Stones) during the Avengers time heist in Avengers: Endgame - in which the remaining Avengers had attempted to collect all six Infinity Stones by travelling back to the past to get the stones from a certain fixed point in time in order to defeat the main villain of the saga, Thanos the Mad Titan, and revive their fallen allies (who were presumed dead five years prior along with half the population of the universe after being wiped out of existence at the hands of Thanos). The Loki series starred Tom Hiddleston playing an alternate timeline version of Loki, after the original Loki who held an important role within Phases 1-3 of the MCU finally met his tragic demise in Avengers: Infinity War, after being strangled to death by Thanos following a failed attempt to save his brother Thor. Though he had several falsely proclaimed deaths throughout past movies, it has been speculated that his death in Avengers: Infinity War was genuine this time and cannot be undone. However, with this alternate timeline version of Loki, it opens up new opportunities regarding this character for more future MCU projects, despite the fact that he isn't exactly the same one which had been a part of the previous three phases.

Grade 8/9 Extension tasks:

The Guardian rated the Black Widow movie 4 stars out of 5. They described the movie as being "well overdue" as this was a movie many Marvel fans or fans of Natasha Romanoff also known as Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) had been waiting to release for a long time. This movie follows Natasha's story after the events of Captain America: Civil War, which ended up with her having to go into hiding after being searched for a warrant of her arrest, as she ended up siding with Steve Rogers (Captain America) and let him escape the government - not only violating the Sokovia Accords (a set of legal documents ratified by the United Nations as a response to the previous damage and destruction caused by the Avengers during past missions, destroying cities and costing thousands of lives) but also betraying her teammate and friend, Tony Stark (Iron Man). It serves as a prequel, taking place directly before the events of Avengers: Infinity War, despite the fact that it released three years after the third Avengers movie. It also takes place before Natasha met her end in Avengers: Endgame, sacrificing her life to save her beloved close friend Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and to obtain the Soul Stone for the Avengers time heist, much to the utter dismay of Black Widow fans all over the world. Black Widow gives audiences an insight on Natasha Romanoff's past, when she was part of a fake family and then at a young age was sent along with her adopted sister Yelena Belova to a place called the Red Room, also known as the Black Widow program - a secret Soviet-Russian program in which she grew up to become a highly trained assassin/spy and treated as a weapon, along with many other women. Years after escaping the horrors of the Red Room, becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D agent and then going on to join the Avengers, Natasha ends up in turmoil and then joins forces with her sister Yelena in a plan to take down the Red Room once and for all after learning that her attempt years before had failed. This was where she believed that she had killed Dreykov, the person in charge, in a building which she and Clint Barton had bombed; resulting in her thinking she had rid of the Red Room yet also fatally injuring Dreykov's daughter in the process - this was known as the "Budapest" incident and was hinted slightly in past films. Black Widow deeply conveys Natasha's family trauma and identity crisis yet also introduces her comic rivalry with her ruthless sister Yelena, played by Florence Pugh. Writers of the Guardian commented on this entertaining relationship between these two sisters, which was one of the fan-favourite parts of the movie. The Guardian also goes on to speak about Natasha and Yelena's fake parents Melina and Alexei, played by Rachel Weisz and David Harbour, and the history of the two - remarking on the humorous character of Alexei who is also known as the Red Guardian. The article continues to talk about each scene shown within the Black Widow teaser trailer, making assumptions and coming up with theories throughout. A mention of the face-off and incredible fight scene between Natasha and Dreykov is also praised, expressed as an "impressive bone-crunching close-quarter martial arts fight scene". One theory included within the article is the "teasingly potent relationship" between Natasha and Alexei, as he is a character who has a fit of temper and likes to smash things - linking back to the short yet bittersweet relationship between Natasha and Bruce Banner (also known as The Hulk - someone else who possesses those same qualities) in Avengers: Age of Ultron, perhaps hinting that Natasha holds a soft spot for troubled people like them. The Guardian then concludes the article by describing the film as "great fun" and hints at future opportunities of David Harbour reprising his role as Alexei in his own spin-off series - which has not yet been confirmed nor denied by the producers at Marvel Studios. However, he is to return in an upcoming project named "Thunderbolts" which is set to release on 26th July 2024, featuring Florence Pugh as Yelena, David Harbour as Alexei and other familiar faces of different characters which have appeared within past MCU films - all of which are coming together to form a team of anti-heroes, with Yelena leading the group.

Marvel published its first ever comic book in 1939 and was given the name "Timely Comics". Now, in today's day and age, it is one of the biggest names in entertainment. Many of its movies have surpassed as much as $1 billion at the box office, for example Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: No Way Home. This is a huge success for the company seeing as they almost ended up bankrupt in the 1990s. One of the biggest factors towards Marvel's past success was the fact that they created different superheroes depending on important social change events happening at the time, e.g. the X-Men have been seen as a metaphor for prejudice against groups such as the LBGTQ+ community and Black Panther (the first black superhero to appear in American mainstream comic books) is believed to have been inspired by the Civil Rights movement going on in America. Recently, Marvel has branched out and created a more diverse collection of superheroes such as Miles Morales, the first black Spider-Man, and Kamala Khan - the first Muslim character to have her own comic book. There are more characters used for representation such as a member from the X-Men named Dust, who is from Afghanistan and wears a niqab. Another reason Marvel is so successful is because it consists of a large range of flawed superheroes, for example Spider-Man and the Hulk. This became popular with audiences as they were more like ordinary people, instead of being "perfect" and propped up on a pedestal the whole time as they too make mistakes like normal people. Many of Marvel's most triumphant characters are those that are outsiders or outcasts, as they generally have a deeper and a more captivating story-line. Over the years, Marvel continues to bring in a wide range of audiences, whether they are comic book readers or movie lovers, which is why it has survived as long as it has and will continue to.

Blog feedback and learner response

 Wajiha GCSE Media blog feedback – December 2022

WWW: Wajiha - it is very apparent that you are enjoying the subject through your engagement and work posted on your blog. You are now beginning to contribute your ideas more vocally which is a signal of you gaining confidence and building a thoughtful relationship with the subject, myself and the peers, please continue this. The real highlight is your honesty through your own psychographic profiling but also your ability to respond to the high-level questions especially in the audience effects theory blog (Blue Planet analysis). You are seamlessly including subject specific terminology whilst being critical and analytical.

EBI: Aside from making a brilliant start to the course- we still need to complete all blog work to a top-level this means ensuring you attempt the grade 8/9 extension tasks. Attempting this work will really push your responses so they are more analytical and critical of the theories and close study products you are about to study and analyse.

LR: Copy and paste this feedback into a new blog post called ‘Blog feedback and learner response’. Then, set aside some time to go back and complete missing or unfinished work. Finally, as your learner response, write what you think the most difficult topic we’ve covered so far has been and why.

Learner Response:

In my opinion, the most difficult topic was "Camera movement and editing" as you have to closely watch and analyse each and every camera shot and movement that takes place throughout the scene, which can be challenging as there are so many types - so it can be hard to clearly distinguish exactly which ones they are especially as some are so similar. Overall, the course isn't very difficult but it's the little details in certain things that you need to keep an eye out for that can be quite tough sometimes.