The Dark Knight Rises

Loving the build up to TDKR and can't wait to see it in just a little over a week, on the UK's biggest screen (BFI IMAX ). Below are some really cool fan-made posters and a re-cut trailer (in the editing style of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) that some hardcore fans have created. This grassroots activity is adding to the hype created through the masses of official online and offline marketing. You can check out more fan-made posters at tumblr. My favourite posters are the graphic design ones but the humour is quite funny in some of them too, such as this one >>>>>>>>>

Warner Bros and other studios have come to appreciate most types of grassroots production, recognising the benefits of happy fans and free marketing. However when fan-generated content spills into areas that clash with a property's core brand, then (like TDK himself) a studio will defend its territory! WB has frequently filed 'cease and desist' orders (threats of legal action) against fans, to prevent them from producing and sharing their own creations based on WB-owned stories or characters. <<<<<<<<< This poster hints at some of the most keenly fought against fan-art and fan-fiction, that which spills into erotica. Some studios believe fan-generated erotic content, which is inspired by their characters could be confused with officially produced materials and dangerously blur the edges of their brands' identities.


This could potentially be a problem for WB, as it battles to keep Batman dark, but not too dark for teenage audiences. Teens make up a key segment of the target audience for the Batman franchise and its related products such as action figures and costumes. Therefore WB definitely doesn't want TDKR to be thought of as too 'adult' by either parents (who might refuse to cough up cash), or national licensors (who might already be minded to give it a 15 certificate instead of a 12A, due to the "intense scenes of violence and action".

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Every Little Helps

Tesco has just gobbled up 80% of Blinkbox and has positioned itself as the main rival to Amazon (new owners of LoveFilm) for control of the UK video on demand market. Here's an article in today's Guardian that discusses how the move might effect the future of TV and film distribution.


Tesco is the original one stop shop in the UK - the place that people go to buy newspapers, bread, fresh fruit, barbecues, wine, clothes, toasters, meat, fish, insurance, and DVDs. Tesco's business model is based on getting consumers to buy everything from one place - theirs. It has been incredibly successful, today in Britain £1 out of every £7 spent in a shop, is spent in a Tesco. Only about 20 or 30 years ago you would probably have bought those 11 products in 11 different shops, from 11 different companies. That is a definition of convergence for you right there.


Over the last decade Tesco and other supermarkets have been rapidly expanding into selling Books, DVDs and CDs. Alongside the huge sales growth of online retail giants (biggest of which Amazon) this has created a pincer movement, that has crushed specialist High Street retailers who have been unable to compete with the scale and low costs of these gargantuan operators. Our Price, Virgin Megastores/Zavvi and Tower Records have gone to the wall since 2004 and HMV and Waterstones are in rapid decline and look like they are probably on their last legs too.


One of the most interesting aspects of Tesco's move into the VoD market is that it clearly demonstrates the new players entering the TV and film industries that are emerging as likely big-hitters of the future. How the changing ownership and methods of TV and film distribution will effect production and patterns of exchange, only time will tell...

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Brave New World?

Here is a link to an article from yesterday's Guardian, Warner Bros to rent movies on Facebook It's not happening in the UK yet, but surely that will follow if this trial is successful? This could not be more relevant for the Media in the Online Age unit and is another angle on your Facebook case study. 

It is also something you might refer to, when thinking about what the future might hold - one single interface that people go to for everything? Will it be run by one company (Googlezon?) as Casaleggio Associati predict, in the video you watched at the start of this course? Here's the follow up to that film, Prometeus - The Media Revolution Part 2

RIP the UK Film Council

Here's a film from the UKFC celebrating the achievements of their first decade. It was released in April 2010, just a few months before they discovered they were about to be axed, as part of the new coalition government's "bonfire of the quangos".