The Internship Review: Computer Crashers

It's hard to believe that The Internship is written by Vince Vaughn and Jared Stern, neither of whom work for, or have ever been employed by Google, the company that features so prominently in the film. The Internship is two hours of product placement of the most brazen kind, padded out with a story of two guys getting an internship at the mega corporation. It is completely lacking in scepticism about the company, cynically and unabashedly sharing the joys of working for Google and the power of the search engine giant to change lives.

What is even more incredible about The Internship is that Google isn't listed anywhere on the list of production companies. It apparently paid no money to feature in the movie and the idea originated with Vince Vaughn, not the Google marketing department. However being so pivotal to the plot, Google would no doubt have ensured their representation was nothing but favourable and that is where the big problems in The Internship stem from.

The final surprise of The Internship is that shock horror, I actually quite enjoyed it. Telling the story of Billy (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) and reuniting the stars for the first time since the wonderful Wedding Crashers, The Internship follows the two salesmen as they lose their jobs and decide to give internships at Google a go. Never mind the preposterous idea that Google would give these technophobe dinosaurs the time of day, once the pair get out of the unemployment doldrums, the rest of the film takes place at Google headquarters as they join with other interns and take part in a competition to win a coveted job at the company.

The product placement is crass, monotonous and occasionally makes you cringe. They mention Search, Translate, Android, Google+ and the entire story is plotted around working at Google (and the benefits and quirky fun of it all) and the development of their (wonderful) products, even their quest for (beneficial) advertising revenue and their (helpful) help lines. While it feels integral to this story and it makes for a sweet and good natured look at working at the technological giant, it also feels like toothless propagandha and anyone with their doubts about Google and their intentions will have to grit their teeth to stop themselves from shouting at the screen.

On the other hand Vaughn and Wilson are as likeable as ever, with Vaughn in particular playing a much more sensitive and less abrasive character than usual. The comedic talents of Rose Byrne are almost completely wasted but the supporting cast of interns all get to shine in their own ways, even if the central bonding experience of the film takes place in a sleazy strip joint and the aftermath of a drunken night of debauchery.

While many comedies feel stretched at two hours, The Internship packs plenty in and won't make you keep checking your watch (or phone if that's how you tell the time, as this film suggests). There is a decent Will Ferrell cameo near the start and the end credits (even after all the rampant product placement that came before) manage to be engaging and inventive enough to sit through, even after the two hour run time.

I expected to hate The Internship despite my love of Wedding Crashers. While it does not hold a candle to that slice of comedy gold, Vaughn and Wilson pull it through with their easy charm and a fun supporting cast of Googly intern oddballs. It's just a shame that the makers had to be so in thrall to Google as there should have been a much sharper scathing satire of corporate culture lurking somewhere within and far more worth searching for.

Here is the trailer:

Recent reviews at I Love That Film:

Monsters University Review

Man of Steel Review

This is the End Review 

Fast and Furious 6 Review

21 & Over Review

Iron Man 3 Review

Olympus Has Fallen Review

Spring Breakers Review

Star Trek Into Darkness Review

Funding and Ownership of the TV Industry

For my recent article on the ownership and funding of the film industry, please click here.

The television industry is made up of many different companies, some publicly owned and some privately owned. The BBC is privately owned and is funded by a license fee that is paid be every household that has a television. ‘The BBC used its income from the licence fee to pay for its TV, radio and online services, plus other costs’. This means it is guaranteed an income every year no matter the quality of the products it produces. It also means that it is not allowed to make any money from product placement like other TV channels can, as it says in its editorial guidelines, ‘the BBC must not commission, produce or co-produce output for its license fee funded services which contains product placement’. There have recently been concerns over how the money raised by the license fee is being spent with many people raising the issue of how much BBC stars’ salaries are. The BBC has come under pressure to reveal the salaries of their highest paid stars but have not done this, citing the right to privacy of the stars. Some have called for the license fee to be scrapped so the BBC will not be funded by the public and then it will only be funded by its profits. These ‘profits at BBC Worldwide, their commercial arm, rose by 10.3% to £160.2 million’ in 2010 so there is clearly a strong argument for this.

 The funding of the BBC through the license fee has many critics with people arguing it is just another tax people are forced to pay and anti-competitive. Historically the BBC had a monopoly over the television and radio industries in Britain, meaning it had absolutely no competition and dominated the industries, but this was broken with the ‘arrival, first of independent television in 1955, then commercial radio in 1973’. Further calls for the license fee to be scrapped were renewed with the introduction of cable and satellite TV and particularly the increasing popularity of Sky in the 1990s.

However the funding of the BBC through the license fee also has many supporters. Some argue ‘the BBC produces a lot of output that the commercial sector wouldn't even consider. It is vital to the cultural health of the nation’. The argument that the BBC has an obligation to provide a public service and therefore to educate as well as entertain means that it does not have to fight for ratings by bidding for the most popular American shows and can afford to cater for niche audiences as well as the mainstream.

On the other hand ‘Channel 4 is a publicly-owned, commercially-funded public service broadcaster’. This means that they do not make money from the license fee and instead are funded from advertising and sponsorship. They are also allowed to gain income from product placement which is where ‘is where a company pays a TV channel or a programme-maker/production company to include its products or brands in a programme’. Channel 4 is a business not made for profit and can buy and sell programmes as it sees fit in order to be a successful enterprise. It was set up (with aid from the government) to be an alternative to the BBC and to feature more cultural and ethnic diversity. All its profits go back into the business and it is a rare example of a publicly owned business that does not sell shares in the business.

Other television companies such as British Sky Broadcasting are funded through subscription and pay-per-view means. BSkyB is also a publicly owned company so it has shareholders that own shares in the company and can be consulted in the decision making process and also share in the profits and losses of the company. Sky operates a range of services and subscriptions and these services start from above £20 per month. These services are increasingly multimedia so people can have Sky TV, Broadband and Mobile apps. Their Sky Box Office and internet TV services bring in further income by allowing viewers to watch certain programmes for an extra pay per view fee. For example a recent Rolling Stones concert could be watched live by paying a one off charge and now Premier League football matches are being offered on a pay per view basis whereas before only those who subscribed to Sky Sports could watch them.

Many have accused BSkyB of being too dominant in the TV market and having a monopoly that means there is less chance of competition being able to thrive. It has even been investigated by the Competition Commission for this reason but the commission found that there is little that can be done in the face of BSkyB’s market power. Competition has increased in the form of subscriber streaming services for film and television shows such Netflix and LoveFilm but these do not have the same market share as Sky.

Ownership and funding in the TV and film industries is complex and includes many different means of making income from the licence fee to shareholders to ploughing existing profits back into the business. Concerns over the dominance of a limited number of companies are justified with huge multimedia, multinational conglomerates controlling much of the market and making it hard for other companies to emerge and compete. This is a major issue for the media because TV, film, print and radio play such a huge part of many people’s lives and it is undesirable for so much of it to be controlled by so few.

Bibliography

http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/whoweare/licencefee/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/page/guidance-product-placement

http://www.atthegrapevine.com/politics/funding-the-bbc

http://www.transdiffusion.org/tv/aspidistra/funding_the_bbc

http://www.channel4.com/info/corporate/about

http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/faq/name/productplacement/id/501310053

http://www.sky.com/mysky/latestnews/article/my-sky-updates/2012-12/watch-the-rolling-stones-live-on-sky/

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/sky-make-premier-league-matches-available-on-payperview-8475243.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/02/bskyb-power-rivals-competition-commission

Why do music videos exist?

Here is another post for my BTEC Media students as I am starting a new unit with them on Tuesday called Music Video Production. The first assignment is to explain the purposes of music videos. Here's a post to help them get started:

Without music videos, what would we watch while listening to music? Arguably we don’t need to watch anything at all. Music is for our audio pleasure not visual pleasure. But music is also a performance and from the very beginnings of humans making music, there would have been something to watch as we listened. We can’t all go to gigs every day and experience live music with an artist performing in front of us and similarly artists can’t just depend on live gigs for income either so they record their music and hope to sell it in the form of CD’s, vinyl and increasingly digital MP3 downloads.

In order to sell their music, artists need to promote it. They can do this through touring and interviews and typical forms of advertising such as posters and adverts in magazines but they can also get their music to be heard through a huge range of outlets by the use of a music video. Traditionally music would have been heard live but then with the invention of the radio and vinyl, recorded music could be listened to by music fans almost whenever they wanted. 

 

With the introduction of television, there was another outlet for music to be heard. However not all artists could play live on television all the time so the music video was invented so that recorded music could still be played on television but the audience would also have something to watch. Shows like Top of the Pops popularised the use of the music video and nowadays there are hundreds of music channels across the world, some even exclusively playing music videos. Then video and DVD came along and artists started selling collections of their music videos alongside their albums.

Most recently the internet has become the most common outlet for music to be heard and music videos are therefore available on a huge range of websites, most notably YouTube. Artists and songwriters and the record labels that represent them can all even make some money out of advertising revenue when people stream these videos online. Read more about how YouTube views can make songwriters money here. The risk is that people can also illegally download these videos and songs and therefore the producers lose potential revenue from single sales.

So a music video is a promotional tool that allows the artist and record label to extend the number of outlets that the song can be bought and heard in. It gives the consumer the choice to see something while they hear the song and can also make the people behind the song some money. Music videos can be dirt cheap but also very costly so advertising revenue is not the only way that they can generate income. As mentioned previously, they can also be put onto videos and DVD’s and sold to make more money but increasingly artists can get sponsorship and product placement deals. Music videos can be filled with conspicuous products and this can make the artist and/or record label a fortune. If the artists use the product, for instance drives the car, makes a call on the phone, drinks the drink or wears the watch, then they are likely to be paid even more than if the product is simply featured somewhere in the background. Apparently, Britney Spears made half a million dollars from the product placement in her music video for Hold It Against Me.

 

Sometimes a music video is tied in to a film release. This can be mutually beneficial for both the artist, record label and the film and its production company. The song features somewhere in the film and parts of the film are featured in the music video. This means every time someone sees the film, they will think of the song (and may even purchase it) and every time someone sees the music video, they will think of the film (and hopefully go and see it or purchase it). This can make more money for everyone involved and is often used for synergy purposes. This is when a company such as Sony that produces both films and music uses the different parts of the business to promote each other. Men in Black for example is a Sony film and the soundtrack featuring Will Smith’s title song is also released by Sony.

 

All this boils down to promotion and increasing sales. While some music videos are far more arty and do not appear to actually promote the artist in traditional ways, most music videos are simpler marketing tools. Major labels put lots of money into producing music videos that will help create an image of the artist that will appeal to the target audience. Independent labels might be more likely to produce more experimental videos for their artists and some artists, often not even signed to a record label, will even self-produce their own music videos just to give themselves a bigger presence on the internet.

Promotion is vital to increase sales and there can be a number of different goals to it. The aim might be to introduce and establish a new product (in this case the artist and their single is the product), it might be to better position the product in the right marketplace to ensure the target audience will be alerted to it and it might also be to retaliate or make the product stand out from its competition.

In a future post I will explore a number of specific examples of music videos in more detail in order to explain further why they exist.

Links:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/13/youtube-songwriters-payment-copyrights

http://music.yahoo.com/blogs/the-rolling-stone-blog/britney-spears-made-500000-from-product-placement-in-hold-it-against-me-video.html