Steven Spielberg once said, "I like ideas, especially movie ideas, that you can hold in your hand. If a person can tell me the idea in twenty-five words or less, it's going to make a pretty good movie." Spielberg's comment embodies the essence of the high concept film, which can be condensed into one simple sentence that inspires marketing campaigns, lures audiences, and separates success from failure at the box office.
This pioneering study explores the development and dominance of the high concept movie within commercial Hollywood filmmaking since the late 1970s. Justin Wyatt describes how box office success, always important in Hollywood, became paramount in the era in which major film studios passed into the hands of media conglomerates concerned more with the economics of filmmaking than aesthetics. In particular, he shows how high concept films became fully integrated with their marketing, so that a single phrase ("Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...") could sell the movie to studio executives and provide copy for massive advertising campaigns; a single image or a theme song could instantly remind potential audience members of the movie, and tie-in merchandise could generate millions of dollars in additional income.
Wyatt's book is one of those studies that is bound to enforce a new way of considering contemporary Hollywood cinema. He presents a new way to examine high concept film in greater detail instead of dismissing it as just another crassly commercial product.
A thoughtful and informative exploration of the subject.
A former market research analyst in the film industry, Justin Wyatt is an associate professor of communication studies, journalism, and film/media at the University of Rhode Island. He holds a Ph.D. in film and television studies from UCLA.
- Acknowledgments
- 1. A Critical Redefinition: The Concept of High Concept
- The Entertainment Industries on High Concept
- The Critics on High Concept
- Economics, Aesthetics, and High Concept as "Post" Classical Cinema
- Micro- and Macro-Analysis: Style, Marketing, and Differentiation of Product
- "The Look, the Hook, and the Book"
- 2. Construction of the Image and the High Concept Style
- Advertising as an Influence on Style
- "You've Got the Look": Perfect Images in High Concept Stars and Style
- Music as an Element of Style
- Excess in High Concept: The Promotional Music Video
- The High Concept Image: Character Types and Genre
- Style, Classical Hollywood, and the Art Cinema
- 3. High Concept and Changes in the Market for Entertainment
- The Marketplace and Traditional Definitions
- Conglomeration and Film Content: The Roadshow, The Youth Picture, The Blockbuster
- Uncertainty in the Marketplace: The Development of the Contemporary Industry Structure
- Differentiation of Product
- High Concept as Product Differentiation
- 4. Marketing the Image: High Concept and the Development of Marketing
- Changing Distribution Patterns
- Awareness Marketing: High Concept in Print
- Maintenance Marketing: Selling through Music and Product
- Merchandising and Ancillary Tie-ins
- 5. High Concept and Market Research: Movie Making by the Numbers
- The Growth of Market Research
- The Model of Market Research within the Film Industry
- Case Study: Determining Boxoffice Revenue
- Theorizing the Positive Influences on Boxoffice Gross
- Specification of the Model
- Estimation of the Model and Results
- Manipulation, Control, and High Concept
- Factors Influencing the Decline of Market Research
- 6. Conclusion: High Concept and the Course of American Film History
- The Transformation of the Auteur
- Television and the Ideological Agenda of High Concept
- The Alternatives to High Concept
- Notes
- Index
