• Media concentration / Conglomerates – Combination of multiple business entities operating in entirely different industries
• Globalisation (in terms of media ownership) –  Worldwide integration of media through the cross-cultural exchange of ideas
• Vertical Integration & Horizontal Integration – A horizontal integration consists of companies that acquire a similar company in the same industry, while a vertical integration consists of companies that acquire a company that operates either before or after the acquiring company in the production process.
• Gatekeepers – People or policies that act as a go-between, controlling access from one point to another
• Regulation / Deregulation –
• Free market vs Monopolies & Mergers –
• Neo-liberalism – Used to refer to market-oriented reform policies
• Surveillance / Privacy / Security / GDPR – Close Observation

Three female African-American mathematicians play a pivotal role in astronaut John Glenn’s launch into orbit. Meanwhile, they also have to deal with racial and gender discrimination at work.

Hidden Figures had a budget of 25 million USD, making it a low to medium budget Hollywood film. It was nominated for many awards and won 11 awards including: BET Award for Best Movie, MTV Movie Award for Best Hero and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. IMDb gave it a 7.8/10, on Rotten Tomatoes it was rated 93% and Metacritic gave it 74%. It was the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee at the 89th Academy Awards and it was one of the top twenty most profitable release of 2016.  Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be 95.55 million USD. I feel that all of these facts prove that this film was very successful and thoroughly enjoyed by multiple audiences globally.

Think about the relative size of the film – was it a big budget blockbuster, or was it a medium sized budget film?

• Hidden Figures had a budget of 25 million USD, making it a low to medium budget Hollywood film.
• The movie was a co-production, between independent production companies and the major Hollywood conglomerate company, Fox 2000 Pictures.

 What do you think was the appeal of this film to Fox studios? 

• Low budget films had becoming increasingly more know for their profit potential
• Shines a light on a story few of us know about but which deserves to be more widely known.

What was the appeal of this film to audiences?

• Packed with history lessons, messages about morality 
• Inspiring
• True story
• Recounts the triumphs and struggles of three black women whose work was crucial to NASA in the early 1960s — a time when racial segregation was the law of the land, and gender discrimination was still the norm.

Do you think this film was a success?

• I think the film was a major success because – it was the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee at the 89th Academy Awards. 
• Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be 95.55 million USD
• One of the top twenty most profitable release of 2016
• It was rated 7.8/10 on IMDb and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes

Hidden Figures was released in December 2016 and was directed by Theodore Melfi. The film’s budget was $25 million (the average film budget is between $70 and $90 million) and at the box office it got $236 million .

It is based on the book called “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox.

It is set in 1961 and is about three black women that were recruited by NASA as “human computers” to help figure out the maths to ensure that the rocket will have no faults.

It was nominated for many awards and won 11 awards including: BET Award for Best Movie, MTV Movie Award for Best Hero and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. IMDb gave it a 7.8/10, on Rotten Tomatoes it was rated 93% and Metacritic gave it 74%.

Overview

• Hidden Figures is a co-production between independent production companies and a major Hollywood conglomerate through its film subdivision Fox 2000
• Case study of industry context would include Fox as a conglomerate with an exploration of the role of low budget film making in its wider strategy.
• With a budget of $25m Hidden Figures is a low to medium budget Hollywood film, an industry category which has recently been recognized for its profit potential.
• Distribution techniques – focus on traditional distribution and exhibition linked to targeted audience.
• The concept of “risk-taking” in terms of subject matter which might not be tackled by big budget productions.
• Regulation of conglomerates, debates about ownership and control

What is Hidden Figures?

• It is a 2016 American based biographical drama film.
• It is a hybridization of the history, drama and biography genre.
• It was directed by Theodore Melfi and was written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder and was later acquired film rights by Fox 2000 Pictures..
• It is loosely based on the non-fiction book “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterley about dark skinned female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the Space Race
• The film stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell and Mahershala Ali.

Do people enjoy the film?

• It was rated 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.
• The New York Times says that “There is something to be said for a well-told tale with a clear moral and a satisfying emotional payoff“
• Simran Hans from The Guardian says that “This drama about a trio of African-American women doing maths wonders for NASA has few subtleties, but is done with such verve it’s hard to dislike“

Stephen Neale- is a British philosopher and specialist in the philosophy of language who has written extensively about meaning, information, interpretation, and communication.

Repertoire of elements- a group of generic elements in that genre. These elements include, characters, audience, setting, themes, style, narrative and iconography.

Corpus- is a collection of written or spoken language data in a computer format. It brings together large quantities of language evidence from a variety of real situation.

Hybridisation- is the strategic use of bringing to things together (eg. rom-com).

Historic specificity- are associated with certain time periods.

Repetition and sameness- the act of repeating something and sameness is where things are compared and shown how they are similar.

Variation and change- is when there is a change or slight difference but the things are still similar.

Narrative image- is where an image is used to tell a story and create a picture of what is happening.

Expectations and hypotheses- is when you believe something is going to happen due to prior knowledge, or beliefs. Hypotheses is where an idea man be an answer to a problem.

Suspend disbelief- allows someone to believe something that is not true, it can be done to enjoy something eg. a movie.

Generic regime of verisimilitude- means the quality of resembling reality.

Conventions and rules- are set agreed, or generally accepted norms, social-norms or criteria.

Sub-genre- a genre that is part of a larger genre.

Hybridity- is something that is mixed. It is a cross between two separate races, plants or cultures.

Genres of order and integration (Thomas Schatz)- he believes that there are only two genres: genres of order (western, gangster, sci-fi, horror, etc) and genres of integration (musicals, comedies, melodramas, etc.

• Its focused on two parents who go to France and lose sight of their son.
• The series was originally titled The Breakdown
• Filming began in February 2014 with help from the Belgian government’s tax shelter scheme
• The story is paralleled by flashbacks to 2014 and is set near a British army garrison in Eckhausen, Germany
• There are 16 episodes
• There are two series
• It was written by the brothers Harry and Williams