The Lego Movie Video Game: Using Convergence and Vertical Integration to Promote Media Products

Convergence is where media products appear across different platforms and countries. For example the Lego Movie film is part computer generated imagery (CGI) and part real bricks. Lego brand designers were heavily involved in the construction of the film's content. The ideas were then used by the Australian animators who made the film.

Task 1: You need to read this article where the writers/directors talk about how they made the Lego Movie to be about the value of creativity, not selling a product, and about the toy company’s involvement in the filmmaking process. Click here to find the article and then write a summary of what the article tells you about the making of The Lego Movie product.

This convergence went further with several tied in merchandise releases. This included 17 different Lego sets based on different worlds in the movie (City, Wildest, Space and one names Wildstyle Chase. There were also 16 collectable mini figures that included The Lego Movie Game from TT Games and a range of stationery, stickers and activity books by a range of global partners.

The Lego Movie twitter site and website was launched to promote the film. There was also a Lego YouTube channel offering sneak peaks of the film ahead of the first trailers.  

WB Games is the trade name for Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. WB Games developed a video game to release alongside the film. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainments have developed games on Apple iOS and the Lego Dimensions game. WB Games is a publisher, developer and distributor of entertainment content for the interactive space across all platforms including console, handheld, mobile and PC-based gaming for both internal and third party game titles. 

Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment is part of the larger Warner Brothers conglomerate which produces the Lego Movie and distributes it to audiences. It also uses its own subsidiary companies to release the DVDs and BluRay discs. This is known as Vertical Integration and allows a business to maximise the potential of a brand, in this case Lego. It gives the existing audience new experiences and further pleasures outside of the film while reaching new non-cinema going video game players. Today there is a successful global sub-culture of Lego thanks to vertical integration of films, games, magazines and competitions. The Lego brand can reach out to a larger market through its range of products.

Digitally convergent media is when digital/online media content, networks and technologies are interconnected. Video games consoles are an excellent example of a digitally convergent device; as well as play games you can also access social media, surf the internet, stream films and Tv content and upload content into cloud-based servers.

The video game offers 15 levels and 90 playable characters, many of which can be purchased as Minifigures, so the Lego brand benefits from this as both the game and the film also act as an advertisement for their consumer products. The Lego Movie Video Game saw everything made out of bricks. This allowed a cross-over for the plastic construction bricks within a gaming world for audiences - although it was not a game where you could use the bricks for construction like Minecraft (which Lego Worlds arguably mimics).

Cross-media products (Minifigures) were also available and this cross-media content help to maximise profits and also improve reach to new customers. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainments have developed games on Apple iOS and Lego Dimensions.

The Lego Movie: Uses and Gratifications Theory

Why do audiences consume any media product? Most media theorists agree it is because they need to fulfil certain needs and have tried to explain these needs. One famous theory is the Uses and Gratifications theory which lists why people are driven to buy media products.

Task: Make notes in your book about the uses and gratification theory:

Theory:  Blumler and Katz’ Uses & Gratifications theory:

• Diversion – Where the audience can ESCAPE from their reality and immerse themselves in the text.
• Inform & Educate – Where the audience LEARN something from consuming the text
• Personal Relationship – Where the audience builds a close bond with a character or group of characters
• Personal Identification – Where the audience can relate to a character or their situation

Here are some descriptions that might help you to use this theory:

Task: Explain at least two uses and gratifications of film using Blumler and Katz's theory. Refer to The Lego Movie Video Game to support your answer. 

1960s Television: The Avengers Context

Television has evolved since the 1960s. Find out what technological and social changes have affected how the media platform has been forced to adapt to keep viewers entertained.
Answer the following questions:

1. How many channels were there in 1960?
2. What was very different about the daily television schedule in 1960? What kind of programming was broadcast at night?
3. What technological issues would you say influenced the quality of television during this era?
4. How did you change channel and how do you think this influenced audience choices over channel loyalty?
5. What did colour television first begin?
6. ITV started in 1955, designed to be competition for the BBC's monopoly over television broadcasting. But what else did the launch of ITV introduce to audiences for the first time?
7. Find out how the BBC and ITV funded?

Ownership, funding and regulation

Television in 1960s Britain was provided by a duopoly of ITV and the BBC. Neither was part of an international media conglomerate. The BBC is a public corporation governed by Royal Charter and funded by licence-fee payers. ITV was a network of regional television companies who competed with each other to provide content for their transmission area.

Look at this London region schedule of programmes from July 1965 and consider the differences to the kind of television programming you are used to watching today.

Task: Print out a copy of the schedule and answer the questions and as part of your homework look on YouTube for clips from these shows.

1. What kind of sport fills the afternoon schedule?
2. What is Crossroads and how is it similar to Coronation Street?
3. Look at the children television programmes and consider what time they are being broadcast and why that might be significant? What kind of programmes are on offer?
4. How much news is broadcast and why are the time slots significant?
5. Look at the evening entertainment shows. Which ones do you recognise and which ones have you never heard of?
6. Find out what the name of the ITV company was for our region in the East Midlands.

Love Lego?

There is a global sub-culture of Lego with supportive films, games (on and offline), magazines and competitions.

Read this article by clicking on the brick here.

Task: Why do you think Lego has such a fan base? Complete some research looking at how Lego is celebrated as a brand. You could look at theme parks LegoLand, TV programmes such as Channel Four's Master Builder, any popular video games and how the Lego sets themselves are branded to link to films.

Collect your research on a Word document. Print it out and stick it in your book.

Extension Task: If you have completed this task, you can start considering how the Lego Movie builds on the idea of a shared childhood experience to attract mixed-age and gender groups for the audience. This resulted in whole family viewings and purchases on the film after its theatrical release. The film was aimed at both younger children who played with Lego and their parents who had in the past.

Read this film review by clicking on the brick here:

Film Marketing: The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie (2014) is a 'tent-pole' film production by media conglomerates Warner Bros. This means that its success was of major importance to the studio in terms of funding other projects. The film was a major motion picture which is expected to generate major income for a studio, which can be redistributed and used to support and find other releases. The film is also an example of how a global studio, like Warner Bros, releases a film in a specific national territory, the UK.

The marketing campaign for The Lego Movie was significantly important to Warner Bros because the film needed to generate a substantial profit. What are the key components of a marketing campaign of this kind?

Film Posters

Trailer

Looking at this marketing campaign, consider:

1. Who is the target audience? Who is the film designed to appeal to and how do you know?
2. How does Warner Bros target audiences through marketing?
3. What assumptions do companies make about their target audiences?
4. If there are different target audiences for the same film, how do you think the audiences interpret the same film very differently?

Task: Watch the film and complete the handout. You should be able to come back to these questions at the end. 

TV Drama: The Avengers Textual Analysis

Watch the first part of the episode, making notes about how the programme uses television conventions that suit the 'spy genre' of the 1960s era and how it portrays stereotypes of the traditional British upper-class in the 1960s. You are going to complete a textual analysis of a clip from the episode next lesson, looking even more closely at the use of camera, sound, editing and mise-en-scene.

Task: Copy these questions on to a Word document, to help structure your initial notes. Save your document at the start as The Avengers Textual Analysis

1. How does the opening sequence engage the audience?
2. Why is this monochrome episode a good example of the technical limitations of television at the time?
3. How is mise-en-scene used at the door of Emma Peel's apartment and what does it suggest about the main character?
4. How is mise-en-scene used again to convey characteristic traits of the female lead character?
5. What elements of the narrative inject a comic tone into the episode and does this surprise you as a convention of a 'spy genre' programme?
6. How is sound and the camera used to create suspense about the man at the train station?
7. How is tension created in the action sequence across the fields?
8. How would you compare the pace of the narrative scenes in The Avengers with the modern crime drama Cuffs? Can you comment on what this suggests about the different audience expectations from the era to modern viewers?