Analyse and critically discuss the following films in relation to the notion of ‘High Concept’ cinema: Jaws and Toy Story 3.
High concept cinema refers to movies that sell due to a short, precise pitch. This quick summary driven idea means that a movie, in its broadest sense, can be explained and brought to life and become interesting in just one sentence to the studio, or the creators it is being delivered to. In defining high concept, the premise of the story is discussed, there is not a long in depth discussion of the story and its implications. High concept properties are more about the premise and idea than the characters and their personal struggles. More about visuals and hooks than deep narratives and emotions. The hook is crucial. What makes an idea original and different must be clear.
For a movie to be a high concept success, the premise must be extraordinary, the film must have mass audience appeal, the pitch must be story specific, short, and have an obvious genre. High concept cinema, which can be contrasted with low-concept cinema, a less easily summarized movie, base their marketing guidelines known as ‘the look, the hook, and the book.’ A pitch needs to represent a certain look, have a hook in it’s approach, and be good enough to potentially be sold further as a book. Two movies, which are examples of successful high concept films, are Universal Studio’s Jaws and Walt Disney Picture’s Toy Story 3. These two movies were successful high concepts as they appeal to wildly broad demographic, and emphasize the key idea of a high concept film; which is to be marketable in two ways. These films are marketable as a pitch to be made, and as a pitch to be public.
Jaws, a 1975 American thriller film, was pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model, which revolves around high box-office returns from action and adventure pictures with simple “high-concept” premises that are released in thousands of theatres and pushed with heavy advertising. Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel Jaws, this movie became the highest grossing film in history until Star Wars. Jaws was the first movie to reach the $100 million mark in rental sales. This movie involved a return to classical Hollywood but also to something new, the structure of genre. During the mid 1970s, counter culture was still relevant at this point.
Film marketing analyst Justin Wyatt discusses in his book High Concept: Movies and Marking in Hollywood that high concept films can be defined as a movie based on one theme, with simple characters, a predictable storyline, and a very broad audience. High concept films become cohesive in their marketing campaigns. In fact, a single catchphrase can sell the movie to studios, and international audiences. For example, Jaws sold its concept on the phrase “don’t go in the water.” Almost more importantly, the movie was summarized through graphic representation of the film. A simple poster of a shark preying on a woman floating above it provided audiences with enough fear to be interested in the movie and understand its premise. The selling point of the movie, fear, was successfully instilled in people.
Film critic Kenneth Turan has stated that “the movie’s box office appeal fed into itself, transforming a hit movie into something larger, a new form of feedback and a new model for movies.” Due to Jaws’ box office success, studio marketing executives created the concept of tie-in film merchandising. Jaws was frontloaded, released throughout America at the same date. The advertisers for Jaws came up with television advertising campaigns, which were short and sharp, detailing information of the release date. This created anticipation and hype aiming to get a maximum profit immediately. Janer Staiger’s ‘Independent of What?’ discusses the Jaws strategy. The strategy was to distribute both independent and big budget versions of the film, in order to service to niche markets, and also for mass distribution. This sets up for a very broad audience.
Toy Story 3 is another popular example of a high concept film. This movie, which is the third instalment of the famous Toy Story series, is an American 3D computer-animated comedy-drama film. This movie was very successful, being nominated for 5 Academy Awards. A. O. Scott of The New York Times stated, “This film—this whole three-part, 15-year epic—about the adventures of a bunch of silly plastic junk turns out also to be a long, melancholy meditation on loss, impermanence and that noble, stubborn, foolish thing called love.”
Toy Story 3 is a clever movie in that it works to service both adults and children. Its target audience is children as it is an animated, G rated, film about toys. The content is purely suited for a children’s movie. When interviewed about the appropriateness of this film for children, director Lee Unkrich stated that “in our quest to protect kids, we’ve watered a lot of entertainment down to the point where it doesn’t have bite anymore, and it doesn’t teach anything. Kids’ entertainment, from its inception, from the beginnings of Victorian children’s literature, was about teaching kids about the evils of the world, and that there are bad people in the world, and bad things can happen. Cautionary tales.” He also went on to discuss the gruesome ending of Toy Story 3, declaring “kids don’t experience that scene in the same way that adults do. Kids don’t have the same sense of their own mortality as adults – and while the kids know that the toys are in danger, they’re not feeling the heaviness that many of us feel when we watch that scene.” This proves the film also appeals to adults. Unkrich admits that having a target audience, which is solely children, becomes boring so the film is also engaging to adults. This film was originally created 20 years ago. This film also has themes relatable to adults, such as memories of childhood, growing up, going to college, and also the theme of fear of death and nostalgia.
The Toy Story series also has references to movies many adults may have seen, for example it mimicks movies such as Star Wars, Waynes World, and Indiana Jones. Another reason this film series appeals to the older generation is because many of the jokes made, are purely for adult comedy however they are portrayed in such a way that is innocent to the kids watching, An example of this is when Buzzlightyear’s wings react to Jessie. This movie provides nostalgia for the audience. It provides nostalgia for a sense of lost childhood, and there is also nostalgia in that there is a presence of toys in a world of technology. The toys themselves are also older toys, such as potato heads, piggy banks, and slinky dogs, which the older generation grew up with. A criteria for a successful high concept film is to have the broadest audience possible. Toy Story 3 succeeds in this regard.
J.P Telotte’s “Better Than Real”; Digital Disney, Pixar, and Beyond in the Mouse Machine discusses that one of the many reasons the Disney/Pixar films have been so successful is because they have managed to balance off the real and the wondrous, primarily through an approach implicit in that rhetoric of the “better than real” Henry Giroux and Grace Pollox’s ’Introduction: Disney’s Troubled Utopia’ also alludes that Disney has a very large influence on children, stating that Disney imagineers and executives turn children’s desires and dreams into fodder for advertisers and corporate-controlled media. These films express, in a form angled indirectly at adult viewers, the peculiar self-alienation, and particularly the alienation from the body, experienced by technologically immersed humans.
Both Jaws and Toy Story 3 are popular high concept films. Thus meaning these stories are easily understood, and have compelling premises which attract audiences purely based on this simple premise. Whereas one whose premise is not easy to describe, or relatively small-scale or mundane, is said to be low-concept. A low-concept story is highly execution-dependent because the commercial viability of the project will depend largely on the quality of the creative endeavors of those involved. High concept films pitch in a clear and concise manner, whereas low concept films are less easy to understand, and need more explanation after pitching the idea.
