Brennan O’Lena - Final Project

The Lasting Impacts of Jaws and Star Wars

Revolutions happen every day in every facet of life. But in the 1970’s two films would revolutionize the film industry with more profound impacts than ever before. With the greatest advancements since the introduction of sound to cinema and the greatest price tags and success of film marketing to date, Jaws (Spielberg 1975) and Star Wars (Lucas 1977) paved the way for every lucrative film to follow. Never before had the idea of a “summer blockbuster” with saturation booking been utilized as with Jaws nor had such a widespread merchandising campaign and futuristic technology been employed such as in Star Wars. The practices that evolved from these films have been expanded on and utilized through out the film industry.

The new wave marketing and technological innovations of both Jaws and Star Wars positively altered the film industry in ways that can still be observed today in contemporary cinema.
The film Jaws had all of the perfect elements to be a mega-hit, but what put the film over the edge was the incredible advertising campaign which would help to bring in over $129 million domestically. The classic movie poster for the film was nearly identical to the 1974 book that stayed on the best-seller list for just over 44 weeks. Both portrayed a women swimming in open water with an enormous shark lurking below. However the film’s version portrayed a much more violent and toothy shark. This preserved brand recognition, which was extremely important because the book was such a success in its own right.

Even if a moviegoer had not read the book the image was still everywhere. Newspapers across the nation had this haunting image broadcasted in full-page ads months and weeks before the release of the mega-hit. Universal also had a windstorm of television advertising for Jaws. Although these advertisements did not reveal the face of the villain, they did introduce the villains’ theme. Two notes created the fear in the American publics homes, which sparked the desire to see the villain itself. The Oscar winning original score composed by John Williams was an essential part of the film, but was just as valuable to the advertising campaign. Both radio and television was inundated with the “daa da,” this easily remembered sound bit was heard for several months on both local and national programming, something rarely done before Jaws.

These advertisements would bring moviegoers out to over 400 theaters nation wide. Jaws was the most prominent pioneer of saturation booking, which added to its sensation. As Cook highlights in his book, Lost Illusions:

“After Jaws studios experimented with ever-wider release patterns for “event” movies which, fueled by television advertising blitzes, enabled audiences from coast to coast to see their films on the same day…each vying to become the next “super-grosser”- a film achieving the level of a national obsession” (page 16)

Cook continues to explain how in the 1980’s the absorption of saturation booking was blanketed out to over twice as many theaters as Jaws had originally premiered in (ranging for 1000-2000 theaters nation-wide.) Saturation booking would be most profitable for those films that already had solid fan base, comic books adapted to film, or to the franchise, especially the horror film rise of the 1980’s. On top of the immense number of theaters debuting the movie the idea of releasing such a film in summer was rare. Usually the profitable and ward winning films would come out in the fall. This factor perpetuated the profits of the film because it had little competition.

All of these strategies were quite successful which came as a shock to the industry. Prior to Jaws the idea of pre-marketing and saturation booking was reserved for exploitation films in order to make a quick revenue before word-of-mouth could ruin the films success. The concept of summer release would become commonplace for the action packed blockbusters. Even today this is still utilized, movies like Spiderman (Raimi 2002) and Pirates of the Caribbean (Verbinski 2003) were incredibly successful summer blockbusters in contemporary cinema.

Although the Star Wars franchise was not the first to participate in merchandising, Star Wars certainly did it the best. The film that would make over $193 million domestically in its first year would surprise everyone with its success. The New Hollywood era was the first time that merchandising was harnessed for non animated films (Disney had been marketing its characters for several years.) Since the studios take on little to no risk with merchandising and gain free publicity regardless of the success of the product lines it makes sense to cash in on the opportunity since a substantial advance and endless royalties could follow.

Although film merchandising began to increase starting with films like Jaws and The Deep “The profitability of merchandising was certified indisputably by Star Wars.” (Cook) Lucas had envisioned Star Wars with the thought of merchandising and toys specifically in mind. From t-shirts to posters and action figures to watches and bed sheets to costumes, the science fiction nature of the film set the grounds for clearly recognizable merchandise. In fact the reported $1 billion in Star War’s products surpassed the film’s box office success by the end of the decade. The most continually successful merchandise item remains the books series. Well over 50 novels have been written either expanding the film plots or deepening background on important characters.

In addition to the merchandising aspect of Star Wars other marketing tactics advanced the films success. Star Wars has been re-released many times. The original release was May 25, 1977 and then just a year later was re-released with a slightly stronger marketing campaign and then again in 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1997. These dates were chosen to precede the premiers of episodes V, VI, and I. Platform booking was bypassed for the re-releases and saturation booking was opted for because of the success of the first release. The re-releases insured that Star Wars was fresh on the minds of the public in order to ensure success of the franchise. More obvious to moviegoers than the flourishing marketing promotions is the technological brilliance of the film.

One of the crowing achievements of the film is the way in which it mastered several important special effect techniques. One of these was rotoscoping, invented by Max Fleischer in the early 20th century, and utilized in Star Wars primarily in the light saber fit scenes. While filming the scenes the actors used plastic fencing foils covered in reflective tape in order to reflect a more natural glow onto the actors themselves. Later in the editing studio the special effects teams would essentially trace over the fake light saber to add the glow and pulse in the desired color.

Seen here in a screen grab from the fight between Darth Vader and Obi Won Kenobi, rotoscoping creates futuristic weaponry. Rotoscoping would continue to be applied in future films because of its dynamic uses. It was also an essential part of the film Forest Gump (Zemeckis, 1994) in the scenes in which Forest appears on “actual” television footage.
In addition to rotoscoping the motion control camera was first used in Star Wars. Lucas and friends created the ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) to handle all of the special effects for the film because 20th Century Fox had shut down its special effects division. John Dykstra was at the forefront of the effects and was the lead development of the Dykstraflex Motion Control Camera. This camera was employed chiefly in space ship chase and fight scenes.

The Dykstraflex was so innovative because of its versatility; able to roll, pan, boom, swing, tilt, traverse, track. Christopher Finch explains in his book Special Effects: Creating movie Magic.
"For the first time in history, effects photography was given the means to match (or better) the flexibility of motion available to the live-action cinematographer. Because of this, the dogfights in Star Wars had a vitality of actual combat photography, as if they had been shot from a camera gun mounted on another space vehicle."

Seen above is a screen grab from Star Wars done by ILM using the Dykstraflex Motion Control Camera.

Industrial Light and Magic would go on to become one of the most successful effects companies in Hollywood. ILM would later be sought out to employ their skills in such famous blockbusters as Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993), Harry Potter (Yates, 2007), Transformers (Bay, 2007) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Verbiski, 2006.) Without Lucas’ motivation to make the best possible picture with Star Wars, ILM would not have been created, which would have set back the special effects industry back thus altering the effects of every film to follow.
Together Jaws and Star Wars made an impact on the marketing and merchandising of the film industry that can be seen in the financial figures. In the year Jaws hit theaters the average ad spending per picture was $1.47 million the following year the figure jumped to $1.69 million per film. The increase continued with Star Wars when in 1977 the average ad spending per picture was $2.06 million per picture and in the following year the figure inflated to $2.69 million per picture. The spending on advertising would increase even while the number of film would increase as Hollywood rebounded in the late 1970’s.

The revolutions caused by the 1975 film Jaws and the 1977 film Star Wars are quite clear. Jaws pioneered the concept of a summer blockbuster, fully capitalized on saturation booking and was excellent at brand recognition with its merchandising and marketing. Star Wars would certify the importance of merchandising and would break through the special effects field with astounding prominence with the creation of ILM and their effects achievements. All of these concepts have stayed strong in the film industry and can be seen in across the board in film ranging from Spiderman to Harry Potter, from Jurassic Park to Transformers. Without the success of Jaws and Star Wars Hollywood may not have evolved in the same way. Platform booking may still be the norm along with cheesy special effects. The positive revolution that began with these films luckily will continue through out Hollywood’s future.

Bibliography:

David Cook, Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam 1970-1979. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Lester Friedman, ed. American Cinema of the 1970’s: Themes and Variations. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007.

Danzer, Klor de Alva, Wilson, Woloch. The Americans. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 1998

Finch, Christopher. Special Effects: Creating Movie Magic. Abbeville Press, 1989
Star Wars Trilogy: Bonus Material. Dir. George Lucas. DVD. 20th Century Fox/ Lucas Film, 2004.

Various articles. Star Wars: The Official Site. http://www.starwars.com/ November 2007.
“Inside ILM.” Industrial Light and Magic. http://www.ilm.com/ November 2007.