Internal Institutions are those which are under the control of those making the film, TV show, magazine or other type of media text.
These Include:
Budget – how much money is spent on the production of the text. This can vary wildly based on a number of factors including the genre of the text as well as the other factors on this list.
Cast – who is cast to play the roles in the text, be it a film, TV show, print advert or other type of text. Casting decisions can be made for budgetary, political, cultural or other reasons depending on the intentions of the organisation creating the content.
Location – where the film is set and/or where it is filmed. Various countries including the UK provide generous tax incentives to encourage films to be made in their territories.
Technology – the technology available to the production can influence how the content is made, or even if it is made at all. Certainly the advancement of technology has greatly influence the work of George Lucas – be it increasing the use of CGI and green screen sets in the Star Wars prequel movies or the regular additions to the original Star Wars movies through Special Edition releases.
Director – The selection of a director can be influenced by many things from that director’s reputation, their specialisation in particular genres or their asking price. More and more frequently we are seeing movies finished by a different director to the one who started it, especially in big budget franchise films such as Star Wars, DC and Marvel.
Rights and Ownership – A film can only be made if the rights to make it are already owned by the people wishing to make the film. Particularly for existing Intellectual Property (IP), negotiations around rights and ownership can drastically affect not only if a film gets made, but how it gets made. Sony notoriously holds the rights the the Spider Man franchise while 20th Century Fox owned the X-Men franchise, separate from the company that created the characters, Marvel. This separation of ownership has prevented the X-Men featuring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all, and Spider Man until very recently.
Marketing – The marketing budget for a Hollywood film is in most cases equal to if not greater than the budget for the film itself. How that money is spent, what form the advertising campaign takes, how long it lasts and how wide a reach it has is based on a number of internal decisions. For instance, if the studio publishing the film believes the film is not of high enough quality the studio might decide to cut their losses by reducing or halting the advertising for the film so money isn’t ‘wasted’.
Distribution – This both covers the nature of the film’s release and the companies involved in releasing the film. Before a film goes into production, a production studio usually provides financial backing and works to have the film released in as many theaters and as many countries as possible to maximise profits. However, a worldwide release isn’t always suitable, depending on the type of film being made. Smaller budget or independent films tend to receive smaller releases.
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