Entrepreneurship and marketing in the film industry

This chapter offers an historical overview of the film industry as a prominent creative industry where creativity also plays a central role in the twin operations of marketing and entrepreneurship. In narrating the story of technological and entrepreneurial innovation in a business model approach to film production, the authors contend that the large, centralised Hollywood ‘studio’ systems is an important form but that origins stories in the industry with the addition of newer forms of production in the present day offer alternatives to the ‘marketing by numbers’ approach that the vertically integrated industry is commonly seen to be. Current examples are given from research into UK-based entrepreneurial filmmakers in Birmingham, UK, and examples are also drawn from the rise of Nigerian film. The potential for the small innovative ‘culturepreneur’ to find a way around obstacles is celebrated by reference to featured examples drawn from recent research.