Michael Pokorny

Widening participation in higher education: student quantitative skills and independent learning as impediments to progression

The UK governments widening participation strategy, and the concomitant development of a mass higher education system, has imposed a variety of pressures on higher education institutions. Not least of these is the changing nature of the student population, and the assumptions that can be made about its skills and knowledge base. It should not be surprising that this rapid expansion of the higher education system has resulted in declining student progression and retention rates. This paper takes a case study approach and attempts to identify the range of factors that might explain the variability of student performance on a first year undergraduate introductory statistics module. The paper concludes that there are no simple predictors of success or failure. However, there is evidence to suggest that any innovations in delivery need to take account of individual student development and that the presumption that students can rapidly become independent learners upon initial entry to higher education is an unrealistic one.

Profitability trends in Hollywood, 1929 to 1999: somebody must know something†

This article presents an overview of the development of the US film industry from 1929 to 1999. Notwithstanding a volatile film production environment, in terms of rate of return and market share variability, the industry has remained relatively stable and profitable. Film production by the film studios is interpreted as analogous to the construction of an investment portfolio, whereby producers diversified risk across budgetary categories. In the 1930s, high-budget film production was relatively unprofitable, but the industry adjusted to the steep decline in film-going in the postwar period by refining high-budget production as the focus for profitability.

Movie Stars and the Distribution of Financially Successful Films in the Motion Picture Industry

Film is a complex commodity. The productivity of a successful film and its star inputs can be considerable given the existence of a distribution network which aims to ensure that films can be shown at any place at any time on demand. In trying to capture this potential productivity, and rents that go with it, film producers ex-ante need to give potential audiences a set of unforeseen, but not unexpected pleasures which excite. In not knowing what they are about to experience audiences can only know ex-post whether or not their expectations have been met. This is the nature of the business as understood by Hollywood and has been so since the establishment of the industry in the early years of this century.

Stardom and the Profitability of Film Making: Warner Bros. in the 1930s

This paper examines the film production performance of Warner Bros. during the 1930s, placing particular emphasis on the manner in which Warners invested in stars. Warners are shown to have acted rationally in the sense of having consistently invested in previously successful actors. An assessment is then made of how successful such a strategy proved to be. Drawing a distinction between high and medium/low budget production, the deployment of established stars in high budget productions did not appear to have constituted a successful strategy. The production of medium/low budget films, by contrast, provided a more stable environment, in which there were clear returns to the deployment of previously successful actors.

Association between ulcerative colitis and multiple sclerosis

An association between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and multiple sclerosis (MS) has been described. The current study was undertaken to explore this association further. Personal records of patients with IBD and MS were reviewed. In addition, a search of medical records at a large tertiary teaching hospital in Sydney was carried out for the years 1996–2006. Four patients (three women and one man) with both ulcerative colitis and MS were identified. MS did not occur in any of our patients with Crohn’s disease. The association between ulcerative colitis and MS appears to be real and may help identify common factors involved in the cause of these two diseases. No association was found in this study between MS and Crohn’s disease, sparking consideration why such difference should occur. With the increasing use of biological therapies in IBD and their reported propensity to cause demyelination, recognition of an association is all the more important.

Consumers as risk takers: Evidence from the film industry during the 1930s

This paper examines the risk environment of film consumption in the United States during the 1930s when moviegoing dwarfed all other paid-for leisure activities. We argue that the wide variability in the financial performance of films, reflecting the considerable risks that were involved in film production, can be interpreted as being mirrored in the risks incurred by consumers in the film consumption process. We further argue that production risk needs to be understood within the context of consumer risk. Using a dataset derived from the trade journal Variety, we examine the weekly fortunes of movies in first-run cinemas as consumers rapidly substitute movies that are currently on release for the promised pleasures of yet unseen movies. That expected utility was not always realised was commonplace, as was the pleasurable surprise that came with being thrilled by certain films. These are important results since, perhaps for the first time in modern society, they led to the emergence of the long right tail of consumer preferences for mass distributed goods.

Hollywood’s foreign earnings during the 1930s

ABSTRACT This work examines the importance of foreign markets to Hollywood during the 1930s. The work is empirical in nature and draws upon a financial data set (including foreign revenue streams) of all feature films released by the MGM, RKO and Warner Bros. studios during the decade. The work concludes that the idea that Hollywood garnered its profits from overseas, while meeting production costs at home, is too simplistic. An investigation of the 1790 film budgets found in the data set indicates that the most successful films overseas were big budget films that needed to be highly popular with domestic audiences if they were to be profitable. In developing this analysis, the idea of Hollywood producing films designed specifically for overseas markets is rejected.

Hollywood in the world market: evidence from Australia in the mid-1930s

By the mid-1930s the major Hollywood studios had developed extensive networks of distribution subsidiaries across five continents. This article focuses on the operation of American film distributors in Australia – one of Hollywoods largest foreign markets. Drawing on two unique primary datasets, the article compares and investigates film distribution in Sydneys first-run and suburban-run markets. It finds that the subsidiaries of US film companies faced a greater liability of foreignness in the city centre market than in the suburban one. Our data support the argument that film audiences in local or suburban cinema markets were more receptive to Hollywood entertainment than those in metropolitan centres.

Film consumer decision-making: the Philadelphia story, 1935–36

This article uses consumer research conducted in the early 1940s to interrogate and interpret a new dataset of daily box-office returns for 22 cinemas in the city of Philadelphia over 33 weeks traversing 1935–36. Our findings attempt to contextualize the observation made by the 1940s market investigators that just under half of cinema audiences were non-selective. It does this by a detailed analysis of the system of film distribution in which films were distributed in a hierarchical manner, from first-run through to fourth-run cinemas. Through an analysis of the variation in the performance of films at each level of the distribution hierarchy, and the impact that this variation had on the distribution of film revenues, we conclude that the impact of non-selective audiences on film outcomes was limited, irrespective of the relative importance of this audience component. We conclude by comparing and contrasting risk environments of the 1930s and contemporary film industries.

Managing uncertainty in creative industries: Film sequels and Hollywood’s profitability, 1988–2015

The film industry is a creative industry in which novelty is an essential aspect. As a consequence, it is characterized by high levels of uncertainty for both producer and consumer. Yet the firms that dominate global film distribution have remained remarkably stable over the last century. The ability to transform uncertainty into risk, and to manage these risks effectively, has arguably been the outstanding achievement of major American film studios since the 1920s. This article examines how the risk management strategies of these firms have evolved over time, with a particular focus on the growing prevalence of sequels during the last 30 years. We analyse data on the box-office earnings and budgets of over 4000 films released between 1988 and 2015 and find that sequels have become an increasingly important source of industry profits since c.2000. We place this trend in historical context, and argue that while sequels themselves are not new, their role within film portfolios has changed, and that this represents a distinctive approach to risk management within the industry.