Institutions: Analysing the Pyramid of Power

 Case  Study: Catch Me If You Can

About the Film- Behind the Characters

I wanted to take this opportunity to take a look at one of my favourite films, Catch Me If You Can. It is biographical of Frank Abagnale, an American security consultant who was a check forger, impostor and con man from the age of 16 until the age of 22. The FBI special agent Joseph Shea worked on the Abagnale case and the two maintained a friendship up until Shea's death in 2005. The character of Carl Hanratty is loosely based on Shea but does portray the friendship that Abagnale and Shea maintained throughout the years. 

About the Film- Cast and Director

The film, released in 2002 in the USA, was directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by himself and by Walter F. Parks. The characters are played by an amazing cast which features names such as Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken:

The Pyramid of Power- let's get down to business!

First of all, we have to get our terminology right, so here are some keywords to help understand what this is all about:

Institution: "An organisation or establishment founded for a specific purpose". This is going to be potentially film production company, or a distribution company, etc.

Subsidiary: "A company whose controlling image is owned by another company". This is basically a company who is owned by a bigger one (usually a conglomerate) and gives a certain percentage of its revenue (such as 80%) to its parent company. 

Conglomerate: "An institution made up of a number of different companies that operate in a range of mediums". This is basically a very large company that is made up of subsidiary companies and usually has a parent company that owns them. These are the ones that obtain the biggest part of the revenue in a media product.

Division: "A discrete part of a company that may operate under the same name or legal responsibility but focuses on a specific, different service or product". This is like a section of a company that does one specific function- like producing films, or distributing them, etc.

So, what does the pyramid of power look like?

As we can see here, the most important people are the ones who own the conglomerates, which can be referred to as media moguls. In the USA there are 6 companies which own about 90% of the media consumption in America:

• AT&T (owns Time Warner) 
• Disney
• National Amusements (owns ViacomCBS)
• General Electric
• Comcast
• News Corp

However, there are other big conglomerates such as Sony and Wanda Group, who also have as big an influence as these 6 companies. The most influential media conglomerates change depending on the country, however, we have to bear in mind just how powerful they are; it would not be an exaggeration to say that about half of a film's revenue will end up in the media conglomerate.

Case Study Product:

It is incredibly complicated to figure out all the companies and institutions that have helped produce a film, as well as who owns who.

In this film, the challenge was primarily that it was made in 2002, and since then, a lot has happened in terms of acquisition of companies by bigger ones. For example, DreamWorks Animation separated itself from Dreamworks Pictures (owned by Amblin Partners) and is now owned by NBCUniversal, as a division of Universal Film Entertainment Group. (wow!!). Therefore, I have used today's structure to represent the Pyramid of Power of this film.

However, here we have the pyramid of power representing Catch Me If You Can: