The 12 a rating
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Wednesday 29 February 2012
The Film Industry Questions - Distribution
Did millions of people go to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 in the first week of release because it is such a great film, or because it is so well marketed? Or Both?
The figure – that 32% of the final gross of the film was made in its opening weekend – suggests that Pirates of the Caribbean was a popular film in it’s first week of release was because of the marketing rather than the quality of the film. It starred three popular actors – Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley – and was of course a follow up to a highly successful and acclaimed blockbuster, meaning it was very anticipated as a film. As a result, it made 135 million in its opening weekend, though this ended up being a substantial amount of the film’s overall earnings suggesting that audiences were not as keen to re-watch it as they were to watch it the first time around.
Why do you think Cloverfield was such a successful movie?
One o f the main reasons why Cloverfield was a success was because of its use of viral marketing in accordance with the ‘found footage’ genre it was part of. The marketing was able to stir up curiosity and interest by giving it a fairly low profile. The first information given about it was a teaser trailer giving no name for the film and only a release date. The main footage shown was a homemade video of New York being attacked by something unidentified, ending with an image of the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing through a street. These glimpses of the film were memorable, and led to audience interest due to the fact that they were not totally explained. Via word of mouth, the interest was heightened as blogs and viral websites posted information about the film, sometimes relating to the backstories of the characters and sometimes cryptically revealing information about the monster story. In this way, the film has a universe which goes beyond the 90 minute film itself, making it a more intriguing experience to moviegoers. Cloverfield was not the first ‘found footage’ film and it is certainly not the last – however, in recent years, very few ‘found footage’ films have put as much effort into making their stories seem believable in the way that Cloverfield did.
To what extent do you agree with the statement that the audience of tomorrow is online? What examples from your own consumption of films and media lead you towards the internet?
I believe that there will be a general tend towards watching films online with the younger generation for several reasons. For one thing, they consume the advertising and publicity of the films they watch mainly online through adverts on youtube and awareness pages on websites and social networking sites such as Facebook. This means that it will feel natural for them to actually watch their films online rather than go to the cinema and see them. Furthermore, the internet opens new windows of opportunity for lesser known or independent directors to get their films seen and can become popular as a result of this.
Personally, I have often favoured watching films at the cinema or at least renting them on DVD as I often find myself particularly drawn towards certain films with certain actors or directors which give me more of an incentive to watch them on the best formats available. However, most of the marketing for films which I have enjoyed recently I have often consumed online – Apple Trailers for example showcase all trailers for upcoming films, and film websites such as IMDb offer information about upcoming films which I may want to see. Online marketing has also opened new opportunities for creating excitement – not only can trailers be shown online but short select scenes from films to advertise the film as a whole to the audience. One particular film that got my attention through this was the film Drive, which released it's opening prologue online before making a trailer.
The figure – that 32% of the final gross of the film was made in its opening weekend – suggests that Pirates of the Caribbean was a popular film in it’s first week of release was because of the marketing rather than the quality of the film. It starred three popular actors – Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley – and was of course a follow up to a highly successful and acclaimed blockbuster, meaning it was very anticipated as a film. As a result, it made 135 million in its opening weekend, though this ended up being a substantial amount of the film’s overall earnings suggesting that audiences were not as keen to re-watch it as they were to watch it the first time around.
Why do you think Cloverfield was such a successful movie?
One o f the main reasons why Cloverfield was a success was because of its use of viral marketing in accordance with the ‘found footage’ genre it was part of. The marketing was able to stir up curiosity and interest by giving it a fairly low profile. The first information given about it was a teaser trailer giving no name for the film and only a release date. The main footage shown was a homemade video of New York being attacked by something unidentified, ending with an image of the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing through a street. These glimpses of the film were memorable, and led to audience interest due to the fact that they were not totally explained. Via word of mouth, the interest was heightened as blogs and viral websites posted information about the film, sometimes relating to the backstories of the characters and sometimes cryptically revealing information about the monster story. In this way, the film has a universe which goes beyond the 90 minute film itself, making it a more intriguing experience to moviegoers. Cloverfield was not the first ‘found footage’ film and it is certainly not the last – however, in recent years, very few ‘found footage’ films have put as much effort into making their stories seem believable in the way that Cloverfield did.
To what extent do you agree with the statement that the audience of tomorrow is online? What examples from your own consumption of films and media lead you towards the internet?
I believe that there will be a general tend towards watching films online with the younger generation for several reasons. For one thing, they consume the advertising and publicity of the films they watch mainly online through adverts on youtube and awareness pages on websites and social networking sites such as Facebook. This means that it will feel natural for them to actually watch their films online rather than go to the cinema and see them. Furthermore, the internet opens new windows of opportunity for lesser known or independent directors to get their films seen and can become popular as a result of this.
Personally, I have often favoured watching films at the cinema or at least renting them on DVD as I often find myself particularly drawn towards certain films with certain actors or directors which give me more of an incentive to watch them on the best formats available. However, most of the marketing for films which I have enjoyed recently I have often consumed online – Apple Trailers for example showcase all trailers for upcoming films, and film websites such as IMDb offer information about upcoming films which I may want to see. Online marketing has also opened new opportunities for creating excitement – not only can trailers be shown online but short select scenes from films to advertise the film as a whole to the audience. One particular film that got my attention through this was the film Drive, which released it's opening prologue online before making a trailer.
Saturday 25 February 2012
Evaluation Question 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
One of the main ways in which our media product defied conventions of similar media products - that is to say, British crime thrillers - was in the costumes of the characters. While most British crime thrillers such as Kidulthood often have hooded or unsavoury looking characters, we made our characters well dressed, one of them wearing a suit and the others dressed fairly inconspicuously. Through this, we hoped to give our characters a more unpredictable edge and not make them caricatures of British street criminals.
We also decided to make our opening rather slow-paced and use no shaky camera motion for it. This is unlike other thriller openings we studied such as Collateral or London to Brighton, and we chose to shoot the opening in this way to establish the characters and setting rather than put the audience into the action, as we felt that our film would be more of a slow-burn character piece. This meant that we often focused on the main character in between scenes of shot progression such as when he meets the two other men and begins following the girl. This reminded me of the film No Country For Old Men, which focuses as much on the behaviour and actions of the main characters than the general crime story it is based around.
For the graphics, we decided to go for a font called Bank Gothic - this font has been used in many films and TV shows, such as 24, The International and X Men.
We were influenced by some other more character based crime dramas for our opening, notably the films Drive and Heat in terms of cinematography, location and costume. Drive is noticeable for its lack of handheld cameras and slow-paced cinematography, while Heat opens on the Los Angeles MTA and uses several establishing shots - we were originally going to have our film set on the London DLR though could not. We did, however, use several establishing shots of the location in the way that Heat did.
^It can be seen here how the cinematography of Heat is atmospheric and consists of slow and steady cinematography which our film also had elements of.
The main characters in Heat and Drive are also dressed fairly inconspicuously when we first meet them: Robert De Niro's character in Heat in the opening is in fact dressed in disguise as an ambulance driver, while Ryan Gosling's character in Drive wears a simple satin jacket and jeans.
We did, however, not want to make our characters seem totally inconspicuous as we wanted to also build a mounting sense of mystery with regard to the story. Drive also influenced us directly in this aspect as we had our character wear leather gloves identical to those that the main character in Drive wears. In this context, these are particularly suspicious given that the character is not a driver.
One trope present in many crime films of a similar budget and setting to ours, however, was having a female character killed or attacked. This is often more surprising than killing off a less innocent looking male character and can be used to put the audience on the edge of their seat. We decided to make the character getting killed female as it demonstrated the dangerous nature of our possibly sociopathic main character.
One of the main ways in which our media product defied conventions of similar media products - that is to say, British crime thrillers - was in the costumes of the characters. While most British crime thrillers such as Kidulthood often have hooded or unsavoury looking characters, we made our characters well dressed, one of them wearing a suit and the others dressed fairly inconspicuously. Through this, we hoped to give our characters a more unpredictable edge and not make them caricatures of British street criminals.
We also decided to make our opening rather slow-paced and use no shaky camera motion for it. This is unlike other thriller openings we studied such as Collateral or London to Brighton, and we chose to shoot the opening in this way to establish the characters and setting rather than put the audience into the action, as we felt that our film would be more of a slow-burn character piece. This meant that we often focused on the main character in between scenes of shot progression such as when he meets the two other men and begins following the girl. This reminded me of the film No Country For Old Men, which focuses as much on the behaviour and actions of the main characters than the general crime story it is based around.
For the graphics, we decided to go for a font called Bank Gothic - this font has been used in many films and TV shows, such as 24, The International and X Men.
We were influenced by some other more character based crime dramas for our opening, notably the films Drive and Heat in terms of cinematography, location and costume. Drive is noticeable for its lack of handheld cameras and slow-paced cinematography, while Heat opens on the Los Angeles MTA and uses several establishing shots - we were originally going to have our film set on the London DLR though could not. We did, however, use several establishing shots of the location in the way that Heat did.
^It can be seen here how the cinematography of Heat is atmospheric and consists of slow and steady cinematography which our film also had elements of.
The main characters in Heat and Drive are also dressed fairly inconspicuously when we first meet them: Robert De Niro's character in Heat in the opening is in fact dressed in disguise as an ambulance driver, while Ryan Gosling's character in Drive wears a simple satin jacket and jeans.
We did, however, not want to make our characters seem totally inconspicuous as we wanted to also build a mounting sense of mystery with regard to the story. Drive also influenced us directly in this aspect as we had our character wear leather gloves identical to those that the main character in Drive wears. In this context, these are particularly suspicious given that the character is not a driver.
One trope present in many crime films of a similar budget and setting to ours, however, was having a female character killed or attacked. This is often more surprising than killing off a less innocent looking male character and can be used to put the audience on the edge of their seat. We decided to make the character getting killed female as it demonstrated the dangerous nature of our possibly sociopathic main character.
Thursday 16 February 2012
Assessing our Filming and Construction
Decisions we made:
• One of our main stylistic choices for our sequence was to have little to no moving camera shots, especially for the first half of our film. This we felt was necessary as we wanted to find a medium between having the opening start in the middle of an event for the character and building up the atmosphere and immersing the viewer in the location.
• Once the character finds the person he is assigned to kill, we have more shots where the camera is moving or panning to establish pace and build up tension.
• We decided to make the characters reasonably well dressed, with one character wearing a suit and the others wearing fairly smart clothing. We made this decision as we felt that once the characters begin acting suspiciously (receiving cryptic instructions, abruptly putting on leather gloves), the audience would have more curiosity into what is happening.
Revisions of our planned sequence:
• We were of course originally going to set the first half of our film before the main character finds his target on the DLR, though we had to change as we found filming on the trains impossible.
• We had intended to set our film at twilight to night time, though we found that the lighting at London Bridge during the middle of the afternoon was suitable for our film – sometimes harshly grey, sometimes more cool and blue, this set the somewhat bleak yet stylish tone to our film.
• On our recce, we found our original location for the alleyway scene at the end of the film – it was in a darkened car park. However, we chose a different location – round the back of an office block and terrace – for many reasons. For one thing, we found lighting the car park particularly difficult, meaning it would not have looked particularly impressive. We also particularly liked the terrace the characters walk across as they come towards the alleyway, as it was suspiciously quite at the time of our filming.
Problems we faced:
• One of our main problems was with the sound of our film. The first few shots of our sequence were on a bridge, and the middle of it was under it. This meant that we picked up a fair amount of ambient noise of cars travelling past and wind, which sometimes made our characters’ voices hard to hear. For this reason, we have had to re-record one of the opening lines.
• We also found that, at times, the lighting was difficult to work with. It was very bright and harshly lit, meaning that many of our low-angle shots of the actors or locations were often too dark on their faces or images. We managed to remedy this problem to a certain extent with our actors as we used our lights, though obviously there was no way to ensure that, for example, our low-angle shot of the Shard building was well-lit without simply having to use ambient lights.
• One of our main stylistic choices for our sequence was to have little to no moving camera shots, especially for the first half of our film. This we felt was necessary as we wanted to find a medium between having the opening start in the middle of an event for the character and building up the atmosphere and immersing the viewer in the location.
• Once the character finds the person he is assigned to kill, we have more shots where the camera is moving or panning to establish pace and build up tension.
• We decided to make the characters reasonably well dressed, with one character wearing a suit and the others wearing fairly smart clothing. We made this decision as we felt that once the characters begin acting suspiciously (receiving cryptic instructions, abruptly putting on leather gloves), the audience would have more curiosity into what is happening.
Revisions of our planned sequence:
• We were of course originally going to set the first half of our film before the main character finds his target on the DLR, though we had to change as we found filming on the trains impossible.
• We had intended to set our film at twilight to night time, though we found that the lighting at London Bridge during the middle of the afternoon was suitable for our film – sometimes harshly grey, sometimes more cool and blue, this set the somewhat bleak yet stylish tone to our film.
• On our recce, we found our original location for the alleyway scene at the end of the film – it was in a darkened car park. However, we chose a different location – round the back of an office block and terrace – for many reasons. For one thing, we found lighting the car park particularly difficult, meaning it would not have looked particularly impressive. We also particularly liked the terrace the characters walk across as they come towards the alleyway, as it was suspiciously quite at the time of our filming.
Problems we faced:
• One of our main problems was with the sound of our film. The first few shots of our sequence were on a bridge, and the middle of it was under it. This meant that we picked up a fair amount of ambient noise of cars travelling past and wind, which sometimes made our characters’ voices hard to hear. For this reason, we have had to re-record one of the opening lines.
• We also found that, at times, the lighting was difficult to work with. It was very bright and harshly lit, meaning that many of our low-angle shots of the actors or locations were often too dark on their faces or images. We managed to remedy this problem to a certain extent with our actors as we used our lights, though obviously there was no way to ensure that, for example, our low-angle shot of the Shard building was well-lit without simply having to use ambient lights.
A History of British Cinema - Questions
1
One of the major developments in the UK film industry has been the increase in politically and socially progressive films, mainly coming into the centre stage during the Thatcher years, with directors such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh at the forefront of this style of social realism. Even Four Weddings and a Funeral, which was less focused on the harsh qualities of the Thatcher era and more focused on the upper middle class of England, was certainly a film based on class and proved to be greatly successful here and in the USA. One of the most radical and famous examples of the gritty form of British cinema that emerged in the 80s and 90s was Trainspotting, starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner. Focusing on the acid house culture of 90s teen life in the UK, it had a strong and noticeable influence on many British films, inspiring such films as Human Traffic and Boston Kickout, which all starred now famous British actors. Often these films would have a mix of realism and surrealism, focusing on the UK drug culture and its highs and lows. Films like these challenged traditional views on youth, though youth culture was not the only aspect of British society which had new light shed on it by British films. Directors such as Shane Meadows began to explore English society outside London with films such as This is England (set in Nottingham). In general, British cinema had began to explore the lives of the 'underclass' which was emerging during the 90s, with films like Brassed Off and The Full Monty being prime examples of such films.
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3
Momentum Pictures tend to distribute low to medium budget films, usually UK or foreign films. Recently, for example, they distributed Shame, a British film starring Michael Fassbender, and Valhalla Rising, by Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn. They distribute films of many different genres, from actioners such as Haywire to the Oscar winning drama The King's Speech, though there is a recurring trend for them to distribute more independent or arthouse films - they have distributed and are distributing films for sophisticated, independent or arthouse directors such as Steven Soderbergh (for Haywire), John Hillcoat (for the upcoming Wettest County), Nicholas Winding Refn, David O. Russell (for The Fighter) and Gus Van Sant (for Milk). They have also frequently distributed films for Mike Leigh, the famous British social realist director.
One of the major developments in the UK film industry has been the increase in politically and socially progressive films, mainly coming into the centre stage during the Thatcher years, with directors such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh at the forefront of this style of social realism. Even Four Weddings and a Funeral, which was less focused on the harsh qualities of the Thatcher era and more focused on the upper middle class of England, was certainly a film based on class and proved to be greatly successful here and in the USA. One of the most radical and famous examples of the gritty form of British cinema that emerged in the 80s and 90s was Trainspotting, starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner. Focusing on the acid house culture of 90s teen life in the UK, it had a strong and noticeable influence on many British films, inspiring such films as Human Traffic and Boston Kickout, which all starred now famous British actors. Often these films would have a mix of realism and surrealism, focusing on the UK drug culture and its highs and lows. Films like these challenged traditional views on youth, though youth culture was not the only aspect of British society which had new light shed on it by British films. Directors such as Shane Meadows began to explore English society outside London with films such as This is England (set in Nottingham). In general, British cinema had began to explore the lives of the 'underclass' which was emerging during the 90s, with films like Brassed Off and The Full Monty being prime examples of such films.
2
Never let me go
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3
Momentum Pictures tend to distribute low to medium budget films, usually UK or foreign films. Recently, for example, they distributed Shame, a British film starring Michael Fassbender, and Valhalla Rising, by Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn. They distribute films of many different genres, from actioners such as Haywire to the Oscar winning drama The King's Speech, though there is a recurring trend for them to distribute more independent or arthouse films - they have distributed and are distributing films for sophisticated, independent or arthouse directors such as Steven Soderbergh (for Haywire), John Hillcoat (for the upcoming Wettest County), Nicholas Winding Refn, David O. Russell (for The Fighter) and Gus Van Sant (for Milk). They have also frequently distributed films for Mike Leigh, the famous British social realist director.
Thursday 9 February 2012
The British Film Industry - Questions
1 - Based on the statistics, does the British Film Industry seem to be in good shape?
These statistics suggest that the British Film Industry is in reasonably good shape - certainly a sustainable one - though it is clear that there are some weaknesses with regard to it at present, many of which could be put down to the current economic conditions. The value of domestic production has fallen by 22%, and the median budget of UK films has gone from approximately 3 million pounds to 1 million. Nonetheless, the British Film Industry remains the third largest in the world. It has seen some prolific accolades and successes over the past few years - for example, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 earned almost £1 billion, and The King's Speech, a fairly low budget British film, went on to become a huge success and winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture.
2 - How does film production in the UK seem to be very different from the Hollywood model?
One of the main differences between UK film production and Hollywood film production is that the UK often has co-productions between several different production companies and distributors, whereas Hollywood films often rely one one major film production company such as Universal Studios or Warner Bros. Many British films also rely on European or American investments, e.g. Ken Loach's Looking for Eric had investment from Germany and Spain, while The Dark Knight was a UK/American co-production.
3 - What does the table tell us about the state of the UK film industry in 2010?
The table tells us that the vast majority of films released in the UK are in fact American, and that these films have the largest box office earnings of all films released. It also suggests that UK independent productions are not nearly as popular as UK studio-backed productions, given that the studio-backed productions had a 10% higher share of the box office than independent productions, when the latter had around 100 more released. Overall, it states that a quater of the box office share was from UK films - though this is pale by comparison to the USA box office share, it is also very high above the share of films from the rest of the world combined.
4 - How many of these cilms could be considered British films? What does this say about the scale of the UK film industry?
Shrek Forever After - this was distributed by Paramount UK.
Twilight Saga: Eclipse - this was distributed by E1 entertainment in the UK.
Sherlock Holmes - this was distributed by Warner Bros UK.
Alvin and the Chipmunks - this was distributed by Twentiefth Century Fox UK.
Sex and the City 2 - this was distributed by Warner Bros UK. It also recieved worldwide New Line Cinema distribution.
None of these films can be considered wholly British, as most of them had American production companies backing them and recieved worldwide distribution, with most distribution companies such as Warner Bros and Paramount also distributing in the USA, Ireland, European and other countries.
5 - Which of these two films recently released in the UK do you think is a BBC co-production and why?
My Week with Marylin, given that it seems to be a majorly British film with an all-British cast - it is also set in England.
6 - Why do you think the Coalition government decided to close down the UKFC?
It would appear that the UK Film Council used it's money unwisely - sometimes investing in arthouse pictures which do not often make profit, while at other times investing in bigger budget films that could have found money elsewhere. Furthermore, in the year leading up to it's closing down, it put £160 million of Lotery monney into more than 900 productions, not all of which were successful. It had recieved criticism for narrowing the rate of return for the industry.
These statistics suggest that the British Film Industry is in reasonably good shape - certainly a sustainable one - though it is clear that there are some weaknesses with regard to it at present, many of which could be put down to the current economic conditions. The value of domestic production has fallen by 22%, and the median budget of UK films has gone from approximately 3 million pounds to 1 million. Nonetheless, the British Film Industry remains the third largest in the world. It has seen some prolific accolades and successes over the past few years - for example, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 earned almost £1 billion, and The King's Speech, a fairly low budget British film, went on to become a huge success and winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture.
2 - How does film production in the UK seem to be very different from the Hollywood model?
One of the main differences between UK film production and Hollywood film production is that the UK often has co-productions between several different production companies and distributors, whereas Hollywood films often rely one one major film production company such as Universal Studios or Warner Bros. Many British films also rely on European or American investments, e.g. Ken Loach's Looking for Eric had investment from Germany and Spain, while The Dark Knight was a UK/American co-production.
3 - What does the table tell us about the state of the UK film industry in 2010?
The table tells us that the vast majority of films released in the UK are in fact American, and that these films have the largest box office earnings of all films released. It also suggests that UK independent productions are not nearly as popular as UK studio-backed productions, given that the studio-backed productions had a 10% higher share of the box office than independent productions, when the latter had around 100 more released. Overall, it states that a quater of the box office share was from UK films - though this is pale by comparison to the USA box office share, it is also very high above the share of films from the rest of the world combined.
4 - How many of these cilms could be considered British films? What does this say about the scale of the UK film industry?
Shrek Forever After - this was distributed by Paramount UK.
Twilight Saga: Eclipse - this was distributed by E1 entertainment in the UK.
Sherlock Holmes - this was distributed by Warner Bros UK.
Alvin and the Chipmunks - this was distributed by Twentiefth Century Fox UK.
Sex and the City 2 - this was distributed by Warner Bros UK. It also recieved worldwide New Line Cinema distribution.
None of these films can be considered wholly British, as most of them had American production companies backing them and recieved worldwide distribution, with most distribution companies such as Warner Bros and Paramount also distributing in the USA, Ireland, European and other countries.
5 - Which of these two films recently released in the UK do you think is a BBC co-production and why?
My Week with Marylin, given that it seems to be a majorly British film with an all-British cast - it is also set in England.
6 - Why do you think the Coalition government decided to close down the UKFC?
It would appear that the UK Film Council used it's money unwisely - sometimes investing in arthouse pictures which do not often make profit, while at other times investing in bigger budget films that could have found money elsewhere. Furthermore, in the year leading up to it's closing down, it put £160 million of Lotery monney into more than 900 productions, not all of which were successful. It had recieved criticism for narrowing the rate of return for the industry.
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