Case Studies.

Lovely Bones - Film4
Director: Peter Jackson
Released: 19th February 2010
Production companies: Dreamworks, Wingnut Films, Film4 and Channel 4
Distribution company: Paramount
Budget: $65,000,000
Only shown on 3 cinemas in the US.
Gross: $44 million
DVD release: 11th June 2010
Above the line marketing: tease trailers in August, invested $70 million in production and $85 million for marketing and distribution.
Below the line marketing: competitions, image gallery, order DVD, director was interviewed, August 2009 a behind the scenes look was released, and fans could win a trip to Wellington for the premiere.
Wasn't much competition, lots of people went to see the film.
Target audience: 12 (the film was mainly made for adults but they lower the target audience to teenagers)

Love Actually - Working Title
Released: 21st November 2003
Cast: Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson..
Director: Richard Curtis
Genre: 'romcom'
Production companies: Universal and Working Title
Distribution company: Universal Pictures
Budget: $45 million
Grossed: $247,472,278
Premiere: 16th November 2003 in London (also premiered in Germany and USA) Most people London and USA premieres.
Above the line marketing: all-star cast soundtrack released.
Below the line marketing: cast gave interviews, music videos of the soundtrack were released, films was released in different languages.
Grossed 5 times it's budget and is now considered to be a well-known Christmas film.
Target audience: 15-40, mainly couples or women.

Wild Child - Working Title
Released: 15th August 2008
Cast: Emma Roberts and Alex Pettyfer
Director: Nick Moore (new director)
Production companies: Working Title, Relativity Media and Studio Canal
Distribution company: Universal Pictures
Above the line marketing: posters - appeal to young girls (target audience) 11-16, relied heavily on girly pop groups for the soundtrack.
359 screens - 3 months prior to advertising.
Below the line marketing: Pink premiere in Glasgow where there was free beauty make overs, a nail bar, make up booth and a tattoo bar. Also held competitions to win a goody bag.
Budget: $20 million
5th place at the box office, $2,196,366
Grossed $19,786,125 worldwide, figures taken on 4th January 2008.
America released the film straight onto DVD.

Slumdog Millionaire - Film4
Released: 9th January 2009
Cast: Dev Patel, Saurabh Shukla, Anil Kapoor, Rejendranath Zutshi, Jenevo Talwar and Freida Pinto.
Director: Danny Boyle
Production companies: Film4 and Celador
Distribution companies: Foxlight Search Pictures, Warner Brothers, Pathe Pictures and Icon Entertainment International.
Above the line marketing: posters (gloomy) regularly seen in London, 'feel good film of the decade', dubbed in Hindi, Pathe approach Tug, Pussycats Doll's - Jai Ho.
Below the line marketing: title banners on Google, premiere took place in India, website offered free downloads, premiered in London, interviews with main characters was posted onto the website.
Budget: $15 million
Broke UK box office records.
Won 7 Baftas and 8 Oscars.

Green Zone - Working Title
Cast: Matt Damon, Brendan Gleeson
Released: 12th March 2010
Budget: $100,000,000
Gross: $35,024,475 (Britain - £5,429,903)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Production company: Working Title
Distribution company: Universal
Above the line marketing: posters focused on Matt Damon (to draw Matt Damon fans to see the movie), trailers focused on the actors and the action shots.
Below the line marketing: interviews and behind the scenes.
Competition: the film was released at the same time as Kick Ass, Alice in Wonderland ect, all of who did better than Green Zone.

This is England - Film4
Cast: Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley, Andrew Shim..
Released: 2006
Director: Shane Meadows
Budget: £1.5 million
Gross: £1,539,372
Distribution and production companies: Film4, Warp Films and Optimum Releasing
Premiere: Denmark on 17th August 2007
Relied on good reviews to promote it (word of mouth)
Above the line marketing: trailer
Below the line marketing: release of soundtrack

The Lovely Bones - Film4 (cont)
Genre: drama/thriller
Runtime: 136 minutes
Budget: $65 million
Gross: $93,535,346
Shown in 2,638 theatres for 98 days.
It was also nominated for a lot of awards.
Below the line marketing: interviews

Working Title Research.

Working Title release two trailers for every film; an English version and an international version. The international versions are nearly the same as the English trailers, but some words may be changed, and, for example, if the film was a comedy, different humour would be shown. Working Title also put their film teasers onto their website.

 

Working Title's website has information about every film they have ever created, including their new releases. They have the films promotional poster, the plot,. cast, trailers, film information, any awards the film won, on-set photography, and releated links.

 

The website has links to the live cast, showing the actors thoughts whilst the film is in production. The main type of videos are interviews with the actors and directors, asking them how they think the film went, ect.

 

Working Title doesn't have any types of competitions for their films on the website, but if you click on the click on the link to the film's website, there are competitions. If the film is a new release the prize is something like free tickets to see it with a meal afterward, or a chance to meet the actors ect.

 

Some of Working Title's new releases include Green Zone and The boat That Rock, both of which did very well. The website also advertises the upcoming films, such as Johnny English 2, and gives as much information about the film as possible, sometimes including live casts.

 

Working Title recently had an exhibition at London MCM Expo, where Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (actors from Working Title's Hot Fuzz) went down for a Q&A session. There was a Hot Fuzz stand in the centre of the main hall, and the actors came along to promote the film.

Film Timeline (2006-2010)

• United 93 - 2006
• Sixty Six - 2006
• Smokin' Aces - 2007
• Hot Fuzz - 2007
• Gone - 2007
• Catch A Fire - 2007
• Mr Bean's Holiday - 2007
• Elizabeth: The Golden Age - 2007
• Atonement - 2007
• Definitely Maybe - 2008
• Wild Child - 2008
• The Boat That Rocked - 2009
• State of Play - 2009
• Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang - 2010

The Street - Disability.

Find more videos like this on Beauchamp College Media


How is disability represented in The Street?

The first thing the audience see is the metal fence and barbed wire, with blurred out people moving about behind it. The shot then changes to a man looking out a window in a door, which also has metal 'bars' which the audience has to look through. The audience then see a shot of a different man, who happens to be the main character, with what society would class as a 'disability'. The man is seen walking up to a van through the metal bars, which gives the shot a 'caged' feel to it, due to the fact that everything in the scene seems to be contained/surrounded by metal fences/bars. Later on in the scene, when the main character, Nick, gets angry, he is shot through the metal fence again, possibly symbolising that he needs to be locked up because of his disability, therefore representing disability as a bad thing and potentially dangerous to others, and consequently disabled people need to be separated from 'normal' people to either receive the care they need or to protect other people.

The use of over the shoulder shots when Nick is asking for his old job back allows the audience to see how his old colleagues react to Nick, now he looks so different to what they were used to seeing. It gives the audience a chance to analyse the other characters body language, and how they act around Nick now he has his 'disability'. It shows his former colleagues trying to avoid looking at Nicks face, which is heavily scarred, and looking rather awkward throughtout the whole conversation. This represents disability as something people try and avoid, they don't like looking at disability or be caught looking at it, for fear of causing offence.

This scene also represents disability as an atmosphere, or a burden. The body language used by the characters show that they feel uncomfortable around Nick, creating an atmosphere between, what used to be, good friends and colleagues. They don't feel as if they can act the same around Nick, and are unsure of what to say to him. They are also reluctant to give Nick his old job back because he would be considered a burden when there would be 'checks and polls' in the workplace, and Nick's 'disability' would cause the company some problems, therefore making him a burden if he was hired again.

In the next section of the clip Nick goes to help a woman, who he seems to be friends with, but frightens her when he bends down to help her pick up her shopping, and she screams. Whether this is due to Nicks face is neither confirmed or rejected, but the audience assume that that is the reason why she screamed. Nick seems to think that she screamed because his face is now frightening to other people, a fact which she denies vehemently. This could represent disability as something to be afraid of, as it is something not everyone can relate to, and the lack of information can make people scared of it. People with a disability are usually thought to look 'different' and therefore this could present 'different' looking people, who have a disability, as something to be scared of.

A sound bridge is used to connect the next scene with the one before. Nick is shown to be quite angry after scaring his friend and the music is used to reflect the characters thoughts/mood. It is a non-diegetic, asynchronous sound, mainly made up of face-paced drums, whose pace quickens as the audience is taken through the scene. The scene takes on a angry element, as music which involves the sound of drums heavily, like the music that is used, is mainly associated with anger. The audience are given a reason to why Nick may be getting angrier, because as he walks through the town strangers stare at him in the street. The camera shots are edited between Nicks face and the faces of strangers, supposedly staring at Nick, and everytime the camera comes back to Nicks face the shot gets closer and closer, maybe symbolising how all the stares are building up inside him and fueling his anger. The fact that strangers are shown to stare at Nick could represent disability as something unique/odd, and therefore warrants people the desire to look at it, possibly to study the disability in more detail as it is so different to them.

Another sound bridge is used at the end of the scene to inform the audience that Nick is still angry, and Nick confirms this to another character who works for the Army. The scene is quite dark, there isn't much light and the light that is visible are bars of light across Nick's face, again, maybe symbolising that people with disabilities need to be separated from others, or be barred from the 'normal' people. The lack of light also gives off a sinister element, making Nick's anger seem quite dangerous, on the other hand, it could show the idea that people with disabilities feel that they need to protect themselves from people staring, in effect they want to hide away. Editing is used in this scene to show the two sides to Nick's character, the camera switches between the scarred side of Nick's face and the 'normal' side. They could be considered to be binary opposites, as when the camera focuses on the scarred side of Nick's face, Nick releases all the anger he feels about his disability and the prejudice he's faced because of it, but when the camera focuses on the other side of his face, his anger seems to diminish slightly and he seems to show what he has accepted, that he will be 'ugly and scary'. 

In conclusion, I think that The Street represents the stereotypical view of disability, that it is something unique and different, and therefore people find it either interesting or uncomfortable, maybe even scary. I also believe that The Street gives a truthful representation of what prejudices people with visible disabilities may face in day-to-day life, and how it may make them feel about people, or even society on a whole because of this. The main focus of the clip is how people with disability are treated differently, as people don't want to offend them, or seem to think that they need to be treated differently because of their disability.

Film4 Distribution.

• 2002 - big changes to Film4, Tessa Ross was appointed as the head of Film4, and as they realised they were going bankrupt they made 3rd party partnerships, and therefore they don't distribute their own films anymore. (Studio Canal, Love Films ect).
• They have an increased budget, from £8-10 million to £15 million to spend.
• Make between 6-8 films per year.
• They have a low budget studio with Film Council and Optimum:Warp X.
• Working across TV and film drama also allows for economies of scale and cross-fertilisation.
• Film4's money comes from advertisers, they have more adverts on their website than other film companies, such as Working Title.
• They have many partnerships with distribution companies.
• Worked with Working Title, BBC and BBC Films to distribute films.
• Warp X - a Film4/UK Film Council joint project with the Sheffield-based indie Warp- that can finance three low budget films a year.

Avatar Case Study.

Director - James Cameron
Budget - $237million
$2.6 billion - worldwide box office average.
Won Oscars and Golden Globes.
Shown in 3D.
Shot on a 'virtual camera' - allowed James Cameron to move through a 3D terrain (produced in 2003).
3D = stereoscopic films.
3D films earn more money than 2D films.
Largely protected from piracy because it is harder to copy 3D films than it is to replicate 2D.
New 3D, 'illusion of depth' - 2 cameras shoot images side-by-side to give a 3D effect.
Most successful 3D films are also animated.
70% of Avatar is CGI including the main female character.
The cast wore motion capture suits for most of the filming.
Cast acted out their scenes on a 'performance capture' stage, six time bigger than anything used before.
A skull cap was also used to capture the actors facial expressions.
Allows film-makers to add the special effects later, but also letting them position the camera wherever they want.
Setup was the creation of a virtual monitor that allowed the director to see the motion capture results in real time.
Innovative filming rig consisting of a number of stereoscopic cameras that each use a pair of lenses built in to mimic the human eye.
Friday 21st August 2009 - official designated 'Avatar Day'. A 15 minutes trailer was released worldwide throughout cinemas.
London, 21st April 2010 - 20th Century Fox launched the industry's first rich interactive trailer for the DVD eg. zoom in and out any frame, pause and select hot spots which led to extended clips of scenes. Meant people wouldn't be bothered about watching the film at home, rather than at the cinema, because they had all the extra features.
Thinkjam: built interactive units and Eyeblaster.
The adverts debuted simultaneously across the web in 15 markets around the world - makes everyone feel equal because they saw it all at the same time, reduces piracy.
Needs a digitally equipped cinema (possibly silver-coated screen to make it brighter) and a pair of special polarised glasses for everyone to see the film.
Tickets cost more than normal 2D films, as there is an extra cost to the exhibitor.
Cinemas can't show these types of films if they don't have a digital projector.
320 out of 3,600 cinemas are digitally equipped in Britain.
It costs £80,000 to get cinemas into the position to show 3D films.

Additional Notes.
Film4  - 'tiny commissioning department... remit is to make adventurous contemporary films outside the studio system' - Tessa Ross. In the UK, the UK Film Council, Film4 and BBC Films remain the three main film financiers. Slumdog Millionaire was unusual because of its success.

Working Title Notes
Crowd-pleasing, generally produce romcoms. The real secret is their mastery of international distribution.

Distribution Notes
US distribution companies pay more than £5million on making British film prints.
Smaller British distributors try to 'get a film away' with £25,000.
Last year, 73 different film distributors released films in the UK.
Distribution companies have to work differently to Hollywood distributors to stand out.
Distribution companies will plan ahead before they even get the film eg. the DVD.
In the past decade, the public film sector has grown substantially.
The new technologies is having a huge impact on smaller companies and films. Allows more prints to be made.
The UK Film Council were helping British film makers to reduce Hollywood's influence by funding non-mainstream films and they also provided digital facilities to smaller companies.
Studio Canal is the most significant new force in the UK film making.
Optimum Releasing is also a French distribution company (like Studio Canal) that had distributed Film4 and Working Title films.
Where Hollywood leaves in film distribution, companies like Studio Canal have taken their place.

Distribution Cont.

Release of films
Marketability: audience? devising a strategy.
How much money in marketing? What can the movie take?
Speaking to media partners; radio, newspapers, TV, cinemas?
Premiere.
Online websites, media, newspapers.
Choose the right target audience.

Positioning and audience
Genre of film? Speaks to which age group?
Target film using director and actors to certain people.

Target audience
Smaller films focus more on their target audience.
Gather ideas from past films, but there is also an element of gambling.
45+ age group - make decisions from TV, needs to be reinforced to make them go.
Teenagers - may just turn up at the cinema and watch whatever is on at the time, less fussy about what they see.

Marketing plan
Advertising - more expensive adverts in magazines ect.  publicity of the film, stories about the film aka media coverage.
Outdoor advertising - adverts on buses, billboards.
Word of mouth - free advertising, make or break a film.
Internet - emails and virals.
Screening programmes.

Competition
Films need to stand above other films released at the same time.
Why do the audience want to see your film?
Oct/Nov: good time for cinema going, bad weather, people more inclined to see a movie, good release time.
Weather plays a part in advertising.
Big outdoor posters in the summer mean more people will be more likely to see it as they spend more time outside.

Word of mouth
Critical to any movie, but mainly to smaller productions.
Can make a film either fantastically strong or very bad.
Companies work with media partners to show advance screenings.
People listen to what their friends think more than film reviews, if they say the film is good more people are likely to go and see it.
The life expectancy of a film is shorter if there is bad word of mouth.

Budget
Covers films prints and technical elements.
Advertising costs: making trailers, posters ect.
What is the target market audience? Where will they see adverts?
Radio advertising is cheap.

Viral marketing
Videos, quizzes ect, people send on the emails if the film looks good. (simple process)
Most effective means of advertising, more than press reviews ect.
Most spoof trailers are produced by the marketing company to generate more interest in the film.

Digital marketing
Piracy has escalated over the past few years, this will decrease the amount of piracy happening in the film industry.
20% of all DVD sales in the UK are pirate copies.
Piracy is damaging the film industry.

Editing.

How is editing used in the film Memento?

The film starts off using a close up of a hand holding a picture of a man dead on the floor with half his head missing, and blood all over the walls. After a short period of time, the character holding the photo then shakes it, as one would do when helping a picture to develop. When the photo is re shown to the audience the picture has faded. The action is repeated another 3 times and each time the picture fades a little more, this gives the impression of time rewinding itself, which is supported when the objects such as bullet case and glasses fly backwards, and the whole scene takes place in reverse.

There is then a smooth cut from the dead man's face, before he is shot, to a close up on the main characters face. However the scene has changed, the picture is now in black and white, and the main character is the only person in the room. The editing tells the audience that this scene is something separate from the main storyline that they just witnessed, which is confirmed when the main character, Leonard, starts to explain the condition he has. It allows the audience to receive more information in a simpler way, rather than leaving them confused for the rest of the film as to what is happening.

The scene then ends and is cut to a picture of the man who the audience had just seen Leonard shoot, Teddy. In the scene the editing is also used to cut between the two characters faces during their conversation, showing the audience how Leonard reacts to Teddy, and the expressions on the characters faces when they converse, giving an insight to what they are thinking. Editing can also give the audience more information in a different way, for example when Leonard leans into an abandoned car to see what's inside, and the shot changes to a close up of 4 bullets on the front seat of the car. At the same time it symbolises how important these bullets are, because they show that something isn't right with the situation, as the place is apparently 'abandoned'.

At the end of each scene, the edit used allows the film to cut between time frames, each 'coloured' scene goes back in time, showing the action that led to the consequence, therefore meaning each scene ends with what was the beginning of the scene before the one playing. Each shot also starts and ends with the same action, so the editing makes the transition of information smooth, the audience don't notice the edit, these can also be referred to as 'invisible cuts'.

Edits that lead to close ups of certain aspects in the film are used quite regularly, mainly to focus the audiences attention on important parts of the film. For example, everytime Leonard is given a new piece of information which he has had before but doesn't remember, the shot is edited to a close up shot in order to allow the audience to see this new information, and put together the clues along with him.

In conclusion, the editing used in Memento helps to give the film an original storyline, and a unique way of telling a story to the audience. It draws the audiences attention to the storyline, but it also doesn't leave them too confused, due to the use of 'invisible cuts' throughout the film which are used to make the audience feel like they are actually there in the film, it makes the film more realistic. The editing also allows the main character to suffer from his memory loss in a way, because using the idea of time going backwards shows the audience why he suffers from the memory loss, and why he is seen doing certain actions, like shooting Teddy in the head at the beginning of the film. On the whole though the editing is very disjointed, skipping between time frames, symbolising how confusing Leonard's life must be for him and how jumbled his day-to-day life must be.