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

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.

Working Title.

• Co-chairpersons of Working Title (WT), Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, founded the company in 1984 with Sarah Radclyffe.
• 'They have been listed as the most powerful figures in the British industry' - BBC News.
• Only 42 full time staff
• Split between the main Working Title production and the low budget Working Title 2.
• 'The Working Title philosophy has been to make films for an audience and played in a multiplex... only hope we have of sustaining the UK film industry.' - Lucy Guard and Natasha Wharton.
• Mass audiences - for everyone, not a niche/selective audience.
• More than 85 films that have grossed over 54 million worldwide.
• Won lots of awards: 6 Academy Awards, 26 BAFTA awards and 4 Oscars.
• They have an impressive catalogue of films from a wide range of genres.
• Working Title flops: Thunderbirds and Wimbledon.
• 'Blockbuster comedies of Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson... punchy period films... political dramas... literary adaptations... family... cultish low-budgeters... Coen brothers' - Variety magazines.
• '...fresh talent, such as directors Joe Wrightm Stephen Daldry, Shekhar Kapur.'
• In addition to which it has launched Working Title 2, a subsidiary for low budget films with an 'independent' appeal.
• Working Title was taken by Universal in 1999, Tim Bevan said 'We were now part of a big structure, so we spent much less time on finding the money and much more on developing decent scripts.'
• All the films are currently distributed by Universal Pictures who own a 67% stake in the company and many of its recent films are co-productions with Studio Canal.
• The remaining shares are owned by the company's founders, BBC film and private investors.
• Universal's involvement will vary widely from project to project.
• Pride and Prejudice - $20 million budget.
• Interpreter - $80 million budget (director - Sidney Pollock, starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn.)
• Universal only get involved in films with big names, such as the film Interpreter.
• Clever and tactical about film projects.
• Films from 2004 - Bridget Jones 2 and Shaun of the Dead.
• Working Title have to make one big blockbuster movie a year for Universal.
• Working Title 2 - Shaun of the Dead, Billy Elliot, Ali G In Da House.
• Films exploit English cultural 'heritage' as well as pop culture with a more modern touch.
• There is a long history between American actors playing leading roles in Working Title films as English people.
• Trailers are made to match the target audience.
• Timing - Christmas films are released at Christmas time, to fit in with the audience's mood.
• Notting Hill was released before Star Wars so that it wouldn't be up against a big blockbuster but it also gave people who weren't interested in Sci-Fi (mainly women) to see something they would like to watch.
• Glossary's are used to translate words for different countries, for example, 'barristar' changes to 'attorney'.
• London comes across as an elegant, clean, sanitized city in Working Title films, eg Notting Hill.