Part 5: Production

PART 5 – PRODUCTION:

Q1. Angelina Jolie established her fame in the successful Lara Croft: Tomb Raider series and a number of quality films, and coupled with a highly publicised and controversial personal life makes her an obvious choice for any large-scale film venture. Because of Jolie’s status, attention is guaranteed for any project she is involved with, thus making it easier for a producer to secure financial backing etc. Her loyal fans will provide at least some audience, therefore there will be a chance to pay back production costs and earn profit. Her star value alone is sometime enough to propel a film into commercial and critical interest, even if it’s other qualities are lacking.

Q2. Films like Les Miserables are made because there is a definite loyal fan base who will pay to go and see it, stemming from its success and popularity as a musical. Therefore producers can afford to lavishly spend on this project because it is guaranteed to be successful, at least financially. ‘Indie’ projects like Another Earth start off life at international film festivals, gaining critical praise there, and through word of mouth spread by film fanatics people become intrigued to see something that is considered ‘quirky’ or not just another Hollywood blockbuster saturating the market. There will always be people who enjoy watching films for their artistic value as opposed to bland mass entertainment.

Q3.

The Blair Witch Project:  Budget - $60,000  Box Office - $248,639,099 PROFIT: $248,579,099

Paranormal Activity: Budget - $15,000  Box Office - $196,681,656  PROFIT: $196,666,650

Avatar: Budget - $237,000,000 Box Office - $2,782,275,172  PROFIT: $2,545,225,172

Q4.          

Never Let Me Go – Budget: £15,000,000 Producer: Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Alex Garland et al.

The King’s Speech – Budget: £15,000,000 Producer: Paul Brett, Iain Canning, Charles Dorfman, Simon Egan, Mark Foligno, Gareth Unwin et al.

Skyfall – Budget: £200,000,000 Producer: Barbara Broccoli, Andrew Noakes, David Pope, Michael G Wilson

Film production has not really changed since the 90s, since many film projects still require the fusion of many producers and production companies, and varied methods of securing attention and audiences for their film, such as expensive marketing campaigns or encouraging word of mouth.

Q5. The Twilight Saga soundtracks were popular with the films’ teenage audiences because they featured already known and ‘cool’ bands writing songs especially for the film, and so in order to buy these ‘special’ and Twilight-personalised songs the consumer would purchase the whole album. Subsequently each new soundtrack became a marketing event in itself to accompany the film, instead of just a random selection of songs.

Q6. Lionsgate survived because it was able to have a large amount of variety and choice in an industry that is never static. It was able to initially rely on financially sound investments such as Horror franchises, which are notoriously critic proof and successful at the Box Office, and then being able to spread its repertoire to include indie/art house offerings that could appeal to entirely different audiences, gaining critical appreciation along the way. They could further extend their back catalogue with a new and diverse portfolio of TV shows and former productions after their acquisition of production companies such as Artisan, reaping the profits from merchandising etc without having had to produce the project in the first place. Their flexibility and constant independent entrepreneurial spirit now make them a high-powered global corporation with financial means and major studio affiliates to fall back on. 

Part 4: The British Film Industry Since 1984

Unit G322 Section B: Audiences & Institutions

PART 4: A HISTORY OF BRITISH FILM SINCE 1984

Q1. Firstly, the kind of popular British film that is internationally known and receives the largest audience are the romantic comedies set in a rose-tinted London, focusing lightly on the lives of the Southern, upper-middle class. Notable examples include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones and Love Actually. They sometimes use the cunning strategy of pairing a British actor romantically with a well-known American actress, and have a similar plot premise to another type of popular British film – the costume drama or ‘heritage’ film. Early examples include Merchant & Ivory productions, and copious amounts of Jane Austen adaptions. On the other hand, ‘gritty’ social realist dramas represent and explore the lives of the “the working British underclass”, giving ‘real’ backdrop and regional identity an importance and not just using it as a bland backdrop between London-based scenes. Examples include Trainspotting, This Is England and Brassed Off.

Q2. Dredd 3D is a science fiction crime thriller whilst Never Let Me Go is a drama. Dredd differs from earlier productions because it is an adaption of a comic, as well as partially being a re-imagining of an earlier American film, Judge Dredd. Furthermore, unlike other DNA films it is not set in the UK but America.

Q3. Momentum pictures have recently distributed films containing high-profile and therefore automatically bankable actors, with Maggie Smith et al in Quartet, and Colin Farrell et al in Seven Psychopaths. Their British cinema releases cover a variety of demographics and entertainment angles, be it young male, the elderly or upper middle class ‘liberals’.  By aiming for all sections of the market, there is more chance that at least one of their high profile ventures will be profitable. On the other hand, a lot of their current DVD releases are horror films, some with famous actors and others not. Horror films are the genre that is famously critic proof, and horror films will always manage to find an audience that does not care about the quality of the film-making.

Part 3: The British Film Industry

Unit G322 Section B – Audiences & Institutions

PART 3: THE BRITISH FILM INDUSTRY

Q1. 3D films in general cost more than normal films to produce and screen at cinemas, and so it is fairly unreasonable to expect the average cinemagoer to constantly pay more to see a film only on the basis that it is 3D. Furthermore, films that didn’t require 3D, such as the King’s Speech - which grossed £45.7 million – and The Inbetweeners Movie, and were the recipients of most of the UK box office revenue in 2011, dominated the UK box office.

Q2. 82% of the 62% of British films made for under £500,000 were probably shown at independent film festivals or given a DVD or viral release if they weren’t theatrically released.

Q3. The majority of people probably attend the cinema mid-week because Monday-Thursday cinema prices are usually significantly cheaper than weekend ones. Pensioners, students or those with part time jobs, on average, have less of a tight-scheduled working week and consequently more free time. Coupled with perhaps having a less stable income, this means that the cheaper mid week cinema prices are a more appealing alternative to opening weekend cinema excursions.

Q4. The commercial rival to traditional DVD sales are now the online rental and delivery sites such as LOVEFiLM Netflix and Amazon. They are more effective if someone is pressed for time as they enable you to simply order a DVD online directly to your door or just stream it straight to your computer. These companies accounted for 46% of all feature film rental transactions in 2011.  However, many people now can watch films online for free, usually from illegal sources, and so there seems to be less need to pay money for an actual DVD.

Q5.  The most marked difference in the UK film market between 2002 and 2011 is the rising number of films that are produced annually (including independent cinema), and while admissions figures have remained level, the profits of the box office have increased, exceeding £1 billion in 2011, perhaps owing to rising tickets prices or savvier production and distribution costs.  The digital change throughout the decade means that the UK now has 1,475 digital screens capable of 3D, compared to only 2 in 2002.  The progression and expansion of the Internet has lead to an expansion in the way films are viewed, as formerly in 2002 the only on demand services were pay-per-view services on satellite and cable. As a whole the population are now more digitally aware and open to new mediums.

Q6. Instead of having a massive studio structure, UK films since 1997 have been produced with lottery funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), helping to run three mini-studios – Pathé Productions, DNA Films and The Film Consortium. The latter wasn’t entirely that successful, the others faired well, received extra financial aid from separate companies such the Regional Screen Agencies, BBC Films, Film4 and investment and partnerships in Europe.

Q7. It benefits film producers to have their films branded as British because they can then apply for tax relief or Lottery funding from the BFI. A lot of British productions that may be created and filmed in Britain by British filmmakers are sometimes financed by American companies, which then take over distribution in America and receive a chunk of profits. It benefits Hollywood and other foreign investors to have British films in their repertoires because the quality of stereotypical ‘Britishness’ in a lot these films is an individual selling point in itself.

Q8. Only 4 of the top 20 UK films of 2011 originated exclusively from the UK, but even Jane Eyre had an American director. The majority of major distributors were American, suggesting that a significant amount of profit actually leaves the UK. The British film industry operates on an international scale with large, ambitious productions and partnerships, making it harder to successfully distribute a wholly UK-made film.

Q9. Both My Week With Marilyn and The Boy in The Striped Pajamas were co-produced by BBC Films, maintaining the trend for adapting already-well know books by British authors (e.g. Brighton Rock, An Education), as well as having a foreign settings or character which give the films further marketing appeal.

Q10. The collation government decided to axe the UKFC because they felt it had not wisely spent £160million of Lottery money on 900 different film projects, with funding of small-scale arthouse cinema (via their New Cinema Fund) not proving to be profitable, and funding of supported mainstream work (via their Premium Fund) as unnecessary. Criticism was aimed at the content of a lot of their material, as well as obvious box-office failings and inability to compete in an international-market.

Q11. The UK film council needs bodies like the UKFC/BFI to provide financial support and hold together it’s mélange of actors, writers and filmmakers. This is due to the fact that the UK film industry does not operate from a single giant studio syndicate, but instead a mish-mash of companies and investors relying on each other to create a finished product. Without the all-encompassing safety net of the UKFC, it is especially hard for new filmmakers to propel themselves out into the open and generate publicity and profit for their work.