What are the main issues around 'British' Cinema? From Social Realism to Cultural Imperialism via reindeer jumpers...

In looking at 'British' Cinema several issues come to mind:

• the overwhelming dominance of Hollywood and the 'big 6' conglomerates in particular. How many British (or filmmakers from any other nation) companies can compete with the 2008 $185m budget spectacle movie Dark Knight, an example of the 'tentpole strategy' of a small number of mega-budget releases underpinning the big 6's release strategies (which hoovered up $533m in the US alone, getting a brief 2009 re-release to take it over $1bn worldwide? (WT are increasingly coming close to the $100m mark, but this is only possible as a subsidiary of NBC-Universal - e.g., the 2004 smash BJones: The Edge of Reason cost $70m)
  
• the ongoing dominance of the social realist genre - at least partially a reflection of British filmmakers inability to attract funding for UK-set action/fantasy/sci-fi films (Harry Potter and Bond franchises excepted), but also the popularity of such films in Europe, where our few auteurs (Ken Loach, Mike Leigh especially) generally look to for funding. The British social realist tradition, growing out of the 1920s-40s British Documentary Movement, was a key influence on the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism movements of the 50s and 60s - both themselves a reflection of pragmatism in the face of limited availability for funding.
• there are occasional exceptions to the rule that US audiences have no interest in social realist films (WT2's Billy Elliot; The Full Monty; Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies; arguably Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaires), social realist films' whose underdog protagonists triumphing against the odds neatly reflects the 'American Dream' ideology that any and all US citizens can be winners in their extremely uneven society. Interestingly, Shane Meadows' £1.5m 2006 Warp Films drama This Is England was seen as an arthouse movie in the US, where it took just $300,000 in 4 months, averaging a mere ten screens a week! There was a niche ABC1 audience for the film, but it had no prospects of wider commercial success
• if we look at the fortunes of Hammer, there is a degree of irony here: Hammer briefly lead the world in the horror genre, establishing the likes of Christopher Lee as global icons in the process - but found their slightly camp, theatrical and gothic productions were left looking out-moded alongside low budget Indie productions from the US, such as Wes Craven's $90,000 (that's not a typo!) 1972 proto-slasher The Last House on the Left (ironically, banned in the UK until after the 1999 retirement of long-time BBFC head James Ferman). Craven, and his many subsequent imitators, took a leaf out of the social realist handbook, making films on a shoestring with that distinctive documentary feel (shaky camera work, kinetic cinematography [lots of cam movement instead of static set-ups], low-key, naturalistic lighting etc) that gave a heightened sense of realism.
• WT began as a low-budget Indie producer of social realist films: 1985's My Beautiful Laundrette (with its challenging themes of class, race and homosexuality added to its counter-hegemonic critique of Thatcherism wedded to the company's belief in introducing new talent: Daniel Day-Lewis), a TV movie that won a cinema distribution deal after doing well at The Edinburgh International Film Festival, and 1987's Wish You Were Here which made a star out of Emily Lloyd and her 'up yer bum' catchphrase!
• Warp Films is comparable to WT in its early days, an Indie producing generally social realist films on low budgets (like the early WT, it has links with C4/Film4). Warp X is more comparable to WT2, though, aiming to produce genre films "with a twist" (WT2's motto: "Humour, Horror, Heart")
• its clear that following the (hybrid) genre path is the way to make serious money: if the US market is usually disinterested in British social realist dramas, often with an overt focus on social class (most Americans, rich and poor, have the self-perception of being middle-class), wouldn't any sensible business follow the WT path of churning out sickly rom-coms with their A-list American star to help tap into the lucrative US market? Look at the figures (using Guardian or IMDB): the $150m budget (Paramount, big 6!) Star Trek film took $75m from just under 4000 screens in its opening weekend stateside; almost £6m from 499 screens on its UK opening weekend. The US has 5 times the UK population and is wealthier to boot; UK filmmakers who don't attempt to build in cross-over appeal to the US market are limiting their potential profit.
• ...however, is the bottom line all that matters in the film industry? Isn't it one of the much-mooted cultural industries [aka the knowledge economy; cf. Will Hutton] that underpin the UK's post-industrial economic future? Consider the mission statement of the UK Film Council, the quango funded by direct government money as well as Lottery funds, which in turn finances regional arms (eg Screen Yorkshire & EM Media, co-financiers of TisEng): "The UK Film Council is the Government backed lead agency for film in the UK ensuring that the economic, cultural and educational aspects of film are effectively represented at home and abroad." [emphasis added]
• so, lets ask another question: which is the more important film: Indie Warp Film's (co-produced with UKFilmCncl, EM Media, ScrnYorks, Film4, Big Arty Productions and distributor Optimum Releasing) This is England (£1.5m budget, no stars, modest UK box office of £1.3m) or big 6 conglomerate subsidiary WT's $70m rom-com sequel (co-produced with Miramax, Universal, Little Bird, Studio Canal and Atlantic Televsion) Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (took £35m in UK, and a disappointing $40m in US - BJD took $72m)?
• we could also ask whether either of the BJones films are actually 'British' films, considering the importance of funding from the European Studio-Canal - itself, like WT, now a mere subsidiary of NBC-Universal - and American big 6 member Universal
• which do you think speaks to you most about YOUR identity (there's no correct answer here - I'm asking you to reflect a little on your personal consumption of films)?
• you could argue that TiE's focus on class and race is itself a little cliched by now, although the key argument here would appear to be over the extremely narrow, stereotypical depiction of Britishness seen in both BJones films: white, middle-class, southern English characters, and various shots of Britain as quaint, rural - and even akin to a Quality Street ad when it comes to representing the teeming metropolis that is London. The BJones films rely heavily on their use of an American star, and the use of stereotypical representations of Britain that will be familiar and thus comfortable for an American audience - who would surely feel bewildered and alienated by the council estate mise-en-scene we see throughout TiE, and the broad northern accents its characters employ.
• Indeed, BJD only became a hit in the US after Miramax supremo Harvey Weinstein noted the US test audience, confused at early mentions of Xmas turkey curry, broke into laughter at the visual humour of Colin Firth's reindeer jumper - a scene notably used in both trailers and music videos for the film's marketing. Without this, it may not have got funding for US distribution and marketing. [I'll blog separately about 'Curtisland'...]
• 'Channel 4 is one of several bidders – also believed to include Channel Five owner RTL, Time Warner, BSkyB and NBC Universal – for Virgin Media's seven pay-TV channels, which include Living TV and Virgin1.' - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/29/virgin-media-channel-4 The big 6's grip on our culture could soon be tightened further it seems
  
• You will hopefully have noted an incongruity in discussing 'British' cinema and representation of Britishness here: we're looking at two films set in England...
• If Hollywood's dominance of our screens, large and small, can be said to constitute cultural imperialism, with even our foremost film production company (WT) prioritising satisfying a potential US audience over its domestic market, and churning out work even within its low-budget, Indie wing (WT2) that focusses on familiar genres (as does Warp X to a lesser degree), what about the internal UK position? As northern English viewers, do you think the British film industry represents yourselves satisfactorily; do you, at the basic level, see sufficient reflections of yourselves on screen? Does the dominance of S.Eng representations bother you?
• The position is even more stark if we look at this from a Celtic perspective: there have been some breakthrough Scottish-set hits (Trainspotting), but not for some time; can you name ANY Welsh-set films (consider how Rhys Ifans' character portrays the Welsh, as a binary opposite of the suave HGrant, in NHill); and for the N.Irish, we only seem to see ourselves represented endlessly as violent, drunken terrorists/psychopaths (even the controversial Hidden Agenda [rem Chomsky's propoganda model: flak as 1 of 5 filters], with the main cast being entirely American, Scottish and English, saw an English policeman emerge as the hero, with Ken Loach deploying some crude stereotypes along the way)
• So... if it makes commercial sense to target a US audience through a S.Eng setting, and a narrow focus on white, middle-class characters (using a US star if funds allow - around half of the $42m budget for Notting Hill went on A-lister Julia Roberts' salary! - contrast this to Donkey Punch's £1m budget being mainly taken up by hiring the boat its set on!), with a narrative framed in a genre familiar to a US aud, and we can consider this cultural imperialism ... then does the same apply within the UK?
• Look at the contrasting fortunes of Son of Rambow (Garth Jennings, 2007), a £4m Indie production that made its money back at the UK box office on 300 screens a week, adding another $1.8m in the US (you can add DVD and TV sales to these figures), and WT2's $5m Mickybo & Me (Terry Loane, 2004), which was released for just one week in N.Ireland on 28 screens, taking just £172,000 and failing to gain funding for a UK-wide or even US distribution. Both have comparable narratives centred on two young boys with obsessions about a specific film, but while the former is set in S.Eng, the latter is set in N.I. and inevitably brings in 'the Troubles', with our two leads eventually engaging in a near-fatal knife fight (because the tribal Irish can't do anything else but fight, as Ken Loach pointed out with Hidden Agenda!)
• So, British cinema is in thrall to two commercial factors: cross-marketing potential to a US audience will greatly increase potential profits, which generally means a S.Eng setting/characters; but even within the UK setting the action anywhere outside the South risks poor returns also, as even the domestic 'British audience' can be reluctant to take on characters with Scottish, Welsh, N.Irish or Northern English accents (and even 'the South' is narrowly conceived: the likes of Bristolian accents aren't part of this concept, with the Midlands also somewhat excluded)
• perhaps then we should applaud the existence of the UK Film Council, its regional arms, and Channel 4 (its production arm with a measly £10m budget is under serious threat though), all of which make films like TiE, which don't compromise for commercial ends, possible
• although if we simply condemn a film like the BJD (chick-)flicks as candyfloss, we step into new arguments about the notion of high culture v popular culture, and the demonisation of any cultural form primarily consumed by females (rom-coms, soaps, celeb mags etc)...

Hopefully food for thought, which you may want to continue by looking at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/22/richard-curtis-the-boat-that-rocked and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKSGdByaUIA

Britishness = miserable?

Interesting article here on the Ricky gervais Britflick Cemetery Junction; here's an excerpt which may help you think about yourselves as British filmmakers yourselves. This is a brief excerpt:

Our cinema doesn't depend on lavish, feelgood reassurance; it revels in seedy grittiness. That's the way we like it. We're not a nation of optimists who're certain we'll be redeemed. We're glum and suspicious. We quite like misery and are more at home with grunge than glitz.

Some interesting reader comments follow too, e.g. this:

DanAshcroft

19 Apr 2010, 11:32AM

It's interesting the feelgood romantic comedies that characteristed British cinema since the 1990s - Four Weddings, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones, Love Actually and the like - have disappeared. Even Richard Curtis's last film - The Boat That Rocked - was set in the 1960s Ditto Cemetery Junction takes place in 1973. For British filmmakers, we can feelgood about the past but not the present. Too many recent British movies - Fish Tank, Harry Brown, Eden Lake - present a thoroughly grim and despairing vision of the country. The odd exception was Mike Leigh's 'Happy Go Lucky'.
It's interesting that 'Four Weddings' opened in Britain in May 1994, on the very week John Smith died and Tony Blair emerged as the future leader of New Labour. There were a lot of parallels between Hugh Grant in that movie and Blair. Now, we have 'The Ghost' opening in the last days of the New Labour government - almost like a final nail being hammered in the coffin.
I often think that anyone who lived through the 1970s wouldn't want to return there. Films like 'Bloody Sunday', 'The Damned United', 'Control' and the 1974 segment of 'Red Riding' capture the grimness perfectly. Strikes, the Troubles in Ulster, football hooliganism, police corruption, drab provincial cities and raging inflation (just try going through newspapers of the period and you'll see how expensive everything was). It wasn't all bad, but on the whole I do prefer now.

Why does Hollywood dominate?

The Hollywood Effect
Despite Flourishing Global Film Industry, Hollywood Remains Movie Capital of the World

By Lloyd Bayer

More Reel Rants 2010 Movie Preview Best and Worst of 2009 List of Every Best Picture Winner Remembering Michael Jackson The Midas Touch Good Movie or Bad? Movies Favorite Pastime in UAE What I've Learned From the Movies Top Stoner Movies Top Comedy Movies Top Western Movies Top Worst Movie Sequels Best Movie Twists of All Time Top Romance Movies Top Prison Movies Top Mob/Mafia Movies Top Movie Monsters Top Movie Quotes Top Movie Villains Top Movie Soundtracks Top Tear-Jerkers of All Time Top Scariest Movies Ever Top Courtroom Dramas Top Sports Movies of All Time Top War Movies of All Time Top Christmas Movies List of Movies that Deserved Best Picture but Lost

Many countries produce their own movies reflecting a culture distinct to its unique background, but why do Hollywood films have the largest take on export? Simply because, American cinema has an overwhelming effect on the rest of the world. If you really think about it, revenue generated from box-office sales all over the world come from mainly movies made by US film studios, in particular, studios from Los Angeles, California. So in this regard, is it safe to consider that Hollywood productions form one of North America’s main exports? Why do I think that is? The answer is simple. From childhood to old age, everyone likes a good story. From late night camp fires, high school plays, amateur theatre productions to high grossing block-busters, there is always a story teller and there is always an audience. For an in-depth study into this topic, we have to go way back to the infancy of film making.

Although still a subject of intense debate, the first moving pictures to be projected on a screen were from the British film Incident at Clovelly Cottage in 1895. The film was made with a 35mm camera and celluloid film using a technique invented by William Greene in Hyde Park, London in 1890. Right after the success of this film, several British film companies started to flourish, capitalizing on the basic economics of supply and demand. A few years later across the Atlantic, D.W. Griffith filmed the first ever American short film titled In Old California, in a small village called Hollywood. This was soon followed by the first feature film in 1914 called The Squaw Man. Within a year, various studios started popping up like mushrooms, making mainly gun slinging westerns. By the 1920s, Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros. and Columbia were founded and went on to become major production and distribution studios. During this silent era of films, British studios saw major losses due to heavy competition from their American counterparts. Until, that is, the emergence of one of the biggest names in cinema history, Alfred Hitchcock. Not only did he produce and direct the first British film with sound, Blackmail in 1929 was the work of pure genius and would revolutionize the art of story telling for decades to come. Within five years, Hitchcock made The man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, establishing himself as the “master of suspense”. He made another British film called The Lady Vanishes in 1938 before moving to Hollywood. Although the rest as we know is history, Hitchcock maintained strong ties with the British film industry while going on to become one of the first and greatest legendry film makers in the world.  

The Master of Suspense, British filmmaker and producer, Alfred Hitchcock

The point I am trying to make is that Hitchcock could have easily continued his work in the UK and still would have become the greatest British film maker ever. What lured him to Hollywood?  Was it fame and fortune? Or was it a profound film making phenomenon emerging in the form of Hollywood productions?

As both British and US film industries continued to boom, a third emerging market was the Indian film industry. Incredibly, the first Indian motion picture was a silent film called Raja Harish Chandra released in 1913, which historians confirm was just a few years after the US venture into film making. Believe it or not, with a post-production figure of over 10,000 titles, India independently stands shoulder to shoulder with major film producing regions like North America, Europe and Far-East Asia. But quantity does not always mean quality.

Green Zone: WTs $100m flop

As IMDB seems to be shifting much of its content to IMDB Pro (which you have to pay for), some data may be getting harder to access, but we can still see enough to appreciate the level of funding WT can access, which places them way above any competitor (outwith the franchise producers of Harry Potter, Bond etc - essentially American productions
tbc...

GREEN ZONE [IMDB] [Wiki]
Managed a mere $35m in the US, and was a notable flop BUT initially ran on 3,000 screens, reflecting the confidence that Universal had; the expense of producing that many prints, and advertising in so many US cities is not undertaken lightly. It managed £5.4m in the UK on a peak of 419 screens (see IMDB). Critics argue the marketing focussed to much on the lead, Matt Damn, and tried too hard to play on the intertextuality he brings (if we apply Richard Dyer's star theory) to action films as the star of the Bourne franchise.
Centred on US marines in Iraq, there is little to suggest this was made by a UK company targeting a UK audience.
But we should note its British director, Paul Greengrass (who made his name with Bloody Sunday and went on to make a major impact with United 93)
YT trailer (-rated)

Greengrass' Bloody Sunday was highly controversial inside the UK, but won multiple awards across the wider world. It is seen as a masterpiece of the docudrama genre, which is broadly similar to the social realist style but specifically seeks to accurately reflect past events by re-enacting them.
Here's the trailer:


Greengrass would bring this approach to United 93 [IMDB], a symbolic movie in many ways: here we have a British company + director producing one of the most important filmic statements about 9/11, such an emotive issue for the American audience. By this time he'd directed Bourne movies, the extremely successful action/secret agent franchise. The $15m, low-budget production was a hit, making $30m in the US, an astonishing £28m here, and much more worldwide. It ran for a long time in the UK (5 months) on a peak 276 screens, but just 2 months stateside on a peak 1,795 screens.
Here's the trailer:


More on Green Zone marketing:
http://www.filmeducation.org/pdf/film/Green_Zone.pdf
http://www.worstpreviews.com/review.php?id=1295&section=preview
http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/03/21/was-green-zone-mis-sold/ 
http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2686 
http://www.vulture.com/2010/03/did_green_zone_kill_the_bourne.html 
http://www.impawards.com/2010/green_zone.html - 
http://moviecultists.com/2009/11/05/new-green-zone-poster-features-matt-damon-cliched-tagline/ - 

WT2 Films + Britishness

Bulding on today's lesson, here's some links + useful points on WT2 + their films, some of which you might want to use for your presentations (+ general exam prep).

A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON WT2

Working Title 2 / WT 2: Making the Small Budget Feature

As Working Title became more bound up with larger productions it became more awkward to deal with smaller ones so WT2 was established to deal with low budget titles.  

Despite its famous name, the structure at Working Title is pretty lean. It employs just 42 full time staff, split between the main Working Title production arm and its low-budget offshoot WT2, run by Natascha Wharton, which since 1999 has produced films like Billy Elliot and Ali G Indahouse. (My emphasis, from Skillset )

WT2 has had a good success rate and clearly the whole organisation is run very effectively.
Other films it has produced are the less than well received Calcium Kid starring Orlando Bloom.
Lucy Guard, Head of Development for Dragon Pictures and Natscha Wharton  who co-runs WT2 share with us their secret to developing talent..

How did WT2 come about?
When I was at Working Title we set up a New Writers Scheme to develop new talent. Normally we do not accept unsolicited material (scripts that do not come from an agent or producer) but for the scheme we had to relax a bit and open the doors. The problem was that at Working Title, smaller films would inevitably get less attention than the bigger budget projects so we decided to set up WT2 to give proper attention to those smaller films. Quite a few of the writers we were developing on the Scheme we are now working with us at WT2 while others have set up their projects with other companies, which is great.

SOURCE: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/

Its generally bad practice to reproduce such long quotes as the one above and the one that follows, but in this case I think they're useful enough to justify this:

The success of Working Title’s formula (Notting Hill grossed $374,089,678 worldwide) of using slightly romanticised depictions of Britain and British life coupled with the use of international stars such as Julia Roberts and Renee Zellweger to appeal to an international audience has, in some ways both being of great benefit and great detriment to the British film industry. The company’s success has lead to Working Title being able to invest more money into British film production, at both high and low budget level with the creation of WT2. This has lead to young British talent such as Lee Hall (writer of Billy Elliot) being able to get more of their projects off the ground. However, the success of the Working Title formula has distorted the amount of revenue coming into the British film industry at large. Far too much money is making its way to Working Title, and many other British production companies are struggling to survive as a result. Working Title’s commitment to funding larger scale projects has had an effect on the company’s commitment to its lower budget productions, WT2 in particular has suffered greatly as a result of its parent company’s funding policy, to the extent that WT2 has produced only one film since 2004’s ‘Inside I’m Dancing’. However, other factors, such as Britain’s economic downturn have also had a negative effect on WT2’s funding. The fact that in the last five years Working Title has only produced one film through the production arm which the company claims gives the British film industries finest young talent the opportunity to bring their visions to life, is a terrifying situation for the British film industry’s largest production company to find itself in, and is an extremely worrying state of affairs for any young British talent trying to get a project off the ground, without the presence of an international star attached to the project. This is supported by the fact that WT2’s last project Gone, had no recognisable names attached to it, and the film was barely even noticed. Working Title’s lack of commitment to WT2 in recent years has worrying implications for the British film industry in general. Given Working Title’s size and influence on the British film industry it is perfectly plausible that other major British film producers such as BBC Films and Film Four may also cut back on their output, especially in the low budget production area, and given the current gloomy economic climate in Britain it is perfectly plausible that these cutbacks could have a catastrophic effect on the funding of projects involving young, British talent. Although this situation is clearly not all Working Title’s fault they, as Britain’s biggest film production company, have to take their fair share of the blame, and have to help spearhead the recovery of the British film industry at the base level, and help the filmmakers and writers of the future make their dream projects become a reality.

[SOURCE: http://www.bombedoutinspace.com/2010/02/08/an-assessment-of-the-work-of-working-title-and-its-effect-on-the-british-film-industry/] 

Again, usually its better to make the link into words, but in this case the link enables you to see the nature of the wider article this (poorly paragraphed!) quote comes from. The article is certainly worth reading in full, a very useful resource for your exam prep.

A QUICK SUMMARY OF THE ABOVE! (+ a few extra points)

• WT2 emerged from WT's determination to foster new British talent
• specifically, it was its New Writers Scheme that sparked the idea
• the company were receiving interesting screenplay ideas from new writers, but didn't feel they could justify the $20m+ production budget that has become their norm (and don't foget they've gone as high as $100m with Green Zone)
• so, it represented a partial return to WT's roots working with limited budgets
• despite initial success (Billy Elliot was a global smash, while Hot Fuzz + Shaun of the Dead also did well), the WT2 offshoot (or subsidiary) has been largely inactive since 2004, producing only Sixty Six (2006) + Gone (2007) since
• WT's typical budget has risen dramatically over the last decade, seeing its pseudo-Indie arm once more squeezed out of the picture, and its right to be proclaimed as a British company producing British films for a British placed into doubt
• then again, many of these WT2 films also showed the trademark WT enthusiasm for attracting wider audiences than just the UK, not least through generally using genres recognisable to a US (+ thus, given Hollywood dominance, much of the global audience)
• even when it didn't - Billy Eliot was essentially a social realist film in the tradition of its earliest productions (MBL/WYWH) - the narrative conveniently echoed the ideology or message of the 'American Dream': that anyone, no matter how humble their background, can make it to the top
• remember, WT announced that WT2 would be a genre subsidiary focussing on Humour, Horror, Heart
• budgets typically set to £5m or less
• ...and didn't stretch to US stars, a basic part of the main WT strategy
• ...so we can largely say: UK settings, UK cast!

THE FILMS

BILLY ELLIOT (Stephen Daldry, 2000) [IMDB] [Wiki]

The tale of a Leeds lad bullied for taking up dancing doesn't seemly greatly promising in terms of wider, non-UK box office appeal .. until we consider the point on how its ultimately uplifting narrative matches the American Dream concept so neatly. Its success followed other initially grim, social realist movies that ultimately provided the feel-good ending that Hollywood largely adheres to: The Full Monty being the prime example.
Nonetheless, it broke out of the narrow middle-class/Southern English mould of most UK-set WT films, and featured a challenging regional accent (which generally appear for comedy value, and signify backwards, unsophisticated stupidity in most WT productions - eg the comedy Welsh character 'Spike' (Rhys Ifans) in Notting Hill or the Scottish character in Wild Child who nobody can understand). Like all WT2 films, its budget came in well under £10m (indeed, £5m or less is the typical WT2 budget).
A modern-day Kes with box office appeal?!
It made a star out of its young lead, Jamie Bell, just as WT have launched the careers of Daniel Day-Lewis (MBL), Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) and many others before.
YT trailer:

The US trailer makes a firm link between this film's narrative and that of the 'American Dream'; the voiceover says: "Inside every one of us ... is a special talent ...waiting to come out" ... while the familiar Rocky theme tune plays, helping to defuse any confusion or alienation a non-UK audience might experience when hearing such unfamiliar regional accents. The comedy aspect of the film is as heavily pushed as the drama; this is both humour and heart.

LONG TIME DEAD (Marcus Adams, 2000) [IMDB] [Wiki]

If BE was a WT2 'heart' film, this was horror - but, as with most teen-targeted horror, there was the requisite dose of 'heart' in terms of a romance sub-plot. I've not seen this one, but appears to be set in S.Eng and centre on safe middle-class Caucasian characters. 
UK/US appeal? Genre picked for US/global appeal, and seems to use recognisable S.Eng, but the lack of a major US star always reduces the likelihood of a UK film achieving 'breakout' status abroad, and this one failed to get cinema releases here or in the US, despite WT's relationship with the major distributor Universal.

YT Trailer (15-rated):

ALI G INDAHOUSE (Mark Mylod, 2002) [IMDB] [Wiki]

The £5m budgeted comedy (so, the 3rd H: Humour) managed over £10m at the UK box office, but failed to get a US release despite an obvious strategy to appeal to a non-UK audience (perhaps, overall, the cultural references were just too British for a wider audience?). It was a satire on a genre the US (and global) audience would recognise (gang drama), with a postmodern spin given that the lead was a white Jewish actor playing a black gangsta-wannabe (the joke being that many po-faced politicians and celebrities responded to him as if he was black, unconsciously associating his idiotic behaviour with a negative racial stereotype).
The US-friendly touches included an opening scene shot in LA which accounted for a quarter of the entire budget [the montage of LA cityscape shots that open the film makes a neat binary opposite with Warp Film's TisEng opening]; the gangs/genre it satirized; iconic US rap songs like NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" that opened the movie [tho' of course rap culture/music has become a globalised icon of US cultural dominance]; and even very British signifiers such as the jungle/drum'n'bass track made less alien for a non-UK audience by adding in a hip-hop phrase (boo-ya-ka!). The film made heavy use of iconic London landmarks (Ali G is chained up outside the Houses of Parliament for example).

NB: I surmised this film didn't get a US release because I found no US data on IMDB. As it seems to have started pushing a lot of info onto IMDB Pro only, I double checked using the site The Numbers - I was right! (The film made $26m worldwide but zip in the US) See http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2002/0AGIH.php

YT Trailer (15-rated):

The marketing for this film was aimed well beyond the UK: WT/Universal managed to get a starring role for the Ali G character in the video for Madonna's "Music":

MY LITTLE EYE (Marc Evans, 2002) [IMDB] [Wiki]

A £2m horror flick that made its money back at the UK box office, but failed elsewhere, despite the Big Brother theme. Set in US, US characters (but not stars), hardly showing a commitment to developing new British talent.

YT Trailer (18-rated):

SHAUN OF THE DEAD (Edgar Wright, 2004) [IMDB] [Wiki]

A £4m horror (actually, an innovative hybrid: zom-rom-com that hit all 3 of the WT2 Hs) that proved a minor US hit, launching Simon Pegg in particular (he went on to co-star in the mega-budget Star Trek remake), and would eventually lead to the $45m WT production Paul with Pegg + Frost reunited, this time in the US. Raking in £6.5m in the UK, it was given a major marketing push, with the distributors funding prints for 369 screens at its peak (roughly double this, 672, at its US peak - far short of the 4-5,000+ of most US box office no. 1s, but it still made  a very respectable $13.5m ).
Most of the intertextual references were to US movies, which obviously helped, and the bottom line is that without the backing of a US distributor (Universal), a major (part of the 'big 6' no less), it wouldn't have had much of a chance, but you could debate over how much it compromised itself to appeal to a US audience. It is simply a very, very well made production with an innovative script. 
And was directed by someone who got their first break at the Co-Op's Young Filmmakers' Festival...
YT trailer (15-rated)





THE CALCIUM KID () [IMDB] [Wiki]
Orlando Bloom flop (£64k in UK!!!!).
YT Trailer (12-rated)



MICKYBO + ME () [IMDB] [Wiki]
NI-set £4m flop.
YT trailer (15-rated)



INSIDE I'M DANCING () [IMDB] [Wiki]
NI-set comedy.
YT trailer (15-rated)



SIXTY SIX (Paul Weiland, 2006) [IMDB] [Wiki]


YT trailer (12A-rated)



GONE (Ringan Ledgwidge, 2007) [IMDB] [Wiki]

YT trailer ()





HOT FUZZ (Edgar Wright, 2007) [IMDB] [Wiki]
The West-Country accent must have been a hard sell for US audiences; instantly recognisable to a UK audience though. 
YT Trailer (15-rated)

Presentation Hwk for 20th April

Multimedia presentation: “WT is not a British company making British films for a British audience” – discuss with reference to at least 5 WT/WT² films and using still images/scenes to illustrate your argument. 

 This can be done either as a vodcast or as a Prezi.

SOME POINTERS:

1. Every good piece of academic work will address arguments for and against, so you're trying to find + discuss points that (1) suggest WT is Brit-centric and (2) suggest that actually its focussed on foreign, especially US, audiences.
2. Your work for this should reflect the exam markscheme, incorporating EAA (explanation, analysis, argument); use of examples; use of terminology.
3. That means you back up your points with examples - references to specific films (scenes/shots - semiotic detail; budgets/box office; director/auteur; cast/use of stars; marketing etc) - using specific terminology where appropriate. 
4. As its a multimedia presentation, visual evidence is vital: as with your blog work, this means screenshots (and clips where possible too).
5. It will help with point 1 if you pick out one film you think is especially British, and one you think is especially un-British.
6. That leaves three - make sure at least one is WT2.
7. This task should be seen as vital exam preparation, so pick out titles you think you'd like to focus on with your exam response.
8. Some older films are fine; but make sure some of these are contemporary and up to date (Paul, which I've blogged on, is a useful one, but that was a year ago and there have been more WT releases since!)
9. You may wish to make brief reference to Warp, to set up a binary opposition/show what a more typical British co is like
10. Think of the types of topic you need to address when looking at each film: budget/box office (+ WTs unique link to the big 6) [tbc]

DIGITISATION Hitchcock's Rear Window recut

If you're unfamiliar with Rear Window its a classic Hitchcock thriller that uses many horror tropes; you can read of how an enterprising fan scanned all the POV shots from the titular rear window and stitched them all together into this video.

MARKETING: Limitations - John Carter (2012)

BASICALLY:
A $260m budget Disney tentpole, with marketing and prints pushing this figure much higher, that didn't quite bring the house of mouse down, but just scraped its official budget back. The marketing is blamed. Despite the objections of Disney's marketing team, the director insisted on setting the tone for the marketing, with disastrous results:

1. the book/film's central romance is underplayed, undermining crossover female appeal
2. dropping the '...of Mars' from the title made it confusing, underplayed the sci-fi, and lost some of the built-in appeal of the existing IP, the hit book series
3. using an early 1970s classic rock track, Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir', to underpin the trailer, was alienating for the core/primary youth target audience



Um...sci-fi? Romance? #epicfail

4. this case highlights the blurring of the dividing line between production and distribution 
5. it is also argued that the production cost ran out of control (see below)

Although the tentpole strategy, or what Anita Elberse terms the blockbuster strategy, is now central to the approach of all of the big six vertically integrated Hollywood conglomerates, questions have been raised about the bloating of budgets; bear in mind that a film really needs to gross 2-3 times its budget to truly go into profit on box office, with prints and marketing often equalling the production budget:

Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com noted, "John Carter’s bloated budget would have required it to generate worldwide tickets sales of more than $600 million to break even...a height reached by only 63 films in the history of moviemaking"

IT JOINS OTHER TURKEYS...

While on paper there have been bigger box-office turkeys in recent years – Breck Eisner's Sahara took $68.7m from a reported $160m budget in 2005 and Oliver Stone's Alexander managed just $34.3m from a $155m budget the previous year – the film already looks likely to be one of 2012's biggest loss leaders. Disney's statement hints that the film's true budget may be far higher than $250m; industry analysts have repeatedly speculated that it cost at least another $50m thanks to a gargantuan marketing spend, making it one of the most expensive films of all time. [Ben Childs]

You can find details on many more, including links to quizzes testing your flop knowledge, here.

Bottom line? 
Marketing shied away from the sci-fi (the producers had already dropped the ...of Mars from the film title, despite its presence in the books it is derived from), which may have been seen as a female-friendly move ... but also ignored the strong romantic element in the marketing. Frankly, bizarre thinking there. Some reckon this was the most expensive movie of all time, so the marketing had to be at least competent. It wasn't. (Later posters did get closer to the mark ... but it was too late).

READ/VIEW MORE: 
Poster gallery (impawards);
Screenrant explains why UGC trailers were better than the official ones;
Forbes (business magazine):
how the posters went from awful to ... okay;
the official site, games and all;
Apple gallery;
IMDB entry.

BEN CHILD'S REPORT

Critics have suggested that John Carter's failure to connect with audiences may have been due to confusing marketing as well as lukewarm reviews. Disney chose not to run with the "of Mars" suffix in the wake of traditionally poor box-office results for films that focus on the planet, and trailers also largely ignored the movie's central romance, something Hollywood tends to see as a surefire method of attracting female filmgoers.
"The movie is called John Carter, but aside from the fact that he can jump far and looks good without a shirt on, what else did commercials really convey about the title character?" wrote Ray Subers of the Box Office Mojo website. "Also, what was John Carter doing in this desert landscape occupied by tall green men, aside from fighting giant furry white creatures?"  [Source]

MARKETING Spike Lee style

an insight into Indie-style guerrilla marketing...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan/04/spike-lee-interview-john-colapinto 

‘In 1985, Lee wrote the screenplay for She's Gotta Have It, about Nola Darling and her three suitors. Shot on the streets of Brooklyn and featuring a star turn by Lee as Mars Blackmon, a bespectacled and geeky would-be lover, the movie not only defied prevailing stereotypes of the Reagan-era inner-city black movie, but called to mind Woody Allen's early romantic comedies. To help finance the movie - which cost $175,000 - he obtained a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, and seed money from his maternal grandmother, Zimmie, a frugal woman who "saved her social security cheques", Lee says.’

‘She's Gotta Have It premiered at the San Francisco Film Festival and prompted a bidding war for the distribution rights. It opened in the summer of 1986, with what Lee calls a "marketing gimmick": for nearly a month, the movie could be seen at only one cinema in America, Cinema Studio in New York. "Every night it was sold out," Lee recalled. "And I would get there and hand out buttons. Me and my friends were selling She's Gotta Have It T-shirts." When the film opened in wide release, it made about $7m. The credits announced the film as "A Spike Lee Joint". Lee said: "Coming from the independent world, I knew that millions and millions of dollars were not going to be spent on the promotion and marketing of my film. So in a lot of ways I had to market myself and market the brand of Spike Lee."’

Read more on IMDB; see Spike Lee promoting his film (YouTube).

WT early days: MBL/WYWH

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Marketing 3x wt case studies from DB3igs

...

Today we'll be building on our initial learning around WT's early history and subsequent development into the leading UK film producer.
Back when they started out it was all so very different...

We'll look at their 1st 2 films as WT: MBL (Stephen Frears, 1985) [IMDB] and WYWH (David Leland, 1987) [IMDB]
Chances are you've heard of neither before now, but one of them created a memorable (and slightly rude!) catchphrase: 'up yer bum'...


MBL cost just £650k, WYWH slightly more at £1m; both were acclaimed by film critics and both today are seen as classics. Lets tease out what makes these 2 early WT films so different from almost  all the subsequent releases (4Weds, NotHill, BJD etc).

Here's the trailer for MBL:

We'll look at marketing in some detail, but what expectations does this trailer create for YOU? (remember, part of this topic is the ability to think of how YOU operate as a film consumer)
Does it strike you as typically British - if so, why ... and if not, why?!

A key point to grasp for this exam is that you'll need very specific examples of actual films to write about - particular scenes/shots/elements. So, your note-taking needs to be very detailed and precise, ie your denotation of these scenes picked out as useful. These are effectively the same as quotes for an English Lit exam!

Lets now look at the film's opening - the DVD is available for you to borrow from the library (ditto WYWH and many more WT/Warp films, + some Ealing, Hammer...); I've found the opening on YouTube too:
As You watch this, consider again:
(i) what signifiers there are of Britishness, and what general representations there are
(ii) the general style or genre of cinematography, mise-en-scene etc
(iii) the readings available - do you think as a teen in 2012 you can follow the director/cast/editor's preferred reading?


The early WT was a brave, adventurous company prepared to take risks:

• the unknown Daniel Day-Lewis got his break in this movie (as Emily Lloyd would with WYWH)
• with the right-wing Thatcher government in place, supported by an almost entirely right-wing press, creating a film centring on an Asian character was unheard of and far from the commercial, money-making logic that later lead to so many Hugh Grant vehicles
• to make him gay too was guaranteed to attract 'flak' [THEORY TIP: Chomsky's propaganda model argues that five filters, including flak (criticism/attacks from media 'shoot down' radical ideas/texts), weed out radical/leftie thoughts from our media which exist to serve and reinforce the powerful, NOT to serve democracy]
• before WT hooked up with PolyGram and then NBC-Universal, it had to fight to find the financing for movies - Film4 was key to getting this film made, though it was only the success of the film at the EIFF that persuaded a distributor to fund a cinematic release and marketing campaign to go with it (it was intended to be a TV-movie only)
• with WYWH they went back to the past - but unlike the cosy heritage/costume dramas of today, they did so to present a countertypical, radical representation of the repression of women in wartime and 50s Britain

Turning now to WYWH, here's a few clips; as before -
As You watch this, consider again:
(i) what signifiers there are of Britishness, and what general representations there are
(ii) the general style or genre of cinematography, mise-en-scene etc
(iii) the readings available - do you think as a teen in 2012 you can follow the director/cast/editor's preferred reading?


Review your notes; what can you learn from these examples that might help you discuss any of the topic prompts provided by the exam board (see below)?

Candidates should be prepared to understand and discuss the processes of production, distribution, marketing and exchange as they relate to contemporary media institutions, as well as the nature of audience consumption and the relationships between audiences and institutions. In addition, candidates should be familiar with:

• the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice;
• the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing;
• the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange;
• the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences;
• the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences;
• the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions;
• the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.

This unit should be approached through contemporary examples in the form of case studies

Hammer 'double-play' releases

Hammer's back catalogue is getting a re-release with new BFI editions featuring a host of new extras - see for example http://louderthanwar.com/the-devils-dvd-review/
These are 'double-play' releases, where both a Blu-Ray and standard DVD are included

DIGITISATION: MOCKBUSTERS...

Thanks to Simon, Helpdesk Technician, for bringing this to my attention (also featured in this month's Total Film magazine): The Asylum are an example of a production company who make straight-to-video blockbuster rip-offs, generally on sub-$10k budgets! See http://www.theasylum.cc/

Its almost as if the spoof Jack Black productions in Be Kind, Rewind, which launched the concept of 'sweding', leeched out into the real world...

DIGITISATION: self-published short film

Across these blogs I'll keep returning to the concept of digitisation, the ongoing process of change and transformation of our media, a key element of which is the opening up of opportunities for micro-budget media producers to (occasionally!) attract large audiences and even make some money...
We mustn't forget that giant global conglomerates remain utterly dominant, but the possibilities for someone with a digital camera and a Mac are infinitely higher now than 10, 20 years ago. There have always been amateur/debut film-makers somehow bringing together feature films on infinitesimally small budgets, from Wes Craven's Last House on the Left and John Carpenter's Halloween, through Alex Cox's Repo Man (see his superb book X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, there's a copy in Lib/F6), Kevin Smith's Clerks and closer to home the rather more dubious Colin!
Here's an interesting example of a horror buff with her own successful blog, Final Girl, who made a short film ... and monetised it through this blog, charging $5 for a DVD of the 10min short film! The short is a postmodern lesbian vampire skit using knock-off Barbie dolls, reflecting the filmmaker's feminist sensibilities. If you do watch it, remember its NOT a feature film - shorts can be rather quirkier. It is, whatever you make of the film itself (the sound is nicely done and the mise-en-scene well handled given the size of the characters!), a great example of how digitisation has expanded the possibilities for enthusiastic amateur filmmakers and media producers generally to go ahead and create, distribute and exhibit work without having to sign deals with larger media firms.

Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear - watch more funny videos     

'Final Girl' runs a monthly slasher film club; check it out and if you blog on it she may add a link to your blog on hers!

There is of course another example of a self-publishing filmmaker closer to home, and we will be looking at a trailer for his latest production in Friday's lessons, and with a bit of luck hearing a little from the filmmaker himself on how he went about it, and his plans for this new opus...
We'll also have a look at the film Monsters, a good example of how digitisation has opened up possibilities for filmmakers to produce slick work on very limited money and with a crew barely bigger than a Media coursework group; I have previously blogged on this and various other examples of digitisation, plus analyses, in a wide range of posts you should be looking over whether for AS/A2 exam or AS/A2 coursework (especially Evaluation)...