WARP Meadows C4 Virtues continues the TV convergence

Variety (July 2017) reports a new Shane Meadows TV series for Channel 4. A 2-part mini-series (according to IMDB) to be screened in 2019.

Shane Meadows’ latest drama series for Britain’s Channel 4 will see the filmmaker reuniting with “This Is England” stars Stephen Graham and Helen Behan for “The Virtues.” The show will follow Joseph, played by Graham, as he returns home to Ireland to confront a troubled past after having been brought up in the state care system. 

Frank Laverty (“Michael Collins”) will star as the husband of Anna (Behan), the sister whom Joseph has not seen since he was a child. Jack Thorne, who worked on the “This Is England” TV series, has written “The Virtues.” The show will be produced by Sheffield- and London-based Warp Films, which made the 2009 film “This Is England” and three TV sequels: “This Is England ’86,” “This Is England ’88,” and “This Is England ’90.” Like all of the “England” TV series, “The Virtues” will be four parts. 

Meadows said that “The Virtues” will draw on his previous work. “It takes the biblical, almost apocalyptic levels of revenge witnessed in ‘Dead Man’s Shoes,’ along with the bittersweet humor from ‘This Is England,’ and creates a landscape like nothing else I’ve worked on,” he said. 

“The Virtues” is shooting in Sheffield, Liverpool, and Belfast, and will bow on Channel 4 in 2019.FILED UNDER:
Shane MeadowsStephen GrahamThe VirtuesThis is England

WARP, CONVERGENCE This is England 90 on C4, Guardian exclusive trailer

Despite the down at heel, working class focus of the franchise, interesting to see Warp linking up not with a tabloid but rather the broadsheet Guardian, with its ABC1 readership.

Click on 'read more' for article link and to see the trailer

DISTRIBUTION: Warp X's Le Donk + Scor-zay-zee

Use the tag cloud to find more on distribution

KEY POINT: Cinemas continue to insist on an exclusive release window as home cinema would otherwise eat substantially into their prospects, and they have gone as far as threatening to boycott a blockbuster Disney movie when they tried to reduce this window. Frankly, they will care little what an Indie micro-budget production does, and the 'cinema release' was really a marketing stunt by Warp to attract newspaper reviews!

Scroll to the end of the post for a short list of all key points. 

Impressively, Warp secured distribution in several foreign markets, such as Norway. Note how Meadows and his previous movies are highlighted as a key selling point.

Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee (Meadows, 2009) is an interesting counter-example of what we conventionally see. Okay, so this micro-budget Indie (just £48k, it launched Meadows' 'five day film' concept which, at the time of release, several other well-known directors expressed an interest in, though it doesn't really seem to have taken off in the way Dogme 95 - Lars von Trier etc - once did) got limited cinematic release.

All warp trailers are embedded in 1 post tagged distribution!

Lets be clear - the vast bulk of Indie productions simply fail to get any cinematic release; almost all are straight-to-DVD or, in the worst case scenario (as the DVD release window should come before the TV release window, which can itself be split between terrestrial, satellite and streaming) straight-to-TV (maybe made-for-TV).

By the way, Working Title's debut production, My Beautiful Laundrette, started out as a made-for-TV film, but when it got a screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) and the critics raved about it, a swift decision was made to fund a cinematic release, from which it made a modest but significant profit, and WT would grow from this small success (including a US release).

There are no figures for Le Donk's box office, which usually suggests there was no cinematic release. It is not alone in Warp productions in getting a very, very limited cinema release, presumably a premiere and some limited London screenings.

TV-Film CONVERGENCE: Veronica Mars, Game of Thrones

Does convergence offer hope to Indies?

The concept of convergence has been widely discussed for years, but 2014 seems to mark a time when its becoming an indisputable phenomenon. Not only is the average Westerner walking around with a smartphone which combines web, HD camera/video, music/video players ... and telephony, but the line between TV and cinema is definitely blurring.

In Britain we've seen even the Indies at this: Warp Films' This is England has had two sequel series on C4 already - and now Shane Meadows has said that the next installment is more likely to see a return to the cinematic form that kickstarted the franchise.
Talking of kickstarting ... noughties cult classic TV series Veronica Mars has seen a triumphant return ... but this time on the big screen. Talking at the 2013 Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Warp's production chief Mark Herbert was enthusiastic about the potential of the likes of Kickstarter, used already for the All Tomorrow's Parties Warp movie. The success of the ...Mars Kickstarter appeal could spark off many more Indie productions.

The big-screen revival of the cult US TV series about Kristen Bell's titular high school (later college) sleuth secured its return after supporters donated a record-breaking $5.702m (£3.70m) via Kickstarter last year. (Guardian)

At a considerably higher budget level, this week also brings news that the Game of Thrones TV series may see its conclusion rolled out as a series of movies:

Multiple movies set in the Game of Thrones universe could be coming to the big screen, creator George RR Martin has revealed.
Speaking at the New York premiere of season four of the popular fantasy TV epic, author Martin said the series might need the bigger budgets provided to film-makers for its grand finale. He also hinted at the possibility of movies based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg, a trilogy of spin-off novellas set 90 years before the events on Game of Thrones in the mythical land of Westeros.
"It all depends on how long the main series runs," Martin told The Hollywood Reporter. "Do we run for seven years? Do we run for eight? Do we run for 10? The books get bigger and bigger (in scope). It might need a feature to tie things up, something with a feature budget, like $100 million for two hours. Those dragons get real big, you know." (Guardian, emphasis added)

The Kickstarter idea still raises some problematic issues though...

More later, time permitting.

Tyrannosaur: archetypal Warp/UK Indie movie?

See this additional post focused on the distribution of Tyrannosaur.

Tyrannosaur [Wiki]

dir. Paddy Considine [Wiki]
Principal producer: Warp X [Wiki]
Budget: £750k
Box Office: UK £243k, US $22k
Guardian microsite with multiple features, interviews etc

BOXOFFICEMOJO; IMDB; THE NUMBERS.

Warp Films trailers and distributors (my guide post)

Its a superbly crafted film (they didn't struggle to find rave reviews to feature on the poster + other promotional materials), typically enough for Warp Films/X, the Sheffield-based UK Indie launched by the ambitious record label Warp, home of dance acts such as Aphex Twin plus Indie rockers Arctic Monkeys.*

This is England posts, collected

I've blogged quite a few times on Meadows and TisEng, so here's a few of those links gathered together to facilitate closer study (in no particular order):

Film4 Reimaginings: TisEng wins - UGC eg; C4 comp based on creating new TisEng material

What are the main issues around 'British' Cinema? From Social Realism to Cultural Imperialism via reindeer jumpers... - an extensive overview of many British cinema issues and egs from WT, Warp and beyond

Shane Meadows – a very British auteur [DB notes] - My notes, including pointers on the note-taking/revision process, from the article reproduced in full in ...

Shane Meadows – a very British auteur 

The next 2 feature embedded Scribd docs which are currently returning error codes - I'll check at some stage:

THIS IS ENGLAND - SOME BULLET POINTS 

and

This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006): Case Study 

Something I'll look to update: TisEng sequel?!

Nice illustration of what the auteur concept can really mean, and how a filmmaker's passion for verisimilitude in his representations can have a positive cultural impact: Film student on impact of meeting Meadows. 

Without grasping this you arguably can't 'get' Meadows' work (or follow his preferred reading?): Social Realism.

Analysis of several movies: Signifiers of 'Britishness'.

Warp Films trailers and distributors

These are the trailers for each Warp Films/X/Australia movie; BBFC ratings are noted, so obviously use as appropriate. These are also accessible as a YT playlist.

Warp clearly has long-term relationships with a number of distributors, even if they continue to struggle to gain cinematic releases:

UK: Optimum Releasing (now renamed StudioCanal UK);
US (IFC Films, BUT did this temporarily end around 2010? Submarine was Weinstein Co, Four Lions Drafthouse Films, Tyranossaur Strand Releasing; 2011's Kill List and Snowtown and 2012's Berberian Sound Studio were IFC again);

BoxOfficeMojo listing for Tyrannosaur; just $22k in US, but approaching $0.5m worldwide

Belg, Neth (both Cinéart);
Fr (ARP Sélection);
M.East ‘all media’ deals (Front Row Filmed Entertainment)
Australia (Madman Entertainment)
Italy (P.F.A. Films).
Some of these are 'all media'.
There are additional UK relationships for DVD (Artificial Eye but also Optimum Home Entertainment) + TV (Film4).
I also spotted few specific Blu-Ray listings, eg for Kill List in Neth (Cinéart), and Tyrannosaur (UK, Optimum Home Entertainment). 
There are some VOD listings (in some cases, VOD only) for the US in particular - mainly IFC but also Sundance Selects (for A History of...).

IMDB distributors listing for Tyrannosaur, which managed a fairly wide release, tho' for limited runs

To learn more about film distribution, you could try this pithy guide, or the more detailed BFI guide, which tells us:

The key elements of Prints and Advertising (P&A) that a distributor must consider at this stage are:
The quantity and production of release prints and trailers:
Specialised films will often be released with fewer than 10 prints into key independent cinemas, with these prints subsequently 'toured' over a 6-month period to all parts of the UK. On the other hand, commercial mainstream films will often open on over 200 prints, simultaneously screening in all major UK towns and cities.

Each individual film print costs around £1000 (or $1500-2000), so any major release of, say, 500 prints is looking at a cost of £0.5m before advertising spend is also factored in (multiply by 10 for the tent-pole US releases). It should be clear why so few Warp movies manage a wide release, though some (notably Four Lions) bucked this trend, with additional prints being rushed out after initial demand proved much higher than expected! Digitisation will gradually remove this barrier, with the effective cost of hard-drives or streamed/downloaded films near-zero.

As you watch each of these trailers, try asking yourself some simple questions... 

• Who do I think was the (core/primary and/or secondary) audience/s for this?
• What are the selling factors? (awards? director? cast? genre? narrative? atypicality/difference from the norm?)
• Is it a successful trailer? (can you sum up the film in a sentence? remember, John Carter showed how a trailer and marketing, if misdirected, can ruin a film's prospects) 
• In what ways (if any) does this strike you as a British film? (you'll note that while there's hybridity, the aesthetic of social realism is often present)

2014: '71 (YANN DEMANGE)
(awaiting release)

2013: FOR THOSE IN PERIL [18] (PAUL WRIGHT)
[18]

WARP: How Shane Meadows/Mark Herbert got into film

Speaks for itself, but its worth flagging up that in 2012 and 2013 Mark Herbert has fronted an excellent masterclass at the ASFF in York...

Here's a really, really useful overview of Warp by the ASFF producers.

Film student on impact of meeting Meadows

Remember the journals kept in the Lib?! They're packed with useful material for both halves of your Media exam - they are written specifically for Media and Film Studies students!!!

A man once visited my class at college. He was not Jean-Luc Godard or Martin Scorsese. He walked and talked and looked like a plumber from Nottingham, or any other ‘real life’ person that you could expect to meet. But he’d brought some short films in to show us; films he’d made – which made him a filmmaker. And they were good, too. They didn’t have any graphic matches, or symbolic meaning, or Odessa Steps, but they were affectionate, funny, moving and simple; makeable, even. The filmmaker’s name was Shane Meadows.

This is taken from an article ("Somers(town))" written by a final year degree student on the influence an encounter with Shane Meadows has had on him (MediaMagazine28, Dec 2008)
part of your exam asks you to reflect on your own consumption of film - and the whole issue of how British our cinema is, and to what extent it represents YOU, also comes into play here. The article raises some useful points which should help you to prepare some revision notes on this: your film consumption and how you feel about the representations of Britain/Yorkshire etc in British cinema.

[Meadows developed] familiar and welcome signatures: the presence of the diverse and excellent actor, Paddy Considine, the calm and unpretentious shot simplicity, the appreciative dedication to actors, characters and therefore stories, and the Big Arty Production company title that appears in the naïve Final Cut fonts to make me smile before each of his films begin. 
...here was a man – and not just any man, but a Bloke – who had made a film that was entirely natural and comfortable in its own low budget, digital, do-able and British body. Something that had seemed so far removed from my slick inspirations, now so easily rivalled them in impact, making me question what it was I really loved about the films I said I loved, and why I would want to make such films.
Meadows had expressed, with the casual openness of a man who isn’t sitting in front of twenty Film students, how his jaunt into the British mainstream with his third feature, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, had left him disillusioned, pissed-off and eager to return to the guerilla-shoot days of his first feature, Twenty Four Seven.
...
Then, last year, came This Is England (see MM 21). No hiding the emotion this time, on either the first or second trip to the cinema. This Is England, after Meadows’ matured but vengeful return to creative success, was a cut that had been getting deeper since the start of his career and, in coming closer to the bone than ever before, resulted in his most accomplished, personal and, ironically, commercially successful film to date. It seemed to solidify everything good about Meadows’ films; the affection and awareness he has for real life as he knows it or knew it, and his uncanny dedication and ability to portray it, whether through actors or setting, in such an ‘as it is’/’as it was’ way.

...
So I thought about my list of moments and reasons for loving cinema, and the bag of memorized cool that would one day make me Quentin Tarantino, and I realized that, while cool is cool, telling an honest story about something you understand seems to make for the most affecting and timeless of all films. The moments that demonstrate the appeal of these films are harder to define. Not the thrill of a gun-fight or a famous line but a feeling of memory and empathy, triggered by something between a mother and her young boy as she tries to convince him to buy smart shoes instead of Doc Martens. Hard to define and harder to capture, but worth it if you can do it. And perhaps that’s why these films and these directors seem to stand out. Meadows made Dead Man’s Shoes because Clarke made Scum because Scorsese made Mean Streets because Truffaut made The 400 Blows. Each probably tried to be the other, but if you take your cues from a personal, honest and emotional filmmaker, your films are bound to end up, if not like theirs, at least personal, honest and emotional. And anybody can relate to that. 

...Although still described as the young hope of British cinema, at six features in, Meadows could be said to be reaching veteran status.

... Perhaps, due to its seventy-minute running time or its close proximity to recent successes, Somers Town has received a slightly more mixed response than Meadows’ other recent films, but I think it’s refreshing for an organic filmmaker like Meadows to allow projects to come to fruition how, where and when they feel right. A skinhead he may look like, but a bit of a hippy is what I think he really is. Better that than a yuppy, on a crane shouting down a megaphone at the latest car-chase-gun-fight-swear-smoke-sex-camera-angle…

The full article can be found below: