Signifiers of 'Britishness'?

The post below links into the lesson, but note I've created MANY ... MANY posts on this topic which are accessible through the archive!!! There are even themed links lists down the side of this blog...

We've started considering what factors go into designating a film as 'British' or not, discovering first of all that there isn't necessarily a definitive answer ... though (as we'll explore later) there are some legal definitions tied into financing (a film's level of Britishness decides whether it is eligible for tax breaks or not).
We looked at some or all of the following; make sure you've got a full, detailed list of factors which go into deciding whether a film is British or not - with examples to back this up. (That approach reflects the way the exam is marked: on Use of Examples; Explanation, Analysis, Argument; Use of Terminology)

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

 (Ken Loach, 2006 - approx £5m budget. $23m worldwide box office, £3.2m in UK)
Seventeen co-production companies!!! Not least various European co's; many British Indie films only get made by pre-selling distribution rights (before production) to European markets such as France and Germany. Directors like Ken Loach find it easier to get their films into cinemas in continental Europe (where its a foreign language film don't forget) than their own country! The UK cinema market is utterly dominated by US films - even last year when 'British' films had an exceptional success, they still accounted for only 13% of UK cinema box office in 2011.

(DVD is in Media stock in Library)

Main characters Irish and British;

negative representation of British though - Irish the victims, British the villains;

mainly shot in Ireland (but also Scotland - tax breaks were a key consideration; the issue of state funding for cinema, or tax breaks, is a key one in the relative strength of domestic, as opposed to American imports, cinema);

a co-production, with the UKFC, Irish Film Board, various European co's and small UK Indies among the 17 companies to co-finance the production - see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460989/companycredits

the director was English.

So: British, Irish (or even just 'European')? There is no definitive answer, but it is interesting that with the exception of The Guardian, UK newspapers were extremely hostile towards the film: although it was historically accurate, it dared to challenge the established narrative that the Irish were violent terrorists and the British innocent victims of these savage people. Noam Chomsky would call this criticism 'flak', one of the 'five filters' he argued made up the 'propaganda model' (read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model)

Mickybo & Me

(Terry Loane, 2004 - $5m [approx £3m]. UK box office £172,336!!! No release elsewhere. 1 week's release at Edinburgh International Film Festival + in N.Ireland, peaking at 28 screens [IMDB] [Wiki])

Also in Lib.
An excellent WT2 film that NBC-Universal and its subsidiary StudioCanal decided not to fund for a distribution that would mean expensive prints for cinemas and the cost of advertising and marketing ... despite its success at film festivals and positive critical reception.
Is this what YOU think of when the term 'British cinema' is raised? Why do you think it failed to get a full cinema release?

Factors in Britishness then:

British director;

British setting;

British characters and cast;

Mix of UK (WT2), US (Universal) and European (StudioCanal) funding, with additional finance from film boards in NI and RofI/Eire. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388154/companycredits

The problem here was an unwillingness to gamble further funds on a film set in N.Ireland featuring strong NI accents. NI is British as part of the UK, but not what 'we'/you think of when using the term British. 

Consider the narrative of this film: two young boys from the 1970s are obsessed with a film and start to act it out. Now consider the following film...

Vloggers + UGC rivalling studios + conglomerates?

Certainly not a new topic this, although I haven't completed adding tags to the entire archive of posts, you'll see that 'UGC' (user-generated content) is a common topic (and I'll have a look to add 'vlogger' where appropriate: video-based bloggers).

Gradually being updated - use the tag clouds!

I blog again on this as its a topic we've been discussing in recent lessons, and I've reflected on in recent posts. As Media students today, the demands on and expectations of you are higher than in the past - with the technology at your fingertips, there is an expectation of at least 'prosumer' levels of quality, ideally there being no clear indication (or anchorage) of your work as student productions at all.

Fragment of a past post on this topic.

The skills you're developing are highly marketable and valuable:

Richard Ayaode autobiography (Warp: Submarine director)

Its not quite an autobio, apparently more of a humour book though framed on his film work...

As I type, he's being interviewed on Stuart Maconie's BBC R6 show (from 1:30 if you want to try it on the iPlayer). He describes it as an affectionate spoof of the Truffaut on Hitchcock book (the great French director interviewed Hitchcock, and the book is a straightforward transcript).

Can't see any reviews, though as its out on October 2nd I'm sure you'll quickly find a fair few on Amazon next week. The only (user) review I could find reckons its funny - but that the joke stretches a wee bit thin. Any insight/views would be welcomed...

YOU/audience are the product: Julian Assange

When we consider audience theory in Media Studies, the degree of flux and changing views on this is quickly evident, and a major theme in itself. Which, if any, of the long-established audience theories continue to hold true in the digital age, the web 2.0 era? Is it enough to write of "the former audience", Dan Gillmor's (2011) striking phrase? David Gauntlett even went as far as to declare the "end of audience studies" (2007, 2011), although Julian McDougall's (2009, in a very readable, student-friendly book) more moderate point that audiences are fragmenting, making it more difficult to meaningfully analyse or discuss/define audiences, is perhaps more useful.

There are those who see the blurring of the audience/producer line as full of democratic promise, not least Gillmor, though Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture (2008) is perhaps the most striking statement of this.

Is Jenkins too utopian, optimistic? [image source]

Warp's £5m+ '71

(click through on to YouTube for the StudioCanalUK page)

I'll blog again on '71, Warp's highest-budget production to date, reportedly (Screen) around £5m ($8.1m), but take note for now that it is officially released on Friday October 10th, with screenings at the National Media Museum in Bradford amongst others:

I'm hoping to attend the 615 Friday screening - keep an eye out for any marketing of this film; if you spot any billboards or cinema stands, take a snap and pass on a picture!

UPDATE: DVD INTERVIEW JANN DEMANGE [Filmmakers' responsibility with representations; his own background/compare to Elizabeth; Film v TV; prioritising the grey or polysemy]

Would we really expect anything less from Warp ... the DVD (out March 9th; cinema release was October 10th 2014) has some useful extras: interviews with the lead, director and screenwriter. The following aren't quite verbatim, but quite close:

We have a real responsibility making films. This was about a really painful period in many people's lives, and we had to keep that thought and not just make choices for audience entertainment.

He raises his background - you could usefully compare this to Shekhar Kapur getting the gig for Elizabeth (Indian, no knowledge of the era!), an instance of WT taking a big commercial risk (that paid off handsomely: a $30m film that made $82m and spawned a sequel/franchise).

I'm not your natural choice for this film: my background is French-Algerian, I grew up in London, I'm not even a WASP. But I wanted to focus on the story of the challenges facing young men, not make a political film. It was very important to me to bring out the shades of grey with all the different players, and I made this clear when negotiating with the producers. I have no links to Belfast, it was the screenplay that drew me to this.
Working with television you have much more time to draw out an epic character arc, whereas in film its a mere snapshot and you have to work to make every moment count.

UPDATE: DVD/BLU-RAY SLEEVE DESIGN
Rather stumbled upon this, but very useful context, and real micro-level detail:

I started working on the initial packshot for ’71 back in August 2014 and the final artwork files have just been sent. It’s rare for me to spend so long on an individual title (unless the delays are due to production issues!).
The Blu-ray and DVD packaging has gone down a slightly different route to the Steelbook release. Although using the theatrical artwork as its base, we wanted to create something that had a more military feel. The colours were adjusted and a new textures were added to the background, giving it the khaki texture. There’s also a little adjustment to the composition in “’71” as well a colour change. Both the Blu-ray and DVD releases have a cardboard o-ring sleeve, which has an overall matt varnish with spot UV gloss. The Blu-ray has a cut down O-ring, which shows the black Blu-ray case at the top.

Source: Rogue4 Design.

Khaki colourscheme the key to this design

(NORTH LEEDS LIFE): WARP MOST IMPORTANT FILM CO OUTSIDE LONDON?
Great quote here, and a useful one to use in an essay:

“The acclaim for Yann Demange’s ’71 comes as no surprise”, said Hugo Heppell, Head of Investments at Screen Yorkshire and Executive Producer on ‘71. “Its selection for Official Competition at the Berlin Film Festival is much deserved recognition for Yann, Angus, Robin and the whole team at Warp. We are immensely proud to have supported Warp over the last ten years and to see it now as the most significant film production company outside London.”

'British' Cinema? Some egs to consider

With the Scottish referendum looming, this question could become ever more complex, but we need to think when using the term British to describe cinema that may be as much American, or more accurately linked with one of the UK nations/regions.

here's a few examples to consider:

Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)

Handmade Films, budget £1.1m, box office £0.5m UK, $1.5m US.

Typically unglamorous? Typical production finance issues - only rescued by Beatle George Harrison stepping in when the film was about to be abandoned! London features, though not a Southern setting in the main (albeit, the locals up north are portrayed as eccentric). A 'cult' movie.

Ali G Indahouse (Mark Mylod, 2002)

WT2, £5m. £10m, $0 ($27m)

American stylings and genre, though a satire of each and the UK fascination with US culture - it failed to get a US release nonetheless; few UK Indies ever do. The opening scene in gangland LA proved impossible to get insurance for - it alone swallowed up a good chunk of the budget. The Palace of Westminster is used as a key backdrop/location, although the drum'n'bass that fired up as Ali G drives (following the opening scene and over the opening titles) is likely to leave many non-UK viewers (and many of all ages here unfamiliar with that genre) a tad confused/bewildered!

DIGITISATION: Kevin Smith, podcast auteur?!

Jay and Silent Bob in Clerks; they've inspired a shoe range!

I'm not sure what traction the name has with today's teens, but for (some of!) my generation, Kevin Smith, a remarkably foul-mouthed film-maker who put together a classic/cult debut film for peanuts (Clerks, $28k!) whilst working full-time in a dead-end job, has made a remarkable claim about his status:

Filmmaking is the only art form where you say, "I wanna express myself. Give me $10m and Ben Affleck." ... But all along what I could do was talk. If podcasts were movies, I'd be up there with Spielberg, dude.

Read a Biskind interview here.

If it was now, I would have seen Slacker and written a blog about it or recorded a podcast. That would have been enough. The entire message of my career is that if you want to do it, you should try. I am a chimp and I built a career out of making films. And I don't even consider myself a film-maker! Oh yeah, and PS: neither do the critics.

For a film-maker who created the iconic/cult characters Jay and Silent Bob, and who has two decades of film-making behind him, that's quite a statement.
In a real sign of the times, he's currently in the UK touring a combination of a 60-min animation and a podcast recording!

Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures, which tracks the rise and fall of the Indies from the 80s to the mid-noughties (including glimpses of WT), frequently features Smith, whose up and down relationship with Miramax and its fierce co-head Harvey Weinstein tells you a lot about how the industry works (or malfunctions!) ... and is a sequel to arguably the best book ever written about cinema, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

The current (June/July 2014) tour is an indication that film may be undergoing a similar shift to the music industry, in which CDs are increasingly a secondary revenue stream compared to tours and merchandise. As is becoming a widespread music concert practice, there is a VIP option for keen fans:

The mini-tour even has an official sponsor! Screenshot from seesmod.com.

I've blogged on similar events on the MusiVidz blog (on the music industry/videos), but can also make a link to the book industry where, once again, there is a decline in sales of physical texts and publishers are looking to author tours as one means of replacing the lost revenue:

the rise of Amazon and the Kindle is transforming the nation's publishing institutions, which are being forced to seek new sources of revenue. As bookshops close, authors are embarking on rock star-style tours; the newly formed mega-publisher Penguin Random House sold 10,000 tickets for a reading tour by Caitlin Moran. The publisher is also turning one of its most famous characters, Peter Rabbit, into a cartoon and is seeking tie-ins with toymakers and chocolatiers.
Some publishers are looking at diversifying into new forms of content, for example by combining books, films and games into a new narrative genre. A new iPad thriller called The Craftsman, launched last year, turns the reader into the main character in a gothic, cinematic chiller.

(from this article on eBooks set to overtake print books by 2018)
  
You can read the full article below, or click here.

UK Cinema 2013 review - BFI key facts

You can find a wide range of BFI reports here (see screenshot below).

I've been reading through their 2013 Statistical Yearbook report - as its a cool 252 pages long, the following are just a few of the many points you can pick up from a skim or a more leisurely read yourself.

2013 BFI Yearbook - Selected Points

Note: Definition of ‘UK film’
For the purposes of this chapter, a UK film is one which is certified as such by the UK Secretary of
State for Culture, Media and Sport under Schedule 1 of the Films Act 1985, via the Cultural Test, under one of the UK’s bilateral co-production agreements or the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production, or a film which has not applied for certification but which is obviously British on the basis of its content, producers, finance and talent. Most UK films in the analysis (including the major studio-backed films) fall into the first group – films officially certified as British. [p.76; see longer quote at the end]

Only the US and Japan have a larger 'filmed entertainment' market than the UK (valued at £4bn).

Convergence + digitisation

def. of convergence: the concept of the distinctions between once distinct media platforms/institutions collapsing under the influence of new media and the ongoing processes of digitisation. For example, a typical newspaper (print) now offers web content, including podcasts (radio?), video (TV?), blogs etc

To further explore and explain this several additional terms are used; note all opportunities to utilise terminology for your exam! 'Digitisation' is explored below.

NB: I have posted on this topic many times since creating this post some years back!!! http://mediabritishcinema.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/convergence

Thats how I'd define 'convergence', an especially important concept for Media Studies and your AS exam, as so many consequences flow from this both in terms of how audiences access and consume/interact with the media and the institutions that produce, distribute and market media products.
(The exam board pick out 4 areas you need to be able to discuss with reference to your case studies - WT v Warp, + a brief comparison of both to the big 6 blockbuster Avatar - production, distribution, marketing + 'exchange' [the point at which an audience buys/consumes, perhaps co-creates, a text])

FURTHER DEFINITIONS + RESOURCES ON CONVERGENCE
Here's a vid which further explores the idea

It is a concept which has been discussed for some years now, with its consequences and whether its an entirely good thing seen as up for debate:

Perhaps we will reach a point of consolidation when the pace of technological change slows and the audience catches up, but at the moment most companies with both offline and online enterprises still see the vast majority of their revenues and costs lying with their traditional, offline businesses. Yet they are increasingly aware that this will tip in the opposite direction in the middle distance. So how should the transfer be managed?
... What we will see from media companies are assumptions about the dominant medium, be it print or TV, transferred to the newly converged online world without adequate recognition that the two are completely different entities. (Emily Bell: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jul/15/comment.media)

4 Weddings Reunion

Listen yourselves here.

Students aren't exactly a prime demographic for BBC Radio 4, so its a fairly safe bet that none of you were listening to the latest episode of The Reunion, a series which brings back together those involved in major cultural, sporting and news events to reflect. This saw the director, producer and several of the cast reunited, along with archive material of Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, the great Barry Norman on Film 94, and so forth.

At the time of writing you can still listen to it yourselves through the iPlayer.

UPDATE: GUARDIAN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR/PRODUCER TO MARK 20TH ANNIVERSARY

SAMPLE QUOTE:
"A fabulous object, says Curtis, as Kenworthy heaves out a huge, leatherbound folder. It's the size and weight of a couple of Britannicas – a shooting schedule filled with miniature detail about the day-to-day demands on cast and crew. The volume, Kenworthy explains, is a relic of pre-computer film scheduling. "Four Weddings was on the cusp of old-style British film-making," Curtis adds. "It was the last movie I worked on that was cut on [original] film stock, not computer. I've always been grateful that it was shot by Mike in such a lively, gritty way. It's a sketch movie, and he directed it as if it were a drama."

A few interesting points from the R4 feature - though this is obviously far from a 'contemporary example' it is still useful to help to grasp how the industry operates, and to get a feel for how student productions do echo some characteristics of major feature film shoots!

• Given the role the film played in laying the foundation for the phenomenal success of Working Title as the leading UK film production company (discounting the Potter/Bond franchises), its easy to forget how very, very modest the budget was: just $4.5m (about £2.5-3m).
• Director Newell recalls how this meant even basic reshoots were generally impossible, and most shots had to be done 1st take - student filmmakers actually work under less (financially-directed) pressure than this! Unlike Newell and producer Duncan Kenworthy (his involvement predates WT picking up the film for development; he played the main role in putting together an attractive package, with name stars, tight script and distributor-friendly director attached), you're not considering the cost of overtime for salaried crew, plus catering, travel and accomodation costs and how to cover this from a budget which is already carefully calculated to see you through the entire production!

Anita Elberse (2013) Blockbusters - must-read book?

"Because people are inherently social," the Harvard business professor Anita Elberse points out, "they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do." What's more, and equally understandably: "People have a taste for winners: if, say, a book is popular and has been widely discussed in the media, consumers have more reason to read it." [from Guardian review]

Scroll down for sample quotes and review snippets, such as Bloomberg's fairly critical view

Use the look inside feature for a preview

I'd recommend at the very least sampling this, a book that basically argues that the tentpole strategy (or blockbuster as she terms it) is vital for any and all modern media/entertainment giants. Her examples take in music, film and other media, but also widen out to incorporate 'entertainment' industries such as football, looking at the examples of Barcelona and Real Madrid, and the latter's 'galacticos' strategy.

She very convincingly picks out examples of major conglomerates that have tried more austere, penny-pinching approaches ... and shows, with forensic financial detail, how disastrous this invariably proved.

Interesting that she's not simply referring to production, but also as much about distribution, and the marketing muscle and capacity to make very widely available and prominently placed a given release, Lady Gaga being one such example she dissects.

You can preview some samples by using Amazon's 'look inside' feature, or GoogleBooks (add keywords related to cinema, music or whichever industry you're most interested in to get the most relevant sections), and its for sale as a Kindle book too.

Here's a few snippets from various articles/reviews:

"Because people are inherently social," the Harvard business professor Anita Elberse points out, "they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do." What's more, and equally understandably: "People have a taste for winners: if, say, a book is popular and has been widely discussed in the media, consumers have more reason to read it." [Guardian review]

Fanbase not Audience the future say YouTube

Various web 2.0 theorists have signified the end of the old analogue/early digital producer-consumer paradigm through such bold statements as "the former audience" ... now one YouTube's top honchos says we should abandon the very term audience, with its links to scheduled programming, and think in fanbase terms instead...
Simon Cowell and Disney are picked out as exemplars of the new more copyright-flexible order, in which UGC is seen as benefitting copyright-holders, not cannibalising their revenue streams.

“An audience tunes in when they're told to, a fanbase chooses when and what to watch,” said Carloss at the MIPTV television industry conference in Cannes. “An audience changes the channel when their show is over. A fanbase shares, it comments, it curates, it creates.”
...
He also praised Simon Cowell’s You Generation brand, a YouTube-focused global talent show, and Disney for the way it encouraged fans of its film Frozen to post their own cover versions of its songs on YouTube. One by musician Alex Boyé has been watched more than 30m times.
“The studio could have very easily issued copyright claims against this video and any others and taken them down, but they made a different choice: a fan-friendly choice. They chose to let those videos stay,” said Carloss, suggesting that the buzz around Frozen on YouTube contributed to its strong performance at the box office.
“Creators everywhere can make the choice Disney did. Allow fans to pay tribute, and you will see the incredible benefits of their passion.”

A lot of this closely echoes some of the arguments put forward by Anita Elberse (a Harvard economist) in her fascinating (a highly recommended read) book Blockbusters, published in December 2013.

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.

Male Gaze: Stop leering at Scarlett Johansson!

That's the plea from Bronwen Clune, a feminist critic writing in The Guardian, fed up with encountering profiles of female celebrities which linger on their bodies, and describe them in excessive detail. She specifically name-checks the male gaze theory:

We’re all familiar with the concept of the “male gaze”, particularly when it comes to Hollywood film – the lens lingering on the curves of leading ladies’ derrieres (Lane talks of Johansson’s “contours” of reputation) – a scopophilic guilty pleasure. And, let’s face it, women’s bodies are delightful things to look at, one of the reasons media executives conveniently argue that the economics of the industry make it impossible to avoid stereotypes of women.
But when respected male writers profile powerful women, is it wrong that we should expect more than lengthy, voyeuristic wet dreams? In the cases of both Hardy and Johansson, the writers of their profiles are accomplished and well-regarded. Their audiences, a “new intelligentsia”, are likely to congratulate themselves on their progressive values. Their subjects are powerful and sexually subversive women. Yet in both cases the women are reduced to something resembling not much more than titillating, slightly fearsome, but ultimately decorative objects.

She notes how one actress was described as having "nice tits" - something the male writer even went as far as to confirm with her housemate - and goes on to note:

I’m reading a profile of Scarlett Johansson by Anthony Lane where she appears as if “made from champagne”, her laugh “dry and dirty, as if this were a drama class and her task was [sic] to play a Martini” and her backside, “barely veiled in peach-colored underwear”. As Slate points out this is not the first time Johansson has inspired “culture writers to do horrible things with words”

Does this chime with your experience? Do you think seemingly respectable highbrow media (as opposed to tabloid press/TV) are just as guilty of needless objectification? Any examples you want to share?

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'.

Comparing WT's Wild Child with Warp's Submarine

There are links lists for both companies on this blog!!!

Some useful links for each film:

WILD CHILD:
IMDB page (for rating, budget, some box office data, cast etc);
Wiki;
RottenTomatoes.com (for reviews and ratings);
Trailer (look for it in this playlist);










 
SUBMARINE:
IMDB page (for rating, budget, some box office data, cast etc);
Wiki;
RottenTomatoes.com (for reviews and ratings);
Trailer (look for it in this playlist);














SOME FACTS ABOUT THE FILM INDUSTRY YOU COULD CONSIDER:

1. NO film 'grossed' (took in from total cinema ticket sales) over £50m in 2013
2. Only TWO of the top THIRTY UK cinema box office hits of 2013 were British, including Les Miserables which is only marginally 'British'
3. The rest are American!
4. The combined cinema takings (box office) of all films released in the UK in 2013 was £1.17bn - its a big business!
5. Of the current top ten at the UK box office, only THREE have made over £10m since their release
6. If a film is budgeted over £10m, it almost certainly needs to include factors which will help it appeal to audiences in the US and elsewhere outside of the UK
7. The 'Gant rule' (which is generally fairly accurate!) states that a US box office hit will make around 10 times as much money as a UK box office hit
8. You can generally multiply the number of screens by 10 too!
9. As Disney's $250m mega-flop John Carter showed, there are NO guarantees in the film business, no matter how many stars or how much money you throw at a film - especially if the marketing is as messed up as it was for this film!
10. However ... as 2008's £10m budget Slumdog Millionaire showed, you can sometimes make serious box office despite picking unpopular genres, unknown cast and unlikely settings!

Surprised to find this...

...
 

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]

Yule be watching... Xmas movie traditions in the digital age

Any comments/suggestions (including links)? Add a comment and I'll look out for further links/clips to embed at the bottom of this post

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In this article I'll look at some of the movies we most associate with Xmas; why TV channels seem to keep the biggest turkeys for Xmas Day; and Xmas movie traditions around the world. We start with Love Actually and Elf and bad news for C4...

It's something I've become fairly oblivious to - when I do get back home for a family Xmas gathering, music shows tend to be the compromise viewing - but there are many well established Yuletide movies, screened and keenly viewed year after year. An email from Mrs Morgan alerting me to this article reminded me of this curious tradition; it has become newsworthy that Elf won't be on free-to-air terrestrial TV this year, but rather Sky Movies, who have taken up the UK TV rights from under the nose of C4.

I've blogged on Mr Curtis' questionable output on many previous occasions, eg here; however, there is no doubting the phenomenal commercial success of Curtis, regardless of the representation issues raised

My childhood memories of Xmas TV are dominated by the Bond movie reruns (and the Top of the Pops Xmas specials!) ... but also, when I was really young, of this very, very dated kids movie being shown every year (and I always insisted on watching it!): Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973)

Curtisland goes to sea

This is a post copied across from an A2 blog.
Scroll to the end for a great powerPoint on TBTRocked
see http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A23243906 for a useful, brief guide on RC's career
Be aware that while animated it is somewhat explicit, but the Monkey Dust cartoon Curtisland is a rather ingenious critique of the issues around Curtis' white-washed movie representations

[UPDATED JUNE 9TH - SEE END]
Opening title for The Boat That Rocked:

IT'S 1966. THE GREATEST ERA FOR BRITISH ROCK'N'ROLL

Not England. Britain. And it's set on a boat in the North Sea. ... Yet, even in this scenario, there are no Scots, no N.Irish, no Welsh; the only variety from S.Eng characters comes from an American (a US star, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, in to help sell to a US audience), a Southern Irishman and an Australian character.

Bechdel Test becomes ratings system in Sweden

The Harry Potter series would fail, so too the Star Wars franchise ... Sweden has made an interesting move in introducing a Bechdel ratings system. Currently run by one organisation, a state rating board has expressed a positive view on this.
Read more here.

Inside: Hollywood blurring audience/producer; are YOU?

'Social film': blurring audience/ad/producer divide

In time, we'll consider various web 2.0 theories that typically argue that the contemporary, highly interactive (as opposed to top-down, one way) web is seeing the traditional dividing line between audience/consumer and producer wither away. Concepts such as UGC (user-generated content) and fan-made videos (a key revenue source for YouTube and record labels, through the advertising attached to these) have become very mainstream. Viral campaigns also present ads as fictional or reality texts (including music videos, not just film/'reality' clips).

The fiasco of Snakes on a Plane showed that democratising and outsourcing creative work to an audience (in that case in an effort to create money-spinning buzz and awareness) can be a disaster, but we will most certainly see more and more of this. I've blogged elsewhere about examples of film production company Working Title's slick marketing campaign for films such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which used online (spy-style) puzzles as part of multimedia campaign spanning supermarkets, posters and other such traditional fare with social media elements.

If you watch the short video below (3mins), ask yourself where the line is drawn here between audience and producer, and film and advertising (the title meshes with Intel's slogan, Intel inside), with the audience given chances to appear in the film and shape the script, whilst the blogs and other online videos and guides that sprang became part of the meta-text (a postmodern theory term).

Then ask yourself what use YOU are making of social media for producing your work. Have YOU used social media for...

• casting?
• initial genre/audience research through fan forums?
• generating pre-release buzz through a company blog/FB/Twitter/Instagram (etc!)?
• gaining audience feedback through any of the above (and YouTube/Vimeo of course)?
• used tagging/labels in Blogger/YouTube etc to attract more hits to help with the above?
• tried YouTube video responses/messages/comments to link to other film/video-makers?
• designed a viral-style campaign element which helps to involve an audience and increase publicity/awareness?
• generated and used a QR code as part of this?
• generally considered options for direct audience involvement in/influence on your production?

This is the film Inside, which is itself a good example of the viral methods used by conglomerates these days to get through to ad-weary and wary consumers (Toshiba and Intel were behind this movie): IMDB, Wiki, links to their FB/website etc are in this article. They coined the term 'social film' for this approach.

Prominence of student work on YouTube

I've blogged previously on the growing number of made-for-fun short horror films on YouTube (especially zombie flicks), reflecting the ongoing impact of digitisation and the accessibility of digital film-making today, but its worth noting too how the battalions of Media Studies students across the land are leaving their own legacy. As students conduct research into their chosen genre before setting out to create their own genre piece, increasingly they could be accessing other students' distilled research to do so!

When doing some tagging on archive posts I came across a mention of how prominent my students' work was on YouTube search results - so, a year or so on, I had another look, and sure enough, a 'slasher openings' on YouTube (Nov 15th 2013) produced the following top results:

IGS student work came top of the pile in this search

You can help make your work more widely seen by using YouTube categories and tagging.

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.

Global, not US, market dominates Hollywood (Obst, 2013)

Look out for useful terminology/neologisms below: pre-awareness and tentpoles and tadpoles

$101m global box office, $21m budget (1993)

A few useful nuggests from this article by Phil Hoad, which highlights and critiques some of the points raised by one-time Hollywood hit producer Lynda Orbst in her bio (given an excoriating review by an unimpressed David Thomson, here), but the really important point concerns WHY Hollywood has turned to tentpole CGI/SFX spectaculars, usually within franchises and/or using 'pre-known' brands/books.

Her line of attack, that Hollywood has wrongly turned its back on medium budget concept movies, where the script, not CGI, is king, is a common one - especially from industry veterans...

If it wasn't startling enough when, in 2011, Universal president Ron Meyer commented on the amount of "shitty movies" on his own slate, founding fathers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas stepped up in the same week as Obst's book was published to denounce Hollywood's blockbuster dependency. ... The reckoning – led by baby boomers attacking the recent homogenisation drive in mainstream films – has exposed a generation gap in Hollywood.

Digitisation emerges as one key cause in this shift:

the shrinking of DVD revenue in the mid-noughties halved the studios' profit margins and reduced their appetite for risk

Audience previews: 'A degrading, revolting film'

The UK poster

I've blogged previously on how BJD initially looked doomed at its key stateside preview, with Miramax's head honcho Harvey Weinstein sat in with a US audience utterly baffled by the film's opening, with its very UK-centric turkey curry references (only for Colin Firth's oh-so-hilarious reindeer jumper to set the place roaring and BJD on to franchise fortunes).

Here's an example of a test audience utterly loathing the Alex Cox (Indie auteur) movie they'd just seen - usually a kiss of death, killing off any hopes of a distribution deal, but not in this case...

[Sid and Nancy] had a preview in LA - one of those events where the invited audience fills out forms and answers a studio's questions. these were some of the responses from the preview audience:
I feel this film was totally evil.

Eric Fellner pre-WT: sleazy pop vids?

Co-founder Sarah Radclyffe left WT in 1992 when they effectively became a Polygram subsidiary (albeit with operational independence), and Eric Fellner stepped in to join the other co-founder Tim Bevan, an immensely successful partnership that continues to tower over British cinema 2 decades on.
Here's the incomparable Indie auteur Alex Cox* on Fellner, who he crossed paths with around the time (1985) Bevans and WT were releasing My Beautiful Laundrette, the company's 1st feature. Cox was in pre-production for Love Kills, later renamed Sid and Nancy, a typically warped, slightly surreal biopic of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen ...