language & history

Through this image you can start to presume when the film was set from the clothing that the actors are wearing in the shot, The lady she has a half turned up hat which would of been seen as more of an 1930's era, then also has an ermine placed over her shoulder that is made from some sort of animal fur, which would of cost quite a bit of money back in the day showing that she is a fairly wealthy woman. We can presume this from another prop which is hanging from around her neck, the pearls. These are still an expensive item to date today so would of been very pricey in the 30's as well.
From the shot of the man you can not see that much of what he is wearing but can see that he has a smart suit on, this is a statement that is still worn today when wanted to been seen as smart so'd think that he was going to impress at this party, i've presumed that this is a party because there is two gentleman in the background of the image, one to whom is wearing like a servants outfit with which looks like it has golden stripes down it so would work for a wealthy family. He is serving a drink to the other man in the image who also has dressed to impress on his night out, suited and booted in shirt and tie. As both gentleman have drinks I would of thought that they are at some sort of party or ball.

The Kings Speech
From these images that were advertising the film The Kings Speech you can see the balance between the image and text, this is a very British film you can see this straight away how they have chosen to use what would be said as very British words such as "marvellous and enthralling""majestic" stereotypically you can see an wealthy upper class British lady speaking in this way. Then you have Collin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in both of the posters who both played an massive part in the film that has been a massive success and there is not much between the Kings Speech and Slum dog Millionaire, at the minute Slum dog has made more money but The Kings Speech has won more awards, so there's nothing in it at the minute. On both of the posters they have the layout very similar with just the just the text that has changed between either of them, the title, date of release and named actors have all stayed in the same place though so you will become familiar with the posters.

Institution and Audience

1. What is Film4's remit, its reason and purpose for being?

Channel 4 has a unique way looking for the best institutional model results in a unique relationship with audiences, programme suppliers, advertisers and policymakers. Channel 4's remit it's reason for being is the provision of a broad range of high quality to the viewer also diversing quality programming they also demonstrate innovation, experiment and creativity in the form and content of programmes; appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society; makes a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value; and exhibits a distinctive character.

2. What types of films are green-lighted by Film4?

Film 4 have produced many films being fairly succesfull for a small production company some of theese films include well known films like Shaun of The Dead, Borat, Deep Water, 127 hours which was recently released in the uk and did very well in the viewing charts. There is many others aswell, Film 4 seem not to focus on one specific genre but a range of different genres to attract lot's of different audiences like it says in there remit.

3. Why is Tessa Ross regarded as "the mother of British film-making" ?

Ross began her career in the theatre before joining the literary agency Anthony Shiel Associates. She joined the BBC as a script editor and worked her way up through the corporation before joining Channel 4 as head of drama in 2000. She later went on to direct Slumdog Millionaire which was awarded 4 awards at the golden globe, the mother of British film making Tessa Ross stayed slouched in her seat when theese awards were presented. But she was more responsible than anyone else for making this film such a success. Someone quoted Tess Ross has become like a mother figure to Britain's film industry, nurturing new talent and nursing more established directors who might be feeling unloved. She is not uncomfortable with being seen in a maternal role. "I'd like that, I think that's the right way, isn't it?" she says. "It's all about nurturing. This should be a very cosy place, it should be the safe place. If you can't make mistakes here at home, where can you?" she now has been nominated for a massive 20 golden globes.

4.  How much is Film4's yearly budget and how much of it did "Slumdog Millionaire take up?

Film 4's budget has just been raised to 15million a year, down to the fact that slumdog millionaire was such a hit. This budget rise has been gaurented to last for at least 5 years and the progarmming budget has already pledged to increase it's budget to 50million. Slumdog Millionaire took up nearly all of the annual budget costing around 8 million.

5. Why does Film4 form partnerships with other companies/individuals?

Film 4 try to form partnerships with companies/individual for many reasons including, one of the main reasons for theese partnerships is so that they can bring more money in to the company giving them a bigger film budget. Another reason for theese partnerships is that if the film does not receive alot of attention, and is a complete failure then there can be slpit blame for this, taking some of the critisim of there shoulder.

Kick Ass - The Movie

Kick Ass is one of the most successful British films to be released,  the film was based on world famous comic book Marvel. The chief writer of Marvel Mark Millar having been the Director of the film 'Wanted' managed to make $350 million, this would of gave him some very useful experience which will help him gratefully with the making of Kick Ass. Matthew Vaughan had some problems with the script of the film, he wanted to have the girl as the lead but this would a total change to the comic, would it work ?


Because this film was British Matthew had to try and produce a film that would make money with a very low budget, In which he would be able to hire the best actors, so the film would be at a disadvantage because big actors attract big audiences, so Matthew went out and raised £30 million on his own to help the film along. Even though Sony distributed the film despite the fact that they were not happy with some of the language used.


The director Matthew Vaughan in a interview is talking about how the British directors are great leaders and great film directors but the British film industry is just dead because we just have no money to produce the top films have behind them,  but he said that he had to go out and find a budget because people were being lazy and stupid about it. Kick ass should help showing that a little bit more money is coming back into england and could be the biggest film industry within just 3 years. Kick Ass  scenery is set in Manhattan but director Matthew would prefer to shot in London, Elstree Studio using a huge green screen so that special effects can be added to the scene, this will also save money because they would of had to hire out parts of Manhattan which would of been very expensive, keeps it british as well.


When the recored all the sound there was so much attention payed on little things, so that he could get the best results and also they would not have to re record the sound later on if they got spot on. Because this would of involved recapturing the moment as well and this can be difficult to get it like the original shot. When the original was shot though that it created some competition for the US to make something sound scope.


There was a lot of controversy around the film because there was a young girl in the film, who had be taught by her dad to do marshal arts and stuff like that, The girl was  the age of 11  when filming and there was lot's of violent scene's where she is stabbing people and shooting them, blood and guts. Also there is some foul language, one of the scene's she says "come on you c***"maybe they should of got an older girl to play the role of the assassin,  when Matt showed Sony the film they said that they needed to tone down some of the language that had been used. Despite this Matt didn't touch the final edit and released it with Sony still backing them. Doing this though gave the film a 15 rating, the film was aimed at 10-17 year old lads they had already lost half the audience.


The advertisement for this film wasn't great even though  they had a  decent little trailer made that showed a young lad that wanted to become a superhero in America. When he is stood in the mirror almost takes the Michael as they are just trying to rip another superhero film that has been released. It shows him being just a normally lad well he shown to be a bit of a geek, But then turns out he becomes quite a decent little superhero and finds a girlfriend but there's a twist. The film produced a lot of merchandise that including t-shirts, cups, calendars, magazines etc that would of helped sell the film and make money. On the opening weekend in the US Kick-Ass made $19.89 million in 3,065 cinemas. The films final gross in the US was $48, 071, 303 million and outside the US $47, 960, 570 million 


Another criticism that the film got was the soundtrack that had been created by John Murphy for another film with a wide range of different artists including prodigy, who make electronic music and then there was music in there from Elvis Presley who made rock, country music  40 years ago. This wasn't helping the producer or director because the film was being digged at for being a rip off another superhero film, They should of hired someone who was going to make a new soundtrack for the film from watching it through and seeing what suited which scene's.

Ethnicity

During Today's lesson we were asked  to think up some of some common stereotypes that some people have, this could include how they live, what they look like or something like what they do. Here are some that the class came up with, Mexicans all were sombrero's, they live in the dessert were there are lots of cactus's, all they eat is nachos and tortilla's.Irish have people stereotype them for all being gypsies, also people think that most Irish people are ginger, they have strong accents, and they all love Guinness.English people are targeted with things like underage drinking, chavs or youths causing trouble, they believe that you are either rich or poor no middle class, and people don't know the national anthem.Americans are believed to be very ignorant, people see Americans as being very overweight or underweight, all that eat is burgers and they have a crap sense of humour.The stereotype for black people is that they are more athletic and better built than white people, also people associate them with drug dealing which is not a good name to have.People think that Muslims are linked with terrorism, also they wear lots of headwear and don't show much skin, most people think that they eat curry everyday as well.

Different process between American and English directing companies

There is one clear difference between the two, the film budget this probbally determines whether the film may be a success or not, well that's too critical but the funding of the films will help make the film better in many different ways. The budget of the film makes everything happen though. The more money the higher payed actors you can hire, better filming sets etc. A big film like Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix had the budget of around £4.5 million and had no really well known actors, also most of the actors where mostly children and the set was mainly outdoors so would not of had to pay a high price to rent the areas out whereas a US film like Spiderman 2 which was wasn't a four quadrant film but still had a budget of $200 million, and would of been able to hire in some well known actors and some well known spots in Manhattan these would of attracted an audience.

There is some brilliant british actors and directors, but they all move to the US for the high pay that is over there. This is part the reason that there is not much as much success that comes from Britain because everything is pretty much produced in America. I think that if we had some more funding behind a British plot that we could create some great british films there has been some like, Shaun of the Dead, Slum dog millionaire, Hot Fuzz and much more.

A reason for American films making money as well as them having a massive budget, is down to the budget. They will have money to spend on advertising posters, television adverts, websites for the film, all of this will encourage the population to come and watch the film also the films will have all sorts of merchandise that will be sold everywhere you will not be able to get away from it, you got to eat you get a free toy, your travelling to work theres a poster on the bus shelter, you go to shop and there's clothes out as-well, the list goes on. One of the most well known highest budget British films ever was the Harry Potter series, this had a large budget though for a UK film all the filming was set in the UK, Harry Potter has been played by Daniel Radcliffe, who was unheard off before starting to film for Harry Potter, was this because he was a young actor or to save money ? I think the reason that this film got a lot larger budget is because of the fact that it came out as the book series first, this can be risky though. In 2004 American director Brad Silberling produced Lemony Snicket's A series of unfortunate events which had a budget of $140 million which is fairly low for a dreamwork production, but even though the film had all the advertising. I thought that the film plot and the film plot where slightly different as you can expect, but i thought the film was a flop.

Overall I would say that the American side of the production is more successful only because of the budgeting though, because there is British directors and actors working out there. They can just afford to hire out people who have bigger names, special effects teams who make the films have that extra bit sometimes. But the money doesn't always make the film work as I said about A series of unfortunate events earlier.

The Moon

The film Moon was a low budget British Si-Fi film about two men who get into trouble on the other side of the Moon on a space shuttle. The film included actor Sam Rockwell and also included Kevin Spacey, because of the low budget Kevin said to film director Duncan Jones 

if you've got a low budget i will come back later and then see if you can afford me and whether I like the plot, because this could of done some horrible things for his name. When Kevin came back to take a look at the film he loved the Idea, but he was only used for the voice of the robot 'Gerty' and was only voice overing for half a day this is one of the many ways that they lowered the price.

Some of the other ways that they reduced the price included filming from start to finish in just 33 days, When Duncan Jones was doing a interview in someones front room you could see that he wasn't experienced in directing, he was saying how long him took him, when the the interviewer interrupted telling him that is not long at all, school boy. Also things like not having real interviews shows how the film run with a very low budget because if it was a big film interviewers would be queuing up. The budget was set at £5,000,000, after the film had been made it took around £9,800,000 so the film had made but money but Duncan had to money back to the companies which would of added interest. I think in the interview that we watched Duncan said that he was still paying off some debt, selling some of the props to make money. 

Moon would of also not of had as many viewers as other films because of the genre, Sci-Fi because this is seen as nerdy and will have some abstract things in.  

Theorist's

Last week in Mrs lesson we were asked to get into small groups of 3-4

to make a powerpoint that would be shown to the class, the powerpoint was

going to be on a selected theorist that we were given, each group had a

different theorist, here's the notes.

Roland Bathes 

 He was born 12th November 1915,

and then died 1980.
He was a famous French theorist, philosopher, critic and semiotician
as well as having a full license in grammer and philosophy 
In 1953 he made a break through and got a full length work writing degree zero
He had theorise about cultural, action, symbolic and enigma 

Todorov
He was born 1st March 1939, died 1980
Throughout his career a writer had Influences from 

the 60's in his writing, In which he published 21 books.

Todorov had theories in which a story 

should start with an equal balance of forces.

So he would then put something to cause a stir which would 

have to be solved.

Vladimir Propp

Russian former socialist
He was born 1895, Petersburg and then died 22nd August 1970
Vladimir analysed basic plots components of some 
Russian folk stories. 
He liked using characters who were Heros, Villain, 
False Hero and the Donor.