RESEARCH: THE BUSINESS OF FILM

In the UK, the BFI and its predecessor the UK Film Council, have published a number of reports on the economic and cultural value of film. Recently, they made a report on economic impact which found that film contributed £3.67 billion to the UK economy. Studies on the cultural impact of film have shown how films, can be extremely significant for people, giving them insight into other people's cultures as well as making them generally aware of both current and past issues around the world


Many films perform well at award ceremonies, including the BAFTAS as well as the more popular US Academy Awards (also known as the OSCARs). This is a source of pride for the UK, and is one of reasons that there are so many Hollywood stars that are British because their high talent gets recognised through award ceremonies such as this. Another increasingly important aspect of film and screen production is tourism. Film tourism is defined as "visiting a place that features in a film or television programme", and is becoming more popular with the increasing number of films produced Approximately £840 million of tourism spending by overseas visitors can be attributed to film-induced tourism. An example of successful film/tv tourism is through Game of Thrones, which shoots on location in Northern Ireland. Locations from the show are advertised through tourism agencies and has raised £8.6 million for Northern Ireland's economy.



The benefits of inward investment include that there is a knock on effect for individuals working on a film from producers to camera crew as more money is being made through the investment. The fact that many films are funded by the lottery means that they can easily obtain the money to successfully train crew members of a film as well as using more money for distribution, thus reaching far more people who are abroad.


In the film industry, the term ‘value chain’ is used to describe the series of steps that run from the first creative spark that starts the film-makers thinking about the project to the end of the commercial life of the completed feature film. The value chain is extremely important in the production of film, and it consists of development, finance, pre-pre production, production, distribution, exploitation.


Development - Hire director, option agreement, hire casting director, certify as british
,premilinary budget, secure key cast,hire writer
Finance - Secure development finance, prepare estimates
Production - Secure rights,pre-production, principal photography, post-production
Distribution - Broadcast license, Video/DVD/VoD licensing
Concept Origination - Find ideias.
Exploitation - Download to own, Cinema exhibition, DVD rental and Sales,
Creative Packaging - Marketing campaign
 

RESEARCH: TWITTER

In order to plan for the making of my film and the ways in which it can be distributed, I made a specialist Twitter account for my Media Course, which I can utilise as a vehicle for the distribution of my film opening.


One of the reasons that Twitter is extremely successful as a Social Media distribution platform is due to how, according to Alan Rusbridger, "It's where things happen first". When an important event happens, people can take to Twitter to essentially live stream a particular event, and its high number of registered users  means that news spreads very quickly, even more so due to its use of hashtags which can group posts about the same topic together. Although it has a character limit of 140 characters per tweet, the most tweeted things are often hyperlinks or images, which spread extremely far with the retweet option, which enables users to share other people's tweets, which is extremely useful to distribution as a famous figure could retweet a tweet about a film, thus reaching all of the followers said famous person has, making it a key form of distribution among the film industry.






https://twitter.com/tomsmediaalevel

RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE: DEADPOOL

THE TITLE SEQUENCE OPENS HERE

The opening to Deadpool opens with a close up freeze frame which gradually fades out, revealing the utter state of carnage that the anti-heroic protagonist has left upon the (presumably) hired goons that are featured in the extract. This is very effective as it immediately immerses the audience in the comedic and (often violent) style of the Deadpool comics, thus keeping the film faithful to the source material even from square one.








In an unusually inventive and refreshing style, the opening credits to the film are depicted in the freeze frame with comedic twists to them, as rather than stating the names of the people involved in the film, the titles are replaced with tongue-in-cheek jabs at Hollywood stereotypes for example another 'British villain' and an 'overpaid director', bluntly telling the audience 'what they really believe' about the people who worked on the film, as well as describing archetypal characters in the film rather than by name. Soundtrack is also used to great effect in the opening as all diegetic sound is faded out, and the music used is the song 'Angel of the morning', which completely contrasts the carnage in the scene as the choice of song is very calm and classical, which evokes comedy when it is played over the scenes of destruction and violence.


In an interview with Tim Miller featured on Art of the Title, he states that in order to get around the requirements of a named cast and crew, if they didn't name a single person in the opening they wouldn't get into legal trouble whereas they would if they named one person but no one else, then legal action could be taken. Tim stated that "It was an issue that was discussed, but it ended up not being a problem because no one had real credits. So they weren’t treated like real credits. If we had “Ryan Reynolds” up there then we would have created a problem." Tim also went on to further discuss the challenges and joys of working on the sequence, for example the creative freedom they had due to its use of complete CGI was extremely useful in keeping the creative team motivated and pleased with the result as they had such a fixed idea of what they wanted to include, and this certainty ultimately shows in the end result as its seamless execution and the clean flow of shots into one another creates perfect comedic timing as well as perfect exposition, which makes the Deadpool opening one of the best I've seen due to how it differs from your typical AA Superhero film opening like Captain America: Civil War, which is much bleaker and simpler with a darker palette in contrast to Deadpool's humour and ability not to take itself too seriously

Marc Riboud, an introduction to A - Level Media

In todays lesson (Wednesday September 7th), we decided to look at photographer Marc Riboud's representations of society to introduce ourselves to the A Level Media Course. We covered aspects of the four key concepts: Representation, Media Language, Audiences and Institutions. We studied the photographs of Marc Riboud as his obituary had recently appeared in the Times, we deconstructed the representation of a 16 year old girl holding up a flower to ranks of armed US soldiers positioned as if to strike against her. The picture was taken in Washington in 1967, during the Vietnam War.





In the image, a young girl wearing floral pattern clothing is seen holding up a flower in a wide shot, whilst a barrage of soldiers pointing bayonet-like weapons towards her. One significant detail that I noticed in the photograph is the quality of the image, with the girl being depicted in crystal clear camera quality, which contrasts the soldiers she is facing, who are all depicted in relatively low resolution and picture quality. This connotes that Riboud is drawing a parallel between war and peace. The 'peacekeeping' girl is clear and refined whereas the 'warmongering' soldiers are skewed and unclear, which outlines Riboud's attitudes that war is always unclear and flawed, whereas peace involves clarity and a consistent aim. The blur of the soldiers in the image can also be considered to be soldiers represented as nameless and faceless, thus linking to the futility of war and the mass loss of life. The flower that the girl is holding is a heavy contrast to the weaponry held by the soldiers, as the flower represents innocence and life as opposed to the death surrounded by the weaponry.

RESEARCH: PIKTOCHART ON AUDIENCES