BFI - Notes

Concept: Exchange

Cinema has a traditional model, customers pay for subscription/ticket in return for a cinema experience.

Types of Audience & Theatrical Distribution

• Art house: BFI,Independent cinemas; low budget films
• Multiplex: Large cinema chains; Vue & Odeon 
• Cross over

British Sub Genres

• Heritage: Nostalgic, Rose tinted view of British History
• Social Realism 
• Franchise Films: Offer similar audience pleasures to other blockbuster films and fulfills expectations of international audience 
• Horror: Tradition of going back to Gothic 
• Urban Fairy tale Rom Com 

Why do people watch British Films?

Uses and Gratifications for national audience?

• Information/Education: How do other British people live? What are the issues affecting the UK?
• Social Interaction: 'Crowd Pleasures' (social viewing), Oscar nominations (conversation point)
• Personal Identification: National pride, solidarity,aspiration, glamorization,reinforcing/rejecting values
• Pure Entertainment: Spectacle, escapism, adrenaline (thriller/horror), catharsis (+emotional intensity)

Uses and Gratifications for US/international audience?

• Information/Education: historical/literary figures,contemporary celebrities/royalty
• Social Interaction:'Crowd pleasures' (social viewing, Oscar nominations (conversation point)
• Personal Identification: Solidarity with subcultures/marginalized groups rarely represented in mainstream cinema 
• Pure Entertainment: spectacle, escapism, adrenaline (thriller/horror), catharsis (+emotional intensity)

Film Examples

Franchise: Kingsman: The Secret Service

What would a UK audience like about this film?

• Offers the pleasures of other blockbusters
• Personal Identification - Through the dialogue: "Sick": Words the younger audience understand
• Social Interaction
• Pure Entertainment  

What would a US/international audience like about the film?

• Pure Entertainment 
• Adrenaline - Stately Homes
• Typical Stereotypes

Heritage: A Royal Night Out  - 'art house'.'multiplex' or 'crossover/prestige'?

What would a UK audience like about this film?

• Personal Identification
• Tourist Marketing Strategy
• Presents the past as a spectacle, museum aesthetic: Visual Pleasure

What would a US/international audience like about the film?

• Information/Education: Royals
• Social Interaction: US does not have a monarchy 

Social Realism: The Selfish Giant - 'art house'.'multiplex' or 'crossover/prestige'?

What would a UK audience like about this film?

• Personal Identification - Focuses on working/underclass characters

What would a US/international audience like about the film?

• Information/Education: Doesn't sugar coat the issues it looks at 

Other notes

• Opposite of heritage cinema
• Deals with social problems
• Challenges the audiences comfort zones
• Prestige Film: Made on a low budget, but makes huge profit due to the incidence interest

Horror: The Woman in Black - 'art house'.'multiplex' or 'crossover/prestige'?

What would a UK audience like about this film?

• Pure Entertainment (Horror,Adrenaline)

What would a US/international audience like about the film?

• Stereotypical British heritage film - Mansion House, British Actor (Daniel Radcliffe) 'Proud to be British' 
• Adrenaline 

Other Notes

• Offers costume drama - added sex & violence 
• Rivaled US horror which has stricter censorship rules 

Urban Fairy tale Rom Com: One Day - 'art house'.'multiplex' or 'crossover/prestige'?

What would a UK audience like about this film?

• Offers typical pleasures of a British Rom Com film

What would a US/international audience like about the film?

• Information/Education: London Landmarks
• Typical love story conventions
• Set in contemporary London (Other recognizable locations)
• Middle Class Audiences

Institutional Case Studies: Vertigo and Warp Films

Background Information:Warp

• Formed in 2001
• Started as a off shoot electric music label
• First Release: Short film on DVD

Production: What are the media products?

• Bedroom producer ethos 

Other Notes

• Network already established as Warp X developing lower budgeted films 
• Developing talent
• Warp used low budget to inspire creative freedom 
• Cross Media Synergy: Film Four, Screen Yorkshire, BBC, Channel 4 & Sky's Playhouse (Last Panthers) 

Background Information: Vertigo

• Main Aim today: Create commercially sustainable independent films
• Create/Identify new talent: Give them a big break in the movie industry
• Formed in 2002
• Created to produce & distribute 2 films: Football factory & Its all gone Pete Tong 
• They try to stay away from producing prestige films

Distribution: How does the institution make the product available to the consumer?

• Dedicated sales and distribution wing
• Ancillary Sales
• DVD
• Pay Per View
• TV

Marketing: How is the audience targeted?

• Wide range of products - Horror, Family Friendly
• Well known celebrity actors - Audience can associate with - Danny Dyer

Cross Media Synergy - Multiplatform?

• Teamed up with Simon Cowell record label - Syco: Worked on developing Britain's Got Talent Winners

Other Notes

• Very distinctive brand identity
• Distinctive amateur film making with a market
• Aimed at middle ground between art house & multiplex cinema audience

Film Examples

Monsters

• National Audience appeal: Pure Entertainment 
• International Audience appeal: Pure Entertainment, Social Interaction
• Low Budget: $500,000
• Domestic Box Office: £237,301
• International Box Office: $5,402,429

Streetdance 3D

• No1 in UK in the first week
• Most expensive film made to date
• Budget: £6,700,000
• Global Total:$17,695,464

Dead Man's Shoes - Warp Films

• First Feature
• Largely Improvised shooting - No shot list, storyboard etc
• Punk Rock attitude to film making
• Shane Meadows (2006) 
• Low Budget 
• Committed Cast