Distributors [Draft]

Film distribution is a precarious business and, as such, companies tend to appear, merge or vanish overnight. Distributors tend to have rights to films for a limited period and that many titles that were released in the UK 10 or so years ago may no longer be available for booking.

What they do?

Their primary aims are to:

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  Promote diversity in exhibition content, audience and location.

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  Develop a culturally-led approach to an economically sustainable independent exhibition sector.

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  Provide access to industry leading best-practice exhibitor training.

Distributers:

20th Century Fox

BFI Distribution

Universal

Walt Disney

Warner Bros

Where the info was obtained:

[http://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/distributors.html] 

Target Audience & Notional BBFC

Being an independent film, i wiould expect this movie to be an 18 rating from the bbfc, as it depicts realistic knife crime that would be imitatable behaviour.

Target audience:

Age: Mid teens to late twenties. Unfortunately the chances of it recieving a 15 certificate are margnial

Ethnicity: The inductory sequence we are producing has only three characters but the rest of the story leaves plenty of roles of roles for non-caucasian characters to play.

Gender:

Socio-Economic Groupings

Nationaity/region:

Aimed at a British audience. Will appeal to northerners as it is set in north of england



Social Grades:
Social grades are used to classify people. This is important for media companies as it helps identify the composition of their audience, and how much they can charge for advertising.

The following categories are used for classifying an audience:

A: Higher managerial and professional.
B: Intermediate managerial and professional.
C1: Supervisory, clerical, junior managerial.
C2: Skilled manual workers.
D: Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.
E: State pensioners, casual workers.

This classification was devised decades ago, and does not accurately reflect modern society. This limits its usefulness for marketing and advertising. The worst of these drawbacks are:

It classifies the household on a single individual's occupation.
It ignores wealthy, non-working people and self-employed people.
It contains no information about the size of households.
It is not specific enough, 55% of the British population are ABC1!
This doesn't mean that the system is useless, however there are better alternatives.

Narative theory

We have learned that the Vladimir proposed there are 7 chaacters archetypes within the storyline.

These are:

The villian-struggles against the hero

The donor-Prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.

The (magical) helper-helps the hero or gives the object.

The Princess and her father-gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero,marries the hero.

The dispatcher-character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off

The hero or victim/Seeker hero-reacts to the donor, weds the princess.

False hero-takes cred for the heros actions

New Production logo

Here is the new Hello Dave Production logo. I drew the outlines of the images in Macromedia Flash MX 2004, coloured them in paint.net and animated them in sony vegas pro 8. The music is a royalty free remake of the jaws theme, from www.productiontrax.com Voice acting by sigmar, who insists that he doesn't need any credit. I shall mention him here anyway.

Audience feedback on out animatic

The feedback from our class has been very useful in helping us modify our original idea into something better. We have listened to advise and decided to introduce all of the victims in the opening scene. This is more conventional to a slasher

The class was able to follow what was going on in the animatic and make some good points on how to improve the idea. These will be implemented in our final storyboard.

Genres + Openings: Codes + Conventions

Productions co logos:

Name: Keep your friends close, we see the logo first followed by the title.

There will be 5 character that will be introduced , one of the characters is the screen queen (megan herbet).

Genres & openings : codes & conventions
The genre we will look at in detail is horror and specifically the sub genre of slasher! There is one exception of this in the list below....Obsession....we looked at this because it uses photos in the opening, this is similar to what we want to open with.

The genre we will look at in detail is horror and specifically the sub genre of slasher! There is one exception of this in the list below....Obsession....we looked at this because it uses photos in the opening, this is similar to what we want to open with.

Friday 13th Marcus Nispel (2009) $16m

The production logo is a red version of Paramount, New Line Cinema and Platinum Dunes, this connotes the genre is horror. There is non-diagetic tension music which starts on a black screen and bridges to the image. The font for the credits is a serif font in white on a black background, this signifies that the film is serious. There is anchorage of the day 'June 13th 1983'. There is exposition of where the film is set 'Lamp Crystal Lake' A mix or diagetic and non diagetic sound. Opens with flashing images. When thunder sounds, the opening image of a girl running appears on screen. Titles last for 3.27 mins





Friday 13th Sean S. Cunningham (1980) $700,000

Opens with Paramount titles. A sans serif font is used to anchor the place, time and date. There is an audio bridge (frogs croaking) from a black screen to the opening shots. The scene is taken in the 1st person at times and has camera shack, this creates a realistic feel. Tension music with string instruments is played. A mix of diagetic and non-diagetic sound. Titles last for 5.14 mins.


Friday 13th II Steve Miner (1981) $1m

Friday 13th Part III Steve Miner (1982) $4m

An American Werewolf In London John Lanas (1981)
Music : non-diagetic classic rock. Universal logo (old one) with a serif font. All titles in serif font, this signifies documentary style and is more formal. Establishing long shots of the setting. The opening 2 mins is establishing shots and non-diagetic sound. 2 shots of characters possibly central protagonists, signifies that there together and important. Strong language is used, this signifies that the film is for an older audience.






Friday 13th Part V

A Nightmare On Elm Street Wes Craven (1984) $1.8m
Sans serif font. Tension music with heavy breathing. Has a false scare (sheep). Lots of shot variation. Starts with a dream and the central protagonist wakes up at the end of the scene.







Obsession Brain De Palma (1976) $1.4m


starts with an audio bridge then goes to still images with a black cut in between. The titles are on the other half of the screen when the stills are up. Serif font in blue. Slow zoom. Has written anchorage.








Texas Chainsaw Massacre Marcus Nispel (2003) $9.2m

Texas Chainsaw Massacre Tobe Hooper (1974) $83,532

Red title sequence signifies blood and the red pictures also signify gore and blood. Pictures fade out then fade into title of film (yellow) and the picture behind is red. There is an ongoing voice over which starts on a black screen. Opening shot of a dead decomposing body, then zooms out into a long shot showing another dead body positioned on top of a grave in a grave yard, with a orange and red sky in the background which signifies horror. There are flashing pictures of decomposing body parts which fade in and out. credits in a serif font that signify formality and fact.



Scream Wes Craven (1996) $14m


There is a overlap between a scream and a phone ringing. Close up of facial expression. Establishing shot of haze and forest. Close up and cut shots of pop corns about to burst, this signifies that something unexpected in going to occur. The phone keeps ringing, this signifies tension. There is a close up of a hand reaching towards a door handle, this builds up tension, then she knocks on the door. The music dynamics slowly build throughout the opening.





Halloween John Carpenter (1978) $320,000

Psycho Alfred Hitchcock (1960) $806,947

Americal Pyscho Mary Harron (2000) $8m

white sans serif font over the top of the scene. Has sound but not able to tell if diagetic or non-diagetic.











Child's Play Tom Holland (1988) $9m



United Artists Pictures Inc. Sans serif credits. No music playing but has diagetic sounds of running and gunshots. Opens with a action sequence so is more like an action film of thriller, possibly detective. Eerie music starts (strings). Has supernatural elements. Opening sequence lasts 5.59 mins.

Prelim task

This is the prelim task acted by me and johnny.

Assesment Criteria

Here is the criteria for marking our work:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25482314/G321-Simplified-Marking-Criteria-as-1-Sheet

Genre research and Intertextual links

Slasher

In a Slasher movie, there is usually a killer who murders innocent people mainly teenagers, and who are in a large group. Usually when the Murders occur, a person goes missing, followed by the others. The last person finally manages to kill the killer, but this isn't the case in some of the slasher films. More over we have been looking at various books in the library based on slashers. One of the book is asmedia studies handbook, this had information about slashers.

Killer

With notable exceptions, the killer in the slasher film is usually male. His identity is often, but not always, unknown and/or concealed either by a mask or by creative lighting and camera work. He is often mute and seemingly unstoppable, able to withstand stabbings, falls and shootings by his victims. Slasher villains tend to prefer hand held weapons such as knives, axes, hatchetes, and chainsaws as opposed to bombs or guns. As the sub-genre developed, some argue that the real star of a slasher is the killer, not the victims or Final Girl.

Victims

The victims tend to be young, attractive, high school or college-aged adolescents. Mainly Blonde teenagers are ended up being killed.

Final Girl

Slasher films frequently only have a single survivor. She is frequently a female peer of the victims but is cinematically developed. She frequently doesn't participate in the activities of her friends. The heroine is also known as the final girl because by the end of the movie, all of her friends are dead, and she's left alone to deal with the killer. Certain movies do deviate from this in favour of having a final boy who tends to be morally suspect.

Useful resources

Library :

Media film studies home handbook (Vivienne Clark)

Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slasher_film

Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film

Initial notes on film openings

Marley and Me (David Frankel, 2008)
Budget $60,000,000
$60-20th Century Fox

In the opening scene of Marley and me, when the character was with the dog, here a voice over is said from the central protagonist . Also when the boy is in the field with the dog, you think that he is the central protagonist but he is not. Throughout the movie there is a frame shot that it being used to show the character approaching the door. As much information about the main characters, location is fed to the viewer as possible during the opening scene. What the character wear, and act and their personality helps to build their character. The main two protagonist are very well known in england and america.

Van helsing (2004, Stephen sommers)
Budget, $120,000,000 (usa), £15,000,000 (UK)

The opening sequence of the movie is in black and white, and this connote that its a gothic genre.

Napoleon Dynamite(Jared hess,2004)
Budget ($400,000)
Genre: Comedy
Opening: 3 minutes and 33 seconds of credits
Napoleon, central pratagonist, geek

The opening scene of this film, starts with a geek called Naploeon, who is the Central Protagonist. The first impressions we get from this character are that he is abnormal, and strange and this is what makes him a different character. We can tell this by the use of the clothes that he wear, as he wears his jeans very high, and a checked shirt tucked in to his jeans and has big glasses. Also when he is on the bus, he throws out a toy out the window whilst strearing it with a string. These are the first impressions the audience gets of this central protagonist.


Where the heart is(Matt Williams, 2000)
Based on a novel
Budget: $15,000,000



Sean of the dead
Genre: Comedy (WT2)
Linked to hot fuzz
Budget: $4,000,000 (estimated)
Director: Edgar wright

The opening of Sean of the Dead, it is like a socail realism as its set in the bar and not doing much



Scream
Genre horror
Budget: $14,000,000 (estimated)
Director: Wes Craven


The opening of this movie starts with a young woman in a house, who is a central protagonist and lives on her own in a house next to a forest. Through out this scene its set up in a house, where its dark and the music connates tension, and this build up, when the phone keeps ringing. The main camera shot used was long shot to show the background behind, this builds tension and it givesd the audience that feeling that someone is there watching her every move. The first impression we get of the central protagonist is that she is vulnerable and seems lonely.

Film tastes

I dont remember the last 5 movies i have seen

The favourite two film genres are: Action and commedy

Top 5 films:

Rush hour
Bad boys
Gridion gang
The godfather
fast and the furious

Out of all these films Bad boys is my favourite because its an action movie

Coursework task

Our coursework task is to produce the opening to a horror movie. we have to edit and produce posters.
For our preliminary task we have to film a scene using match-on-action, When there is a hand on a door, and from the other side we walk in to the room. The deadline for the preliminary task is 1/3/10 and the deadline for the final task is 3/5/10

Podcasts

Podcasts : Podcast 1 and 2 is on the link below

link




www.youtube.com/user/hellodaveproductions

There is a link on Useful Resources

Ali G analysis

Here is my powerpoint presentation

Ali G In da house

Avatar swede and preliminary task

This task is to produce a match-on-action sequence involving a hand on the door handle, and another camera other side when the person walks in



Me, jonny and Kane have sweded Avatar. Despite being an Avatar swede, we have no footage of avatars!

Research in to Slasher movies.

Work in progress

slasher film: A subgenre of horror, related to the splatter movie. The villian, a blade welding serial killer, often has apparently supernatural powers of survival. The victims are usually youg, attractive and sexually active. Early examples include peeping tom (Michael Powell, UK, 1960) and psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1960). The genre really developed in the 1970s and 1980s with Haloween (John Carpenter, USA, 1978) Friday the 13th (sean Cunningham, USA, 1980) and a nightmare of elm street (Wes Craven, USA, 1984) by the 1990s the slasher movie was seen as a format that had run out of ideas, but the postmodern ernist series of Scream films brief revitalised the genre.

Film Tastes

This is the greatest film ever made [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_%26_Furious]

Sweding a film opening

Sweding is where you make a cheap low budget movie. The film that we chose to swede is Avatar because is a high budget movie and its very modern. In my group there was me, kane, and Jonny.

The 5 films we could swede:

I am legend

Karate kid

Superman 

Robocop

Rush hour

Rush hour

We are going to swede rush hour