The first clip chosen was a strong yet sensual clip from Desperate Housewives which reflects strongly the American culture and suburban life which is why its categorisation is Drama but it falls into the sensation and suburban subcategories.

This clip shows the true battle between enemies and the egotistical nature that fires up the feud. As there are only a 3 different shots, this clip is simple and very reliant on the dialogue.

The Male Gaze presentation

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For this task we analysed the different marketing techniques between The Boat that Rocked, Bridget Jones Diary and the recent James Bond film Quantum of Solace. Firstly we checked the working title website and the official Boat that Rocked website to find the list of the various marketing techniques they used, upon further research we found that posters were their most effective type of marketing but the use of a trailer also boosted their sales. Also interviews with T4 and magazine interviews were used, but additional marketing for this film was competitions which were still used in september to win a free DVD. Bridget jones' diary was also similar and mainly relied on posters and trailers but instead of creating many competitions they used a popular soundtrack and recent songs for the time of release to get advertisement and to release a seperate soundtrack album alongside the film.
However with James Bond Quantum of Solace product placement and synergy marketing was

New film releases use a wide range of methods to advertise but the actual methods used will depend on the film institution and use of directors and actors.

In the case of a new film from universal studios many ‘above the line’ methods will be used such as trailers, posters and merchandising to advertise the film, these are called ATL because of the obvious nature they have and because often the audience will see these methods in play in the world around them. But when a smaller film corporation for instance Warp films releases a film they rely on ‘below the line’ methods such as word of mouth (viral), websites and interviews because the audience will have to search for the advertisements, another way of describing this would be: secondary advertisements.

The films I’ll be discussing are 2012, The Men Who Stare at Goats and Bunny and the Bull.

Possibly the biggest influence on which type of advertisement a film receives is its budget as we can see in these films:

2012: $200,000,000 – ATL advertising: trailers, posters, merchandise.

The Men Who Stare at Goats: $25,000,000 – ATL advertising: trailers, posters.

Bunny and the Bull: $5,000,000 – BTL advertising: websites, interviews. $500,000 of that was spent of marketing

Since the likes of 4 weddings and a funeral advertising has moved on immensely, whereas before the main use of advertising was trailers and bill boards current advertising incorporates the use of the internet and relies strongly on viral marketing. This is because of the huge increase in internet use and social networking sites which are viewed in the millions each day, this makes internet advertising usually better than the traditional method of trailers.

Question asked after watching This is England, Dead man's shoes and Hot Fuzz: How does the budget of a film institution affect production practices used to appeal to a target audience?

Usually the budget for a film affects largely the outcome of the quality but by keeping the film production simple a budget doesn't have to affect the end quality. Sterotypically a low budget means the film wont use well known actors but instead aim for small time actors which suit the role of the characters within the film, this is highly effective because the actors can be chosen by their similarities to the characters within the script, this makes the film seem more realistic because the actor can feel at home with the script and the dialect of the character they are playing.

Hot Fuzz (2007) was given a budget of £8 ml by its production teams Studio Canal, Working Title and Big Talk productions, however most of this budget would have come from the larger distributor Universal Studios which owns Working Title Films. This didn't affect Working Title's input towards the film but did affect their overall profit, more than 50% of which went to Universal Studios.
In it's whole box office sale Hot Fuzz managed a gross profit of £80.573.774 which later increased when it's DVD started to sell in the UK.

Dead Man's Shoes (2004) was directed by Shane Meadows and given a budget of £723.000 by Warp films and distributed by Optimum Releasing. Although Dead Man's Shoes was only displayed in independent cinemas it still obtained a decent profit above its original budget.

Whilst watching an interview with the writer/director from Warp films, we took notes on his styles and preferences. Firstly we noticed his love for low budgets and that he doesn't mind not using famous actors and that when using farely well known actors the end result didn't matter, it was the story that made the film. Also he mentioned his technique and system in making films and that it is ususally wrong but then said that directing all his films with this system was his style and that made all the films similar. He went on to say that his style is usually to improvise with his actors and develop a relationship, this stems from his dislike of writing, but he says he's comfortable with changing his script and creating an end result different to his previous plans. This is hugely different to Hollywood films and any other high budget films because he mentions that most directors feel compelled to keep to a plan and prevent creativity. Shane meadows style could be described as Social Realism for his use of realistic lighting and mise en scene. As he relies on his old system to create films when recieveing a bigger budget for his latest film he still used realistic elements.

1: Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London, England. The company was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1982. It produces feature films and some television productions. Eric Fellner and Bevan are the co-owners of the company now. They are part of universal studios.

1: Warp Films, a sister company of Warp Records was set up in 1999 with funding from NESTA. It is based in Sheffield, England with a further office in London and has 14 full-time staff. They are independent.

Conglomerate- a group of small companies, brought together by a larger company which work together.

2: If the company is owned by a bigger company then they will have a bigger budget for there films.

3:

warp films:

· My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117

· Dead Man's Shoes

· Rubber Johnny

· This Is England

· Dog Altogether

· All Tomorrow's Parties

Working title films:

· About a Boy (film)

· Ali G Indahouse

· Atonement (film)

· User:Nayrouz Aly/Atonement

· Barton Fink

· Bean (film)

· The Big Lebowski

· Billy Elliot

· The Boat That Rocked

· Bob Roberts

· The Borrowers (1997 film)

· Bridget Jones's Diary (film)

· Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (film)

· Burn After Reading

· The Calcium Kid

· Captain Corelli's Mandolin (film)

· Catch a Fire (film)

· Chicago Joe and the Showgirl

· Chihuanhas

· Dead Man Walking (film)

· Definitely, Maybe

· Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur

· Drop Dead Fred

· Edward II (film)

· Elizabeth (film)

· Elizabeth: The Golden Age

· Fargo (film)

· For Queen and Country

· 40 Days and 40 Nights

· Four Weddings and a Funeral

· French Kiss (film)

· Frost/Nixon (film)

· Green Zone (film)

· The Guru (2002 film)

· The Hi-Lo Country

· Hippie Hippie Shake

· Hot Fuzz

· The Hudsucker Proxy

· Inside I'm Dancing

· The Interpreter

· Johnny English

· Land and Freedom

· Loch Ness (film)

· London Kills Me

· Long Time Dead

· Love Actually

· The Man Who Cried

· The Man Who Wasn't There

· Map of the Human Heart

· Mickybo and Me

· Moonlight and Valentino

· Mr. Bean's Holiday

· My Beautiful Laundrette

· My Little Eye

· Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang

· Nanny McPhee

· Ned Kelly (2003 film)

· Notting Hill (film)

· Brother, Where Art Thou?

· Panther (film)

· Paperhouse (film)

· Paul (film)

· Plunkett & Macleane

· Posse (1993 film)

· Pride & Prejudice (2005 film)

· The Return of the Borrowers

· Robin Hood (1991 film)

· Romeo Is Bleeding

· Rubin and Ed

· Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

· A Serious Man

· Shaun of the Dead

· Smokin' Aces

· The Soloist

· State of Play (film)

· Tales of the City (TV miniseries)

· The Tall Guy

· The Comic Strip

· Thunderbirds (film)

· United 93 (film)

· Wild Child (2008 film)

· Wimbledon (film)

· Wish You Were Here (1987 film)

· A World Apart (film)

· The Young Americans (film)

4: Shaun of the Dead- £4million budget

Dead man’s shoes- £723,000 budget

5: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) is the current highest budget film at $300,000,000

6: Working title films get there funds from universal pictures and Warp films get there funds from being awarded £4.5 million from the UK Film Council.

7: The genre of Warp films are social realism as seen in ‘This is England’

8: They are more realistic then normal films as they are gritty and more realistic as they appeal to the British audience.

9: Usually warp titles creates films for the British demographic, but we can find that since working title has been taken over by Universal Studios that their usually british based films are becoming broader and based on US culture.

10: The most common genre for working title is a rom-com which is seen as a genre viewable by any one so they can therefore reach a popular audience.

The second part of the preliminary tasks was to design and shoot our own introduction to a film, this had to be an introduction that involved as many different shots as possible and should show case our creativity. Although the film didn't need any scripted acting we could include some aspects of script to add to the film's effectiveness. Another thing required was that a door had to be opened by one of the characters and for this shot we had to use a close up.

For this part of the preliminary task we were instructed to create our own magazine cover based primarily on our school: Lutterworth College, with a secondary genre of music, meaning our magazine had to combine our school and a type of music. and we had to complete this magazine cover within a week. In this instance I chose to research music magazines to discover which type of music is written about the most and which particular music magazine is read the most by the public and to ultimately gain inspiration and to help me decide which type of music was best to aim my magazine at. In the end my research showed that the music genre Rock is written about the most and attracts the most music lovers, I also discovered that Kerrang was the most read rock magazine. So with this learnt I choose Rock as my music genre. Also further research into rock magazines showed that the colour schemes are simple and based largely on 3 colours (ignoring black for the lettering), these 3 colours would consist of one primary colour used in the majority of the cover and 2 other colours which are either used for colour fills or lettering. I also noticed that the majority of Rock magazines had lots of pictures, boxes and lettering that were all trying to gain attention which I found off putting, so to create a more professional front cover I've decided to use only a few eye grabbing techniques giving the readers time to understand the whole front cover.

For our filming practice we were assigned the task of story boarding a 2-3 minute eastenders clip so that we could reinact all the shots our selves with a camera and then import all the recordings to make a final version. Firstly, while watching the clip we analysed each shot that was used and drawed them with basic sketches and dialogue, this was needed to be as accurate as possible for when we would record the reinactment. After this we recieved all the necessary equipment from the libary we searched for a room with appropriate lighting and space to conduct all the various and different shots.
The chosen scene was very typical of TV soaps because of the basic shot involved which were mid-angle and used very little movement or zoom, however very simple yet effective techniques were used such as the transition between one side of a room to the other but still maintining the same details of the scene. Furthermore the scene was an opening to the soap so typical of all soaps the characters used in the last episode were used in the opening so the previous story can be carried on-this meant there was very little dialogue involved and the clip was establishing the next story.
The usual camera shots used are mid angled to fit most the scene in, but occationally uses of zoom and closeups appear to draw the audiences attention to an important factor of the scene. For instance when two characters are having a shocking conversation a closeup of one of the characters face will be deployed to show the emotion the character is experiencing. Another example is when an important prop is being used which would normally fit into the background and is then zoomed into to show the audience. This occured in our remake of the eastenders scene in which at the end a zoom is used to show a ring one fo the characters is holding.
Within the clip we were shown, over 25 different shots were used so to be as accurate as possible we story boarded the shots that lasted the longest and subsequently had a smaller 12 shots to film and then set out to film those. Although this method was effective in appearing accurate we didn't story board the angle of the shots and had to rely on our memory of the clip to position the camera correctly, also without being able to write all of the dialogue down we made mistakes with names and missed out large sections of some scenes. Overall our representation was quite accurate and our use of props and sound effects made most shots look realistic.
From completeing this task i have learnt about the importance of mise en scene for every filming conducted. Mise en scene is everything in a scene for instance: while finding a place to film we discussed areas that have ideal lighting and investigated the use of props, we also checked for any distracting features of the place we were filming to keep the audience focused on what we were filming. All this relates back to the many aspects of mise en scene. Throughout filming we discussed the importance of getting the setting right for certain shots we storyboarded, like when filming the opening shot we chose an ideal door to reinact the shot and give the best representation of it.
The particular clip we were given used extensive use of lighting, because of the time that the clip was filmed lighting was used to project the setting of morning. To get a similar effect we filmed these shots near a window with blinds and appropriately allowed shades of lighting in to give the same appearence. Also lighting was used in the clip to show emotion and the mood of a particlar character (at the end of the clip), to do this the lighting was limited to only the character which made the rest of the room shaded and dark and therefore projecting the solem mood.
For this project we also learnt the importance of keeping the same setting and changing nothing about character's appearence or the lighting of the room unless a change was scripted. This is because although we filmed in pieces the final clip appeared to be a continuous reality, so to properly give this appearence we checked that every character had kept the same costume and when changing the lighting we kept the same areas lighted. If correct continuity isn't used then the result can be quite confusing for the audience.
Ultimately it was our filming of the many shots that diddn't give an acurate representation the eastenders clip, although we could put this down to lack of time our story board wasn't detailed enough, meaning too many shots were positioned incorrectly and minor mistakes of lighting made a big effect on the end result. However while editing we made full use of the transitions, text, effects and sound bites to add the detail to the shots that we were lacking in, this meant that the end product was still a good enough copy of the original. Also with the edition of extra sound effects we added a humerous edge to the film with background laughter, although this wasn't a core device used in the original it only added to the ease of watching the finished clip.

In this task we were asked to find a magazine and annotate its conventions compared to all the conventions which are generally used in todays magazines. The usual conventions used are: a magazine title, a slogan, a strapline, a large cover picture or graphic, no more than 3 fonts, 3 colour scheme, cover lines, smaller pictures, issue number, competitions, date, price, a bar code and masthead. The magazine i chose was this Kerrang cover, a typical magazine for the rock audience and a typical user of dark colours and unusual pictures. Like most magazine that have a large market it deploys use of most conventions, also because of its long existance the magazine has decades of experience in attracting the many millions of listeners of rock and all its subgenres. For instance the magazine has followed the most importand convention of only using 3 colours for the whole front cover, this is the 3 colour scheme rule. Furthermore to aviod too much confusion the magazine follows the 3 font rule. Other conventions are a title, strapline, slogan, smaller pictures and a bar code. Unfortunatly the case with almost all magazines is that some smaller less important conventions are broken to suit the reader, in this case the Kerrang magazine doesn't use a competition which could vastly improve its sales, also a date and price aren't displayed making the magazine seem elusive.Classically the colours red and black are used in rock covers so to appeal to their audience Kerrang magazine used red for their sub headings and as a colour fill to stand out certain texts. they then used black for the title but unusually employed the use of white for all their text and yellow for some graphics. however this was used cleverly because of the main picture being mostly in black the white and yellow constasts it and stands out more. also over use of the colours red and black can make the cover confusing so by using more brighter colours the magazine is easily understandable.