A GLOSSARY of KEY WORDS, CONCEPTS and IDEAS
for Audiences and Institutions - film
What are the issues raised by the media ownership of film companies? How do companies benefit from forming alliances and by working together to share their expertise on films?- By expanding ownership this can increase audience rates, by expanding the cross media ownership this can broaden the different ideas being used in the production of films e.g( action,thriller) some ideas are being copied by other film companies therefore all films seem to be similar.
How important is cross media convergence (wide ranging ownership) and synergy (expertise, efficiency and cost effectiveness) in production, distribution, and the marketing of films?
(Make a concept map of the ownership of your film company and the other companies it owns. Draw connections between them for synergies/convergence)
What kinds of technologies have been introduced in recent years to improve film production, their distribution, marketing and exchange?
(CGI and special effects, blue and green screen, high concept film posters, DVDs, digital downloads, HD and Blue ray DVDs, editing software, digital distribution, digital cinemas, the use of institution’s companies to market, promote, etc.)
How significant is proliferation (the increase and spread) of content, genres and hardware for institutions and audiences? (Genres of films, CGI, Blue-screen, new types of cameras, and gadgets to put them on, Cinema multiplexes, digital distribution of films, websites, magazines, etc.)
What is technological convergence and why is it important for institutions and audiences?- Technological convergence is good because it's a good way to expand the sales of a film, advertising is a good way to increase sales, e.g youtube, competitions, discussions on forums and blog sites this gets the audience more involved in the film.
What are the issues raised by targeting British national and local audiences by international and global institutions? (Cultural, gender appeal, humour, etc.)
How did British audiences receive the film (reception)? Find reviews from British audiences on Amazon UK, reviews from British newspapers and magazines (For instance, Empire magazine, Sight and Sound, The Guardian, The Independent, Timeout, etc. Youtube views and some comments, British fan-sites on the web, etc.)
http://www.imdb.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/film+tone/reviews
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Out-Film-Guide-2008/dp/1846700353
How did they consume (watch) it? Audience figures, Home cinema, DVD sales, Internet downloads, Blue Ray sales, etc
How do your OWN experiences of watching films show wider patterns and trends in audience behaviour in your peer group and are different from older and younger generations, etc.? (You will need a survey for this.)
Pre production and production
Casting – associations from other films, expected roles, against type, manly, feminine, sex appeal, etc.
Audiences – teens, children, teens to adults, female, young men, art-house, intellectual, dads, etc.
producer – other films, genres, success, franchise films such as Harry Potter, Bond, etc.
Stars – star -images, their associations with other films/studios/directors, rising or falling? Fees per film, appeal? Niche audience appeal?
Directors,
Scriptwriters,
Locations and why they were chosen
Synergies – cost benefits of being part of a wider organisation, marketing, etc. e.g. – Universal - Viacom
Cross Media convergence – ownership of similar production/distribution companies
Institutions – production companies and Distributors (companies that sometimes own them)
Genre – romance, action-adventure, epic, comedy, etc.
CGI – Computer generated graphics, special effects such as blue-screen, green screen, bullet time, etc.
Key personnel such as stunt people, special effects experts,
Add topic specific key words and phrases to your glossaries as you read. For instance for distribution and marketing add the following and others that you notice during your studies:
Distribution
'vertical integration'
'licensing'
'viral marketing',
'local distribution' (in a particular country)
'a release date',
'a release pattern'
'the big screen'
'theatrical openings'
'market territories'
'the marketplace'
'free to air television'
'theatrical rights'
'theatrical distribution'
'theatrical leg'
'word of mouth'
'marketing platform'
'marketing - when and how'
'a light week'
'P & A'
'Other films with similar traits (story, subject, country of origin)'
'trailers' includes ‘teaser trailers’
USP (the film’s unique selling point on poster, in trailers)
'The cinema poster - in the UK this means the standard 30" x 40" 'quad' format - is still the cornerstone of theatrical release campaigns. Numerous recent examples indicate that the poster design is highly effective in 'packaging'
'favourable press response'
'advertising campaign'
'Press advertising campaign for specialised films will judiciously select publications and spaces close to relevant editorial.'
'Press materials, clips reels, images, press previews, screener tapes'
'The use of talent - usually the director and/or lead actors - wins significant editorial coverage to support a release.'
'A pre-release campaign.'
'Preview screenings to create ''buzz" and "word of mouth" (usually amongst the press although the public can also be asked, too.)
'mainstream films'
'specialised films'
'For mainstream films scale and high visibility is the key'
Film’s official website
Film certificate from the BBFC. This will have an impact on who can see it – audience size, etc.
These are just SOME of the topic's key terms that you need to use in your essays. Add others to your glossaries as you notice them.
Exhibition
Cinema chains (includes independents and chains owned by Pearl and Dean.)
Multiplexes – five or more screens in one cinema
Reviews including press, TV, podcasts, etc.
Reviews of the DVD on Amazon and blog-sites, etc.
Awards includes film festivals, the Oscars, etc.
Audience reception
Word of mouth
Blogs
Box office take (includes the impact on the first weekend/week.
These are just SOME of the topic's key terms that you need to use in your essays. Add others to your glossaries as you notice them.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
CNN interview information source/Avatar/
James Cameron has created a new Avatar themed Phenomenon. Fans have said the film was so spectacular it was almost real,it has also been said to have caused a physcological effect on viewers. Especially for the viewers that have said they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.
Many viewers of the film have said that it has a physcological effect on their beahviour, A post by a user on a global networking site has disccovered he is infatuated with the film, whereas others have said it has not had that sort of effect on them, infact it had a rather spectacular feel-good effect on them.
Many viewers of the film have said that it has a physcological effect on their beahviour, A post by a user on a global networking site has disccovered he is infatuated with the film, whereas others have said it has not had that sort of effect on them, infact it had a rather spectacular feel-good effect on them.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Avatar also has a soundtrack featuring Leona lewis a previous winner of one of the U.K'S biggest talent shows (the x factor) so she is a very known face, when promoting the film and the soundtrack to it. its good for the audience to know every detail as to who is behind it so they can familiarise themselves with the people behind it.
Cameron received the Bradbury Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1991—but, being primarily thought of as a genre filmmaker, he did not receive any major mainstream filmmaking awards prior to Titanic. With Titanic, Cameron received Academy Awards for Best Editing (shared with Conrad Buff and Richard A. Harris), Best Picture (shared with Jon Landau), and Best Director. He also won a Golden Globe for best director for the film.
In recognition of "a distinguished career as a Canadian filmmaker", Carleton University, Ottawa, awarded Cameron the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts on June 13, 1998. Cameron accepted the degree in person and gave the Convocation Address.[citation needed]
In 1998, Cameron attended convocation to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Ryerson University, Toronto. The university awards its highest honor to those who have made extraordinary contributions in Canada, or internationally.
In recognition of his contributions to underwater filming and remote vehicle technology, the University of Southampton awarded Cameron the honorary degree of Doctor of the University. Cameron received his degree in person at the graduation ceremony in July, 2004.[citation needed]
On June 3, 2008, it was announced that he would be inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.[42] On December 18, 2009, Cameron received the 2,396th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[43]
On January 17, 2010, James Cameron received the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for his work, Avatar.[44].
James Cameron is an award winning film-maker, this is a good factor considering it boosted the amount of views there were, this could be in the older generations point of view that they have liked his previous work, but in a child's perspective he also made it so that it was a popular film.
* youtube
*phone wallpapers and themes
*Background and themes for social networking sites (facebook,twitter etc)
Also well known actors/actresses where used for the film, this is also a good factor considering it would have been a major risk putting an unknown cast and so much money into a film that would have not been successful.
In recognition of "a distinguished career as a Canadian filmmaker", Carleton University, Ottawa, awarded Cameron the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts on June 13, 1998. Cameron accepted the degree in person and gave the Convocation Address.[citation needed]
In 1998, Cameron attended convocation to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Ryerson University, Toronto. The university awards its highest honor to those who have made extraordinary contributions in Canada, or internationally.
In recognition of his contributions to underwater filming and remote vehicle technology, the University of Southampton awarded Cameron the honorary degree of Doctor of the University. Cameron received his degree in person at the graduation ceremony in July, 2004.[citation needed]
On June 3, 2008, it was announced that he would be inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.[42] On December 18, 2009, Cameron received the 2,396th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[43]
On January 17, 2010, James Cameron received the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for his work, Avatar.[44].
James Cameron is an award winning film-maker, this is a good factor considering it boosted the amount of views there were, this could be in the older generations point of view that they have liked his previous work, but in a child's perspective he also made it so that it was a popular film.
* youtube
*phone wallpapers and themes
*Background and themes for social networking sites (facebook,twitter etc)
Also well known actors/actresses where used for the film, this is also a good factor considering it would have been a major risk putting an unknown cast and so much money into a film that would have not been successful.
Avatar, James Cameron, 163 mins, (PG)
James Cameron's extraordinary allegory of US adventurism in the Middle East inspires shock and awe but fails to win hearts and minds
Reviewed by Jonathan Romney
Sunday, 20 December 2009SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
IMAGENET
'Na'vi are like lynxes genetically altered to play basketball'
ENLARGE
SPONSORED LINKS:
James Cameron once declared himself king of the world. Now he has his eye on bigger things – he wants to rule the universe, the future and your brain.
His long-awaited Avatar is digital epic as attrition – you can't escape being overwhelmed by it, but it doesn't leave you much thinking space. I saw the film in 3D on a relatively small screen rather than in the colossal Imax format in which it's also being released. See it on that scale, and no doubt you'll feel totally engulfed by the experience, but even in a Soho Square basement, Avatar was immersive enough for me.
What I do feel overwhelmed by is the ocean of publicity telling us that Avatar is the ultimate this, the ultimate that, one of the most expensive films ever made (at a reported $230m or £143m – and you don't have to be a killjoy to find that obscene) and, most worrying, that it is the future of cinema.
This is a Review from the independent newspaper, Reviews such as these are a good way to see how the statistics are worked out, such links as these are useful and reliable because they can give u exact figures.
James Cameron's extraordinary allegory of US adventurism in the Middle East inspires shock and awe but fails to win hearts and minds
Reviewed by Jonathan Romney
Sunday, 20 December 2009SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
IMAGENET
'Na'vi are like lynxes genetically altered to play basketball'
ENLARGE
SPONSORED LINKS:
James Cameron once declared himself king of the world. Now he has his eye on bigger things – he wants to rule the universe, the future and your brain.
His long-awaited Avatar is digital epic as attrition – you can't escape being overwhelmed by it, but it doesn't leave you much thinking space. I saw the film in 3D on a relatively small screen rather than in the colossal Imax format in which it's also being released. See it on that scale, and no doubt you'll feel totally engulfed by the experience, but even in a Soho Square basement, Avatar was immersive enough for me.
What I do feel overwhelmed by is the ocean of publicity telling us that Avatar is the ultimate this, the ultimate that, one of the most expensive films ever made (at a reported $230m or £143m – and you don't have to be a killjoy to find that obscene) and, most worrying, that it is the future of cinema.
This is a Review from the independent newspaper, Reviews such as these are a good way to see how the statistics are worked out, such links as these are useful and reliable because they can give u exact figures.
Avatar- exhibition/marketing/audience and exchange issues
Avatar- produced by twentieth century fox film, directed by james cameron, the release date for what critics are calling ''outstanding'' was released on December 16th 2009.
considering Avatar was a worldwide phenomenon, the best source to find general reviews and information on the film would be such websites as
* www.beyondhollywood.com
*www.rottentomatoes.co.uk
Others may not find these websites useful but they gave me all the information i needed on the film.
Box Office: Avatar’s Audience Continues to be Legion in Week 6
The Titanic is about to sink again — this time from the list of all-time box office champs. After taking in $1.842 billion in worldwide receipts back in the glory days of 1997, James Cameron’s “Titanic” is poised to be easily overtaken by Cameron’s follow-up film, “Avatar”, Titanic was one of the biggest selling films of all time but from critics point of view Avatar has surely taken over the spotlight.
Box Office Top 10 (via):
# TITLE WEEKEND RECEIPT TOTAL U.S. BOX OFFICE WEEKS
.1 Avatar $36,000,000 $552,797,000 6
.2 Legion (2010) $18,200,000 $18,200,000 1
.3 The Book of Eli $17,000,000 $62,003,000 2
.4 The Tooth Fairy $14,500,000 $14,500,000 1
.5 The Lovely Bones $8,800,000 $31,624,000 7
.6 Sherlock Holmes $7,115,000 $191,564,000 5
.7 Extraordinary Measures $7,000,000 $7,000,000 1
.8 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel $6,500,000 $204,237,000 5
.9 It’s Complicated $6,190,000 $98,650,000 5
.10 The Spy Next Door $4,750,000 $18,710,000 2
Above is The top ten films that have done well, Avatar have managed to gain the largest sum since titanic.
considering Avatar was a worldwide phenomenon, the best source to find general reviews and information on the film would be such websites as
* www.beyondhollywood.com
*www.rottentomatoes.co.uk
Others may not find these websites useful but they gave me all the information i needed on the film.
Box Office: Avatar’s Audience Continues to be Legion in Week 6
The Titanic is about to sink again — this time from the list of all-time box office champs. After taking in $1.842 billion in worldwide receipts back in the glory days of 1997, James Cameron’s “Titanic” is poised to be easily overtaken by Cameron’s follow-up film, “Avatar”, Titanic was one of the biggest selling films of all time but from critics point of view Avatar has surely taken over the spotlight.
Box Office Top 10 (via):
# TITLE WEEKEND RECEIPT TOTAL U.S. BOX OFFICE WEEKS
.1 Avatar $36,000,000 $552,797,000 6
.2 Legion (2010) $18,200,000 $18,200,000 1
.3 The Book of Eli $17,000,000 $62,003,000 2
.4 The Tooth Fairy $14,500,000 $14,500,000 1
.5 The Lovely Bones $8,800,000 $31,624,000 7
.6 Sherlock Holmes $7,115,000 $191,564,000 5
.7 Extraordinary Measures $7,000,000 $7,000,000 1
.8 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel $6,500,000 $204,237,000 5
.9 It’s Complicated $6,190,000 $98,650,000 5
.10 The Spy Next Door $4,750,000 $18,710,000 2
Above is The top ten films that have done well, Avatar have managed to gain the largest sum since titanic.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Today is the biggest day in Jamal Malik's life, a penniless, eighteen year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, he's one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?". But when the show breaks for the night, suddenly, he is arrested on suspicion of cheating. After all, how could an uneducated street kid possibly know so much? Determined to get to the bottom of Jamal's story, the jaded Police Inspector spends the night probing Jamal's incredible past, from his riveting tales of the slums where he and his brother Salim survived by their wits to his hair-raising encounters with local gangs to his heartbreak over Latika, the unforgettable girl he loved and lost. Danny ("28 Days Later," "Shallow Grave") Boyle directs. Based on the book "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup.
genre(s): Romantic Comedy
director: Danny Boyle
film cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, Ifran Khan
certificate: 15
distributor: Pathe Distribution Ltd.
running time: 120 Mins
official site: visit website
genre(s): Romantic Comedy
director: Danny Boyle
film cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, Ifran Khan
certificate: 15
distributor: Pathe Distribution Ltd.
running time: 120 Mins
official site: visit website
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
technological conversions are used to transfer media from mostly the internet to many types of technology e.g mobile phones, ipods etc.
* youtube- Youtube is a way of the audience previewing trailers of the film before actually watching the film itself, thousands of people use youtube as a resource to preview the latest films.
Radio & t.v adverts- many people watch t.v and listen to the radio, this is also part of the distribution, by distributing an eye catching advert is also an influence on the audience.
Danny Boyle had recently said before the release of the film there may be risks considering the credit meltdown, Six months ago, the director was suddenly informed that Warner Independent was being closed down and that Slumdog, to which he’d devoted a year of his life, would be condemned to the obscurity of a straight-to-DVD release.
* youtube- Youtube is a way of the audience previewing trailers of the film before actually watching the film itself, thousands of people use youtube as a resource to preview the latest films.
Radio & t.v adverts- many people watch t.v and listen to the radio, this is also part of the distribution, by distributing an eye catching advert is also an influence on the audience.
Danny Boyle had recently said before the release of the film there may be risks considering the credit meltdown, Six months ago, the director was suddenly informed that Warner Independent was being closed down and that Slumdog, to which he’d devoted a year of his life, would be condemned to the obscurity of a straight-to-DVD release.
Monday, 14 December 2009
the sales increase is not only due to the characters that are in the film it can also be due to audience interest of the producers work, if the audience are familiar with that particular producers work it will encourage them to watch another film they have taken part in.
Although the characters are the main stars in a film, some people have more of an interest in the director because in a large percentage of films directors tend to use new actors and actresses that know one has heard of and this can be a big risk with many audiences.
Although the characters are the main stars in a film, some people have more of an interest in the director because in a large percentage of films directors tend to use new actors and actresses that know one has heard of and this can be a big risk with many audiences.
Monday, 7 December 2009
A motorway underpass in Mumbai. It’s late November, 2007, and the director Danny Boyle, with his cast and crew in tow, arrive in the morning hours to shoot a pivotal sequence for his new movie Slumdog Millionaire. The film, a dizzy busy whirlwind tour of poverty, crime and hard-knock love in contemporary India, is seen through the eyes of a former street-urchin, Jamal (Dev Patel). Sitting on the hot-seat during a miraculous game of India’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Jamal remembers his childhood years, including those spent as a beggar, gathered and organised under the aforementioned motorway.
For Boyle, the 49-year-old director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, this is a scene and a key location. He’s been here twice before, and even came yesterday, to do a final check. Today, however, there’s just appears to be one tiny snag. Mumbai City Council, over night, have built a 12ft (3.7m) wall, 100m long, through the middle of the location.
“My first thought was: ‘That’s just not possible, is it? To build a wall that big in 24 hours?’ ” says Boyle today, in the library room of a Covent Garden hotel, barely able to contain his mirth at moments that were harrowing at the time. “Then you say: ‘Why didn’t we know about this? Why didn’t anyone tell us? We can’t do any of the shots! We’re not f***ing getting anything done today.’ ” Boyle chuckles as he says this.
He is in faded denims and a white T-shirt, and as he speaks he glows, with the mien of someone remembering a particularly good party. “But then what happens is that you give up any idea of trying to control the situation, and you just go with it. You get your shots, but it’s not about control, it’s about reacting to what’s in front of you. And if you go with it and trust it, you’ll get back a freewheeling spirit. That, I hope, is in the movie.”
The freewheeling spirit, and then some, is what defines Slumdog Millionaire. Written by the Full Monty scribe Simon Beaufoy, and based on a bestselling novel, it has, in Boyle’s hands become a thing of hyperkinetic beauty. Here, as cameras spin down the slum-streets of Mumbai, and then around the Taj Mahal, and later through the mansions of the country’s new ultra-riche establishment, a story unfolds about the simple unswerving love that Jamal holds for his childhood sweetheart Latika (Freida Pinto), and how it drives him through the ache and hardships of an emerging powerhouse India, right into a tear-jerking finale that will leave only the hardest hearts unmoved. It is, undoubtedly, Boyle’s most inventive crowd-pleaser since Trainspotting.
And yet, says Boyle, he was initially a reluctant director. “When I heard about it I thought: ‘I’m addicted to Who Wants to be a Millionaire? like everyone else, but I don’t want to make a film about a quiz show,’ ” Beaufoy’s richly textured script, however, changed his mind, as did the fact that he’d just spent three painstaking years making a sci-fi movie called Sunshine that very few people went to see. “Making Sunshine was all about having complete control,” he says, before dropping his head into his hands. “But then it opens and, f***ing hell, it was a terrible weekend!”
He thus repeats that his attraction to Slumdog Millionaire was the complete lack of control it offered him, and the challenge of making it up on the fly. “Certainly, I feel that the temperature of the film is appropriate to my reaction to the place, which is that I loved it desperately. And loved the people.”
He adds that he was wowed too by the country’s open approach to spirituality, and how the people seemed to see spiritual influences in all aspects of life. He says that he found it inspiring, and that he is, “more and more spiritually inclined these days.”
And true, if you look at Boyle’s best work to date, there seems to be something transcendent trying to escape. Whether it’s Ewan McGregor’s overdose scene in Trainspotting, the ghostly maternal apparition in the kids flick Millions, or the climax of Sunshine, where Cillian Murphy’s astrophysicist stretches his hand out to stroke the surface of the sun, there’s a sense that Boyle is wrestling with ineffable metaphysical questions amid all the colours, the pace and the pop bravado.
“Well, I was going to be a priest until I was 13,” he says, describing how his Manchester-raised Irish-Catholic family, including twin sister Maria and younger sister Bernadette, had high hopes for the only male heir, who was booked into a Wigan seminary until wiser heads prevailed. “A priest in school saw something different in me, and told my mother that I should wait until I was 18.” In the meantime, of course, Boyle had discovered another church – the ABC Cinema in Hulme.
Naturally, the mini-priest in Boyle was gradually replaced by the aesthete, and he skipped from a drama degree at the University of Wales to the now defunct Joint Stock Theatre Company to the role of artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. It was at the latter institution, he says, that he developed his slightly off-kilter sensibility, together with a respect for good writing, after directing plays from iconoclasts such as Sarah Kane and Robert Brenton. He segued into television and in the mid1990s was brought a dark screwball script about some devious flatmates and a bag of stolen cash, called Shallow Grave. The rest was Britflick history.
So, would it be fair to assume, with his renewed and reinvigorated sense of spirituality that Danny Boyle is finally doing, and doing well, what he was put on this earth to do? “No!” he shrinks back at the very thought. “I don’t think this is my destiny at all. I’d love to do something genuinely constructive. I really should give it all up and become a teacher. That’s a proper job.”
the review on why Danny Boyle chose an underpass in mumbai.
For Boyle, the 49-year-old director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, this is a scene and a key location. He’s been here twice before, and even came yesterday, to do a final check. Today, however, there’s just appears to be one tiny snag. Mumbai City Council, over night, have built a 12ft (3.7m) wall, 100m long, through the middle of the location.
“My first thought was: ‘That’s just not possible, is it? To build a wall that big in 24 hours?’ ” says Boyle today, in the library room of a Covent Garden hotel, barely able to contain his mirth at moments that were harrowing at the time. “Then you say: ‘Why didn’t we know about this? Why didn’t anyone tell us? We can’t do any of the shots! We’re not f***ing getting anything done today.’ ” Boyle chuckles as he says this.
He is in faded denims and a white T-shirt, and as he speaks he glows, with the mien of someone remembering a particularly good party. “But then what happens is that you give up any idea of trying to control the situation, and you just go with it. You get your shots, but it’s not about control, it’s about reacting to what’s in front of you. And if you go with it and trust it, you’ll get back a freewheeling spirit. That, I hope, is in the movie.”
The freewheeling spirit, and then some, is what defines Slumdog Millionaire. Written by the Full Monty scribe Simon Beaufoy, and based on a bestselling novel, it has, in Boyle’s hands become a thing of hyperkinetic beauty. Here, as cameras spin down the slum-streets of Mumbai, and then around the Taj Mahal, and later through the mansions of the country’s new ultra-riche establishment, a story unfolds about the simple unswerving love that Jamal holds for his childhood sweetheart Latika (Freida Pinto), and how it drives him through the ache and hardships of an emerging powerhouse India, right into a tear-jerking finale that will leave only the hardest hearts unmoved. It is, undoubtedly, Boyle’s most inventive crowd-pleaser since Trainspotting.
And yet, says Boyle, he was initially a reluctant director. “When I heard about it I thought: ‘I’m addicted to Who Wants to be a Millionaire? like everyone else, but I don’t want to make a film about a quiz show,’ ” Beaufoy’s richly textured script, however, changed his mind, as did the fact that he’d just spent three painstaking years making a sci-fi movie called Sunshine that very few people went to see. “Making Sunshine was all about having complete control,” he says, before dropping his head into his hands. “But then it opens and, f***ing hell, it was a terrible weekend!”
He thus repeats that his attraction to Slumdog Millionaire was the complete lack of control it offered him, and the challenge of making it up on the fly. “Certainly, I feel that the temperature of the film is appropriate to my reaction to the place, which is that I loved it desperately. And loved the people.”
He adds that he was wowed too by the country’s open approach to spirituality, and how the people seemed to see spiritual influences in all aspects of life. He says that he found it inspiring, and that he is, “more and more spiritually inclined these days.”
And true, if you look at Boyle’s best work to date, there seems to be something transcendent trying to escape. Whether it’s Ewan McGregor’s overdose scene in Trainspotting, the ghostly maternal apparition in the kids flick Millions, or the climax of Sunshine, where Cillian Murphy’s astrophysicist stretches his hand out to stroke the surface of the sun, there’s a sense that Boyle is wrestling with ineffable metaphysical questions amid all the colours, the pace and the pop bravado.
“Well, I was going to be a priest until I was 13,” he says, describing how his Manchester-raised Irish-Catholic family, including twin sister Maria and younger sister Bernadette, had high hopes for the only male heir, who was booked into a Wigan seminary until wiser heads prevailed. “A priest in school saw something different in me, and told my mother that I should wait until I was 18.” In the meantime, of course, Boyle had discovered another church – the ABC Cinema in Hulme.
Naturally, the mini-priest in Boyle was gradually replaced by the aesthete, and he skipped from a drama degree at the University of Wales to the now defunct Joint Stock Theatre Company to the role of artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. It was at the latter institution, he says, that he developed his slightly off-kilter sensibility, together with a respect for good writing, after directing plays from iconoclasts such as Sarah Kane and Robert Brenton. He segued into television and in the mid1990s was brought a dark screwball script about some devious flatmates and a bag of stolen cash, called Shallow Grave. The rest was Britflick history.
So, would it be fair to assume, with his renewed and reinvigorated sense of spirituality that Danny Boyle is finally doing, and doing well, what he was put on this earth to do? “No!” he shrinks back at the very thought. “I don’t think this is my destiny at all. I’d love to do something genuinely constructive. I really should give it all up and become a teacher. That’s a proper job.”
the review on why Danny Boyle chose an underpass in mumbai.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
slumdog millionaire U.K theatrical trailer
u.s.p- the unique selling point is a key feature to attracting the audience, the trailer shows aspects of finding love that was once lost, this could attract audience because a lot of people love a story about love and passion and being reunited with the one they love. when movies are related to similar situations of those in the audience, one unique selling point could be the director, most films at the beginning usually highlight who the director is and once the audience are familiar that a particular director that has great success in film making is involved with that film it will encourage them to watch the film. Another unique selling point could be the story line and how it attracts different age groups and different genders, the table below shows a difference between the amount of men and women that actually had an interest to watch the film, the chart showed more women than men went to watch the film, this could be because men are more interested in comedies and action films rather than watching a romance film, whereas women vary their choice of genres.
Elements of the genre and how it's highlighted- The genre is highlighted mainly by showing the clips of the film, by seeing at least a two minute clip it gives the audience an idea of what the film is going to be about, Also the way certain characters react in the film can highlight the genre, For example; a group of characters that are always upbeat and happy could show the film to be a comedy or even an action movie.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
As shown in the table below you can see by the separate factors being age,gender and class made the film such a success.
ages
as shown below people between the ages of 4 and 14 did not watch the film, this could be because the film didn’t interest that age of audience but people aged between 15 and 24 were the largest percentage of people to watch the film, this is because the film was somehow more relative to the audience of those ages. The percentage of female viewers were more than those of the male audience, women are more likely to watch a film like Slumdog millionaire because it has hints of romance in the film and women are more interested in watching such films about love and passion whereas men would prefer to watch a comedy or action film.
As shown in the class section more people from the middle class in such professions e.g a builder watched the film more rather than those people that are in upper class professions for example judges and lawyers, in some way people could say that the upper class decided not to watch the film because they are not interested in seeing people that live in slums become happy and successful through winning money on a game show, whereas this would interest a lot more middle class people.
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Monday, 23 November 2009
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
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