Thursday, 7 March 2013

Notes on Catfish

-Distributed by Momentum Pictures

-Released 17th of December 2010

-Unexpected hit at Sundance Film festival and one of most talked about titles at London Film Festival in November 2010

-Along with its theatrical release, Catfish was also available on VOD (video on demand) and the gap between theatrical and rental release was significantly shorter than the normal 16 week gap between theatrical and DVD release

-Film grossed £3,919 in ticket sales on opening night

-Catfish then opened in 15 sites nationwide and grossed £48, 469 in it's opening weekend

-By the end of the eight week theatrical run the film grossed a total of £144,064

Notes on Another Year

-UK premier took place on the 18th of October 2010 in the British Film Festival's 'Mayor of London Gala Screening'

-Was officially realised on 5th November 2010

-UK Film Council made a £150,000 P&A award to Momentum Pictures for the wider distribution of the film

-Momentum worked with ITV to deliver the event and it cost approx. £13,000

-According to Momentum the film took nearly £12,000 box office on the night

Notes on distribution

Distribution overview:

-Distribution is considered the most important part of film industry.

-In terms of Hollywood and other industrial cinema, production, distribution and exhibition operate most effectively when 'vertically integrated".

-In the UK, distribution is mainly focused on 'marketing and sustaining a global product in local markets'

-Three sections to distribution: licensing, marketing and logistics

-Licensing is process where by a distributor acquires legal right to exploit a film, and can take place on two levels

-International distribution, makes sure it goes to 90+ territories around the world

-Local distribution, acquiring licensing to release and exploit films in certain countries




Wednesday, 6 March 2013

Comparing and Contrasting: The BAFTA and Oscar Winners, including your analysis and perspective on the 'Britishness' of the films

List of British Oscar Winners:

Daniel Day-Lewis: Daniel Day-Lewis is a British born actor (From Greenwich, London, UK) and is the only person in film history to win the award for 'Best Actor' in the Oscars three times- with Day-Lewis being an important figure in the history of British cinema, head of the famous Ealing Studios. His first major film role as an actor was in the 1994 film titled 'Bounty', and in his career he has won 3 Oscars, won 88 different awards, and has been nominated 33 times.

Searching for Sugar Man: Searching for Sugar Man won 'Best Documentary Feature' at the 2013 Oscars.With its Swedish-British origin, this is what makes this documentary film a British Oscar Winner. This documentary film was directed by Malik Bendjelloul, initally realising the film in London before it expanding to New York and Los Angles. Searching for Sugar Man, a film detailing the efforts of two Cape Town fans in the late nineteen-nineties, Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out if the rumored death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true, and, if not, to discover what had become of him.

Skyfall: Skyfall is the 23rd movie in a succession of a successful line of James Bond movies. The list of Bond actors are as follows (in chronological order): Barry Nelson, David Niven, Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. The film was produced by Eon Productions, based in London Piccadilly and is based within Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. As of March 2013 it is the seventh-highest-grossing film of all time, and the second-highest-grossing film of 2012. The film won two Oscars for 'Outstanding British Film' and 'Best Film Music'.

The main reason why there are more British winners at the BAFTAS rather than the Oscars is that the BAFTAS are a British based award ceremony, with specific categories specially for only British films and 'British produced' films and music etc. As the Oscars are more international, there are greater contenders for the crown, so to speak, in terms of who gets the award- and with more global competition, comes less of a chance for a British film to snap up an award. 

Thursday, 28 February 2013

Case Studies

Anna Karenina

Plot: Anna Karenina is a 2012 film set in late 19th century Russia high society, Anna   and she enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky.

Box Office Success: with a Budget of £31 million and a Box office success of $53,681,018 around the world, Anna Karenina did extremely well in the film market.

Reception: upon the release of the film it has got mostly positive reviews, with critics praising the acting (specifically Keira Knightley) and the production design, but fell behind in terms of the script. On Rotten Tomatoes the film received a 63 out of 100 overall.

Nominations and awards: it's been up for 23 awards, 8 of them the film won.

Seven Psychopaths

Plot: a comedy following the life of a struggling screenwriter, who becomes entangled in the LA criminal underworld, with his group of friends and his beloved Shih Zu.

Box Office Success: seven psychopaths had a $15 million budget, and overall in the box office the film made $23,492,318.

Reception: the film received generally positive reviews by varying film critics, Rotten Tomatoes gave the film 82% based on the 194 reviews it received on the site (with an average rating of 7/10).

Nominations and awards: this film has been up for four awards in total, nominated 3 times and won once.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Plot: a group of British retirees head off to India, to what they think will be an extremely luxurious hotel. Due down to false advertising it was not as luxury as they were hoping for, though it begins to charm the group in unexpected ways.

Box Office Success: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel had a budget of $10 million, and in the box office the film itself made an amazing amount of $134,388,807.

Nominations and awards: it has been up for 12 awards in total, and is nominated for all of those awards.

BAFTA research


BAFTA
What is BAFTA?
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in cinema, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.
What are the awards?



















Who won what?
Special Visual Effects: Life of Pi
Leading Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis- Lincoln
Editing: Argo- William Goldenberg
Short Film: Swimmer- Lynne Ramsay
Costume Design: Anna Karenina- Jacqueline Durran
Film (not English Language): Amour- Michael Haneke
Leading Actress: Emmanuelle Riva- Amour
Production Design: Les Miserables
Short Animation: The Making Of Longbird- Will Anderson
Original Screenplay: Django Unchained- Queintin Tarantino
Outstanding Contribution to Cinema in 2013: Tessa Ross
Film in 2013: Argo- Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney
Supporting Actor: Christroph Waltz- Django Unchained
Fellowship in 2013: Sir Alan Parker
Sound in 2013: Les Miserables
Outstanding British Film in 2013:
Director 2013: Ben Affleck- Argo
EE Rising Star: Juno Temple
Cinematography: Life of Pi- Claudio Miranda
Adapted Screenplay: Silver Linings Playbook-David O. Russell
Make-up and Hair: Les Miserables
Documentary: Searching For Sugar Man- Malik Bendejelloul
Animated Film: Brave- Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
Outstanding Debut: Bart Layton, Dimitri- The Imposter
Original Film Music: Skyfall- Thomas Newman
Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway- Les Miserables

How many British winners were there?

Les Miserables
Skyfall
Searching for Sugar Man
Swimmer
Lincoln


(5 winners were British)

 British Winners

Les Miserables- Les Miserables is a British musical drama film, and is the book adaption of Victor Hugo’s 1862 French novel. This film was produced by Working Title Films and distributed by Universal Pictures. Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London. The company was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1983. It produces feature films and several television productions. Eric Fellner and Bevan are now the co-owners of the company, and with this in mind, this is one of the reasons Les Mis is classed as a British film.

Swimmer- Swimmer is an 18 minute long short film, following a young man as he swims through the lakes and rivers of Britain, continually tracking his journey along the way. Swimmer was directed by Lynne Ramsay, a graduate from the National Film Television school in the year 1995.

Lincoln- Although the film itself is about American story and is produced and directed by American producer and director ‘Steven Spielberg’, the main actor in the film (Daniel-Day Lewis) is British, which in turn, you could argue, makes the film British.

Tessa Ross Research

Tessa Ross  CBE (born 1961) is a BAFTA award winning UK film executive who is controller of film and drama at Channel 4.
She has been the executive producer of several notable British films including; Billy Elliot (2000), The Last King of Scotland (2006), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Four Lions (2010) and The Iron Lady (2011). In the 2010 New Year Honours she was awarded the CBE for services to broadcasting.