Case studies

1
Case studies

• Warp-an independent production company, but you
  could also mention Warp X which is a separate
  company but based in the same offices, and they
  make really smaller budget films between 400,000
  and 800,000
• Working Title-which is owned by parent company
  Universal, this means they have a conglomerate
  backing.
• 20th Century Fox-Avatar owned by a conglomerate
  massive budgets bigger than anything made by
  Working Title aims at a mainstream blockbuster
  audience

2
Warp

• Since its birth as a shop and record label in
  Sheffield in 1989, Warp has become one of the
  Worlds most respected creative organisations.
  Originally just a record label/shop, Warp
  Records, Warp have since launched two film
  production companies Warp Films and Warp X (for
  low-budget, digital productions only)
• Warp Films was set up with funding from NESTA,
  the National Endowment for Science Technology and
  the Arts. It is based in Sheffield with a further
  office in London and has 14 full-time staff.
  Warp, which owns Warp Records Warp Films and
  Warp Music Videos Commercials. Also shares the
  same office with Warp X which is a separate
  company.
• ReleasesMy Wrongs 82458249 117 (Dir Chris
  Morris - 2003)Dead Man's Shoes (Dir Shane
  Meadows - 2004)Rubber Johnny (Dir Chris
  Cunningham - 2005)Scummy Man (Arctic Monkeys
  short film/music video)This Is England (Dir
  Shane Meadows - 2006)Grow Your Own (Dir Richard
  Laxton - 2007)Dog Altogether (Dir Paddy
  Considine - 2007)At the Apollo (Arctic Monkeys
  Dir Richard Ayoade - 2008)Le Donk and
  Scorzayzee (Dir Shane Meadows- 2009)Four Lions
  (Dir Chris Morris- 2009)

3
Case study-A small scale story

• Warp Films-Is a truly independent film
  company-because of this it will focus on low
  budget films and also co-funding. It often works
  with other studios to produce films because it
  has limited money, unlike Working Title which has
  Vivendi backing and 20th Century Fox. It produced
  the film this is England with Film 4, and this
  film focuses on genre based films i.e. social
  realism, which is a key genre associated with
  British film because it is cheaper to make that
  Hollywood films, which focus on special effects,
  CGI, HD,3D, because they have the financial clout
  to finance, and market and distribute. Warp Films
  does cannot rely on a big studio to finance their
  films and it cannot act as a distributor. Warp
  Films also own a record label, and Warp X. I
• This is England was distributed in the UK by
  optimum releasing, whose parent company is
  Vivendi which also owns Universal Studios, which
  owns Working Title.

4
Read this about Warp films

• http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15196
  509

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Synergy and Distribution

• One of their key financial backers is Optimum
  Releasing,, who are closely involved in the
  development process and distribute the films
  theatrically and on DVD in the UK. In April 2008,
  Australian film distributor Madman Entertainment
  announced "a collaboration" with Warp Films. Warp
  and Madman plan to make "at least 2 films
  together over the next 3 years." Optimum is a
  small, British-owned distributor operating in an
  industry dominated by major Hollywood
  distributors, and this relationship therefore
  benefits both themselves and Warp Films.

6
This is England

• This is England is directed by the midlands
  director Shane Meadows. The plot couldnt be more
  indigenous, but this is not the England of films
  like The Queen, Notting Hill or Pride and
  Prejudice. Instead the 1970s skin head movement,
  its uneasy relationship with West Indian culture
  and its distortion by the racist national front
  forms the backdrop for a story about the
  adolescent life of a bereaved boy. Meadows
  previously had box office and critical success
  with a range of other films all based on domestic
  life and relationships in the Midlands, including
  Twenty Four Seven, Once Upon a Time in the
  Midlands and Dead Mans Shoes. In his films the
  presence or absence of fathers and older male
  authority figures and the effects of such on
  young working class men are depicted with a
  mixture of comedy and sometimes disturbing drama.

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Another major difference between the Meadows
output and the more commercially instant
British films from Working Title and similar
companies, is the importance of cultural
reference points clothes, music, dialect that
only a viewer with a cultural familiarity with
provincial urban life in the times depicted would
recognise. This is England was produced as a
result of collaboration between no less than 7
companies Big Arty Productions, EM Media, Film
Four, Optimum releasing, Screen Yorkshire, The UK
Film Council and Warp Films. It was distributed
by 6 organisations IFC Films, Netflix. Red
Envelope Entertainment and IFC First Take in the
USA, Madman Entertainment in Australia and
Optimum Releasing in the UK.
8
This is England

• The critical response to This Is England has
  largely been to celebrate a perceived return to
  a kind of cultural reflective film making that
  was threatened by extinction in the context of
  Hollywoods dominance and the Governments
  preference for funding films with an eye on the
  US market, as this comment from Nick James,
  editor of the BFIs Sight and Sound magazine
  shows
• I forgot when watching Shane Meadows moving
  evocation of skinhead youth This is England at
  the London Film Festival, how culturally specific
  its opening montage might seem it goes from
  Roland Rat to Margaret Thatcher to the Falklands
  War to Knight Rider on television. What will
  people outside of Northern Europe make of the
  regalia of 1980s skinheads from the midlands?
  Hopefully they will be intrigued. This Is England
  made me realise, too, that some British films are
  at last doing exactly what Sight and Sound has
  campaigned for reflecting aspects of British
  life gain and maybe suffering the consequences of
  being harder to sell abroad.

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Warp films Case Study Four Lions

• Four Lions (2010, Warp Films)
• Directed by Chris Morris Produced by Mark
  Herbert and Derrin Schlesinger Written by
  Chris Morris, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain
  Studio Warp Films and Film 4 (Wild Bunch for
  international sales a division of StudioCanal
  and therefore a French sales company, who are
  owned by Vivendi!) Distributed by Optimum
  Releasing (UK) Release date(s) 23 January
  2010 (Sundance Film Festival) 7 May 2010 (UK)
  Budget 2.5 million Profit 608,608 from
  just 115 screens (box office opening weekend
  figures this is very high!)

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Warp Films Four lions

• Pre-Production and FundingThe project was
  originally rejected by both the BBC and Channel 4
  as being too controversial. Morris suggested in a
  mass email, titled "Funding Mentalism", that fans
  could contribute between 25 and 100 each to the
  production costs of the film and would appear as
  extras in return. Funding was secured in October
  2008 from Film 4 Productions and Warp Films, with
  Mark Herbert producing. Filming began in
  Sheffield in May 2009. ReleaseThe film
  premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in
  January 2010 and was short-listed for the
  festival's World Cinema Narrative prize.
  Introducing the film's premiere Chris Morris
  said I feel in a weird way that this is a
  good-hearted film. It's not a hate film, so I
  would hope that that aspect would come
  through."The UK premiere took place at the
  Bradford International Film Festival on 25th
  March 2010 and nationwide release is scheduled
  for 7 May.

11
Web 2.0

• Four Lions website contains aspects of sharing
  links for you to link trailers and the website to
  social networking sites. It has a live twitter
  feed streamed across the webpage to encourage
  interaction and buzz about the site/film. You can
  download jpgs and pdfs of the posters too, to
  continue to support a grassroots media support,
  in local areas. It has interactive software that
  responds to your click click the four men and
  they either fire or run for you! (see pic right.)
  On the links page, it contains hyperlinks to
  online multimedia interviews, web content and to
  the production company websites. On the Where to
  Watch page, if you click a cinema venue, it
  takes you directly to the booking page of that
  cinema.

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How Warp films target their audience

• Smaller niche audiences as they don't have the
  budget for special effects or big budgets starts
  to attract mainstream audiences. As they are
  independent they usually attract smaller niche
  audiences based on age or a certain gender.

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Warp X

• Warp X, is a separate company from Warp Films,
  and was set up to exclusively manage and
  co-produce films for the Low Budget Feature
  Scheme tendered by UK Film Council and Film4 in
  2005. Both companies share the same office space
  and some support staff to make them as resource
  efficient as possible.
• What is different about Warp X is they also make
  digital films with budgets between 400,000 and
  800,000 for theatrical distribution in the UK and
  internationally. Our films are genre based but
  with acutely original interpretations that will
  ensure they stand out in the market place. We do
  not make character based drama or ultra-cheap
  versions of mainstream Hollywood studio films.

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Warp X

• TechnologyWarp X only make digital films. They
  say we make digital films with budgets between
  400,000 and 800,000 for theatrical distribution
  in the UK and internationally. Our films are
  genre based but with acutely original
  interpretations that will ensure they stand out
  in the market place. We do not make character
  based drama or ultra-cheap versions of mainstream
  Hollywood studio films. Digital film-making is a
  lot cheaper than 35mm.

15
Targeting British Audiences

• Warp X say that they only produce films which
  qualify as British. Even more specific than that,
  they would strongly prefer producers to shoot
  in Yorkshire or some other northern region of
  England, but "if there is a compelling creative
  need to shoot elsewhere, then we will put the
  needs of the film first."Warp X's joint
  objectives as outlined by the UK Film Council and
  Film4 includeto provide new opportunities to
  increase participation of groups currently
  under-represented in the UK film industry such as
  writers, directors, producers and actors who are
  disabled, women and/or from black and minority
  ethnic groups.
• to encourage filmmakers to explore social issues
  of disability, cultural/ethnic diversity and
  social exclusion through the content and range of
  individual film projects.
• to create much-needed progression routes into the
  UK film industry for identified filmmaking
  talent, who may have experienced some success
  through their first feature film or through short
  filmmaking, but who need further infrastructural
  and other support to make their next film(s) a
  success.  

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Case Study
17
Case Study Working Title

• Working Title Films is a Britsh film production
  company, based in England. The company was
  founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcyliff in
  1983. It produces feature films and several
  television productions. Bevan are now the
  co-owners of the company along with the
  conglomorate of Universal.
• Working Title Films, the UK film production
  company behind box office hits including Four
  Weddings and a Funeral and Shaun of the
  Dead,Working Title Television is a joint venture
  with the NBC Universal and will be based in
  London and Los Angeles. NBC Universal is Working
  Title's parent company.
• Some Films they have made
• The Boat that Rocked, Love Actually, Nottinghill.
• Ali G Indahouse
•  Atonement (film)
•  Bean (film)
•  The Big Lebowski
•  Billy Elliot
•  Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy
•  The Boat That Rocked
•  Bob Roberts
•  The Borrowers (1997 film)
•  Bridget Jones's Diary (film)
•  Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason (film)
•  The Calcium Kid
•  Captain Corelli's Mandolin (film)

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Continued

• Working title film has the appearance of being an
  independent production company, but it is owned
  by universal pictures, who distribute its films.
  The most notable successes from Working Title are
  Four Weddings and A funeral, Bridget Joness
  Diary and High Fidelity, as well as the Cohen
  brothers films Fargo and O Brother, Where Art
  Thou? Working Title has a smaller subsidiary
  company, WT2, which makes small budget films.
• An example of a recent major title from Working
  Title is Atonement. Unlike many films produced by
  British companies, Atonements sole production
  credits are held by Working Title. However, as a
  subsidiary of Universal, whether the film counts
  as a British film is a matter of debate. The film
  was distributed by 8 companies Finnkino Oy
  Finland, Focus Feature in the USA, Hoyts
  Distribution in Australia, Studio Canal in
  France, TOOHO-Towa in Japan, United International
  Pictures in Argentina and Singapore, Universal
  pictures International in Holland and Universal
  Pictures in the UK.
• The film was shot entirely in England and was
  adapted from a novel by British writer, Ian
  McEwan . The screenplay was by Christopher
  Hampton, also British, and the film featured a
  mainly British CAST. However, because Working
  Title is owned by a major US company, it is not
  entirely clear whether we can treat this film as
  British, using BFI categories.

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"Brit flick's twin towers of power"

• Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan have achieved the near
  impossible
• Theyve created a wildly successful production
  company in a country where the film business is
  subject to repeated predictions of imminent doom.

Eric Fellner
Tim Bevan
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• Working Title Films began life co-producing the
  short film The Man Who Shot Christmas (1984).
• This led to their first film for Channel Four and
  the first of many landmark Working Title Films -
  My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) Directed by
  Stephen Frears.
• In 2009 still the most successful British film
  production company ever.

Their films have grossed more than 1.2 billion
Since 1984, and that is a conservative estimate.
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My Beautiful Laundrette (1984)
A groundbreaking script by Hanif Kureishi
co-produced with Channel 4, fitting their remit
of offering challenging work that would not find
a home elsewhere on television or in UK cinema.
The story revolves around the relationship
between a right-wing extremist, Johnny (Daniel
Day Lewis) and Omar (Gordon Wemecke), the
Pakistani nephew of an archetypal Pakistani
entrepreneur Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey), who are
brought together in revamping a run-down
laundrette.
Frears offers a critique of the Thatcherite work
ethic and the entrepreneur society, showing a
white underclass declining under the
determination of new immigrant businesses.
With interracial homosexuality to the fore it is
not surprising that this film caused a
considerable stir in a society that was suffering
the consequences of political and economic
revolution that had as its creed "there is no
such thing as society.
Made for 400,000 it took over 2.5 in the US
alone.
22
The success of their first three films, which all
dealt with British subjects, alerted the wider
film industry to this independent production
company, leading first to a international
co-productions in 1988 including their first
Anglo-American production For Queen and Country
(starring a youthful Denzel Washington!). The
success of this film on both sides of the
Atlantic gave Working Title a template for
co-production that they immediately began to
exploit, and one that has been the aspiration for
most other British independent production
companies since.
23

• The Working Title Movie Template
• British Film American star
• Appeal to international market ( success for the
  British Film Industry)
• This approach has provoked much criticism about
• the mid-Atlantic nature of the films.

24
Why UK/US Co-productions? According to Bevan
"Before co-productions we had been independent
producers, but it was very hand to mouth. We
would develop a script, that would take about 5
of our time we'd find a director, that'd take
about 5 of the time and then we'd spend 90 of
the time trying to juggle together deals from
different sources to finance those films. The
films were suffering because there was no real
structure and the company was always virtually
bankrupt."
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The British film industry dilemma

• Do you
• Make culturally specific films which appeal to a
  national audience?
• OR
• B) Make broader, generic films with an
  international appeal?

?
?
26
The British film industry dilemma

• Working Title want to make European films for a
  worldwide audience.
• They want to imbue them with European ideas and
  influences and they cant do these things without
  the backing of a major Hollywood studio.

"I think anyone in Hollywood would want to do
business with these guys," Former boss of
Universal Studios Edgar Bronfman Jr.
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A HISTORY
1984 - Working Title founded 1985 - My Beautiful
Laundrette is the first of a series of
collaborations with Channel 4 Films
Working Title produce a further 10 films in the
1980s
1988 - Production deal with PolyGram Filmed
Entertainment
1992 - PolyGram (a European music and media
company) buys Working Title.
1994 - Four Weddings and a Funeral A huge box
office success due to the access to the US market
provided by Polygrams financial muscle
Made for 6 million it took over 244 million
worldwide.
Working Title produces 41 films in the 1990s
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1998 - Polygram bought by Universal a Hollywood
Studio itself owned by Seagram
The financial stability offered by the support
from a major studio allowed Working Title to move
rapidly on to the international stage, and
PolyGram being taken over by Seagram and subsumed
into its film arm, Universal Pictures, in 1999,
further strengthened this. A marked change of
direction took place at this point, with the
traditionally provincial independent territory
being scorned in favour of international
prospects.
Working Title is now owned by Universal, which
is in turn owned by Vivendi
2000 - Seagram is bought by Vivendi, the French
multimedia conglomerate
29
The international activity did not prevent
Working Title from continuing to support British
filmmakers and from engaging in what would have
been considered traditional 'independent'
Anglo-European co-productions such as Ken Loachs
Land and Freedom (1995) and 'offbeat' Shaun of
the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007).
30
So what is a Working Title film?
This was once relatively easy to answer, as the
films they first made all seemed to address
issues of what it is to be British (or, more
specifically, English), and particularly what it
meant to be an outsider like the immigrants in
My Beautiful Laundrette.
Of course, the general public know them as the
re-inventors of a British romantic comedy genre
through Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill
(1999) and Love Actually (2003)
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Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
This was the first Working Title collaborations
with Richard Curtis (whod achieved fame with the
Blackadder TV series) and Hugh Grant and it set
the bar for British film production, particularly
in its use of soundtrack that spawned a
record-breaking number one single.
A rom-com that explores the relationships between
a group of upper-class friends as they meet to
celebrate and mourn. Curtis was able to bring
established contacts to an ensemble cast (such as
Rowan Atkinson), enhancing the potential
connection with the home audience
The film was a massive hit in the USA, in part
because of the view 'heritage Britain' - a land
of churches, old pubs and stately homes populated
by 'classy' English people with obligatory
bumbling fools sprinkled across the social
landscape. It also helped that one of the stars
American (Andie MacDowell).
32
Such an unexpected success gave Working Title
international clout and reach, and placed it at
the centre of the Hollywood. It also placed
considerable pressure on the company to become
the romantic-comedy-heritage-film company, a
pressure it resisted, but did not reject,
realizing that a popular film could help support
a number of productions with less potential for
such success yet still deserving of being made.
A quick glance at the list of films in its
catalogue reveals a list of over 100 films
produced since 1984 - probably the only common
thread among them is the desire to do something
different to what is being produced at the time,
and to do it well. It is the ability to make
films for specific audience groups, and to not be
pigeon-holed that has enabled the company to
ensure that its work remains fresh and successful.
33
So what is a Working Title film?
It is easy to categorize them (dismissively)
until you look through the catalogue and realize
that this is a company categorized only by
diversity and the ability to detect changes in
the market that enable a reorientation of
direction
There is no other British Film Company like
Working Title - it is allowed freedom to make
creative decisions but it is owned by a US based
conglomerate.
How do Working Title choose which films to make?
Fellner says projects get championed by
individuals in the development department and
these 'percolate' their way up to the top. Tim
Bevan and I then both take the decision on what
to greenlight.
34
Working Title and Co-production
Co-production has long been a method of sharing
risk within the film industry, and when Working
Title began its life, co-production was merely
another revenue stream that often involved
pre-sale or pre-distribution deals on world or
national rights. Since one of Working Titles
principal partners was Channel Four, and Channel
Four pioneered international co-production in the
UK, it is no surprise that Working Title adopted
and extended the model.
Initially, Working Title explored these deals
domestically, but as its success grew it found
that the international market opened up to it.
Working Title took co-production further when
formalizing their relationship with PolyGram
(later Universal) where US investment of 30 did
not prevent them from obtaining EU/UK tax
advantages. A 30 stake in the budget
Hollywood support clearly stimulates other
investors willingness to get involved in a film.
It is this advance in the model that radically
enhanced the production processes and values in
Working Title films.
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How does it work?
The Working Title philosophy has always been to
make films for an audience - by that I mean play
in a multiplex. We totally believe in this
because we know it is the only hope we have of
sustaining the UK film industry.
Despite its famous name, the structure at Working
Title is small. It employs just 42 full time
staff, split between the main Working Title
production arm and its recently closed low-budget
offshoot WT2 under Natasha Wharton.
When I was at Working Title we set up a New
Writers Scheme to develop new talent. The problem
was that at Working Title, smaller films would
inevitably get less attention than the bigger
budget projects so we decided to set up WT2 to
give proper attention to those smaller films.
2007 - Why did WT2 close down?
36
Does it always work?
Film Year Budget (est) Worldwide Gross (est)
Billy Eliot 2000 5 million 109.3 million
Long Time Dead 2002 2 million 2 million
Ali G Indahouse 2002 5 million 12 million
My Little Eye 2002 2-3 million 3 million
Shaun of the Dead 2004 4 million 30 million
The Calcium Kid 2004 5 million 61,415
MickyBo and Me 2004 3 million 172,336
Inside Im Dancing 2004 5 million 500,000
Sixty Six 2006 3 million 1.9 million
37
How does it work?
The most important part of the business is
developing scripts. Working Title has a strong
development team and invests heavily in making
sure that they get it right. They usually have
around 40 - 50 projects in development at any
time and their average spend on development is
around 250,000 to 500,000 per script.
They aim to make around 5 to 10 films a year,
spread across different budget sizes (with an
average of 30 to 40 million) and genres.
Released in 2009/10 are 10 films including the
Richard Curtis comedy The Boat That Rocked,
political thriller State of Play based on the
successful BBC television drama but re-imagined
in Washington and Green Zone, an Iraq war
thriller that reunites the Bourne series star
Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass.
38
Trouble ahead?
Film Year Budget (est) Worldwide Gross (est)
The Boat That Rocked 2009 50 million 36.3 million
State of Play 2009 60 million 87.8 million
The Soloist 2009 60 million 37.6 million
A Serious Man 2009 7 million 26.2 million
Green Zone 2010 100 million 86.4 million
As you can see, not all of their films have been
unqualified successes - as one would expect in
the movie industry. Earlier flops include Captain
Corelli's Mandolin (2001). It was their most
expensive film to date, with a budget of 57
million and, ironically, the one that seemed most
likely to succeed. Adapted from the popular book
of the same name, with an all-star cast, it still
managed to disappoint with the critics and at the
box office making only 62 million worldwide.
39
Does it always work?

• Released in the UK on April 1st 2009
• Budget of 50 million
• Richard Curtis romantic comedies have
  traditionally done very well at the box office
• Typical Working Title co-production with
  Universal and Canal
• Familiar Working Title faces and some
  up-and-coming talent
• Famous US star
• Traditional marketing campaign with synergistic
  merchandising and tie-ins soundtrack released
  on Mercury Records owned by Universal
• Increasingly traditional digital marketing
  strategies
• Large scale release - 400 screens in UK
• Medium scale release in US 800 screens
• It died in the UK yet it still did quite well in
  the US
• Well look at why?

40
Teaser Poster trailer
41
Main Poster trailer
42
Character posters
43
Heres our Working Title famous US star
44
Soundtrack synergy
45
Digital marketing the film used Spotify to
create playlists for each of the 9 DJs featured
in the film. For example Dave, played by Nick
Frost...
46
iPhone app
47
Something viral
48
Why did it sink at the box office?
Richard Curtis takes the complex, fascinating
subject of 60s pirate radio and turns it into
infantalised farce. The Guardian
The reviews werent great
Curtiss new film is a love letter to the music
and rebellious spirit of the 1960s. He has given
us what he imagines to be the eras cocktail of
sex, drugs and rocknroll but hes turned it
into something as cosy and comforting as a sweet
cup of tea. The Times
Richard Curtiss The Boat That Rocked sloshes
about merrily and has some magical
momentsoverlong, muddled and only fitfully
brilliant. Daily Telegraph
The Ship That Sank would be a more appropriate
title for Richard Curtiss latest and most
disappointing entertainment. Time Out
Terrible reviews tend to turn into terrible word
of mouth
49
Why did it sink at the box office?
Social recommendation is key - a personal
recommendation from a friend, colleague or
relative can be the most powerful trigger for a
cinema visit. Pre-requisite for favourable 'word
of mouth' are high levels of awareness and strong
interest. Negative word of mouth is extremely
difficult to overcome. Post-release, hopefully, a
combination of good word of mouth and further
advertising will combine to give the film 'legs'.
50
Why did it sink at the box office?
It got a different name in the US?
Last Friday saw the U.S. release of the film
Pirate Radio. During the 7 month delay in its
arrival on these shores both DVD and Blu-Ray
versions of the film came out in non-American
markets, ensuring that U.S. viewers would have
access via the Internet to copies. In fact, a cam
version debuted on Piratebay soon after
theatrical release, with DVD and Blu-Ray rips
appearing in mid-August, eminently available to
anybody around the world with an Internet
connection.
Remember - the percentage of box office that
comes from the opening weekend has increased from
15.7 in the 80s to 33.1 today
How did this affect its opening weekend in
America?
51
Why didnt it sink at the US box office?
While its gross intake was relatively modest, at
just under 3 million (over 800 cinemas) Pirate
Radio actually did very well on a per-cinema
average which put it in third place among films
in wide-release for the weekend.  While it is
impossible to know with any real certainty what
impact downloads of the DVD or Blu-Ray rips may
have had on Pirate Radios box office, the film
appears to have done pretty well, especially
considering its foreign origin, subject matter
and rather middling reviews (54 on the Rotten
Tomato scale). Somehow the forces behind the
movie found a way to compete with free and
position it to be profitable in the US, even
before its inevitable DVD and Blu-Ray releases
there. Maybe the existence of free versions on
the Internet did less to drive down demand for
the film, but instead fostered awareness and
interest in the movie above and beyond what the
producers were able to do via PR and advertising?
52
Despite being a very successful business model
over the past 25 years Working Title have had a
series of flops that would have sunk a UK film
company that lacked the backing of a Hollywood
studio. Despite making films with tried and
trusted talent in recent years (Richard Curtis,
Matt Damon) box office has not been great. How do
you think Working Title can be successful again?
http//www.launchingfilms.tv/index.php
http//filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/pirate_r
adio/
http//www.workingtitlefilms.com/
http//www.workingtitlefilms.com/film.php?filmID1
20
http//www.filmeducation.org/theboatthatrocked/act
ivity3.html
http//benjaminwigmore.blogspot.com/2009/04/boat-t
hat-rocked.html
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How Working Title Target their Audience

• The Working Title philosophy has always been to
  make films for an audience - by that I mean play
  in a multiplex. We totally believe in this
  because we know it is the only hope we have of
  sustaining the UK film industry. (Lucy Guard
  Natasha Wharton)

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Targeting audiences

• This means they make films for both a British and
  American audience. They are called tent pole
  films as they are a medium budget company and
  produce films for people of all generations
  across the world. They choose genres and film
  types they know will be successful think about
  Four Weddings and a Funeral, Atonement represents
  this sort of upper class representation of
  British people which Americans like

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Warp Films and Working Title
Warp films and working title are two
institutions. Warp is an independent company and
working title is part of a conglomerate company.
Conglomerate are a high budget film, they usually
produce Hollywood blockbusters and include a
higher standard quality i.e. special effects
more famous actors/actresses Etc. However,
Independent films usually base their budget from
low to medium as they are not as popular as a
conglomerate film, and dont have such a big
amount of money to work with. Working films
produce medium budget films upto 35 million
dollars and they have produced many films Love
Actually and Four Weddings. Warp films, have
produced a range of films as well, these include
My Wrongs Dead Man Shoes and This is England.
Working Title, get their funding from Universal
Studios, which is the parent company of Working
Title. They also get a big sum of money from
previous films that they have produced. Warp
films get their funding from NESTA a big company
is the filming business. In the case of Warp
films, the budget is low-mid, this affects the
genre that they could work on as an action packed
thriller and films that focus on social realism.
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Film 4 Productions case study

• Film4 Productions is a British film production
  company owned by channel 4. The company has been
  responsible for backing a large number of films
  made in the UK. Film 4 does not have the money
  that a bigger conglomarate does so most of their
  films are either co-funded and made with other
  studios and not distributed by them. However,
  Film 4 Productions also owns Film 4 so their
  films can be shown on this channel. A British
  production company finances British films
• 1982 1998 known as Channel 4 film
• Part of channel 4s remit was to experiment and
  innovate and cater for audiences not addressed by
  other channels
• Nowadays they fund around 20 films per year
• A number of films are by first time feature
  screenwriters or directors
• They look for distinctive films which will make
  their mark in a competitive cinema market
• Television premieres on FilmFour Channel and
  Channel 4 2 years after theatrical release

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• Film 4 Films
• David Rose, commissioning editor, a preference
  for contemporary and social political topics
• My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) portrayed the
  homosexual relationship between a white fascist
  and a Omar, born in Britain to Pakistani parents.
  
• Main audiences were contemporary critical
  audiences in the 20 30 age ranges
• Before Laundrette, a large percentage of the
  British population went largely unrepresented.
• Look at how Channel 4s remit has influenced the
  films they make, which are different to the
  mainstream and have something to say.

FilmFour made its reputation with films such as
Trainspotting in 1996, which made 23m at the box
office but cost only 2.4m to make and launched
the career of Ewan McGregor. It was also involved
in The Full Monty, which had a similar budget and
made nearly 16m. However, since East is East,
with FilmFour focusing on fewer, more expensive
films, it has seen a series of flops with Lucky
Break and Charlotte Gray, starring Cate
Blanchett, failing to make a big impact last
year. FilmFour Ltd, the film making division, is
distinct from the FilmFour subscription movie
channel, for which executives have high hopes.
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• FILM 4 PRODUCTION
• 1996
• Starring Ewan McGregor in his 2nd film
• Directed by Danny Boyle a British director
• A co-production with Figment Films, Polygram and
  The Noel Gay Motion Picture co.
• Budget 3,500,000 1996

• Marketing
• Trainspotting was more an object of youth
  culture or popular culture than it was cinematic
• Britpop was Trainspotting's main vehicle to
  integrate youth subculture into popular culture.
• Polygram put large sums of money into a
  sophisticated marketing and branding strategy
  including posters and a soundtrack
• Knew film would appeal to clubbers and ravers so
  targeted these Underworlds Born Slippy became
  a massive hit from the soundtrack
• Film gained distribution in the US although it
  did need subtitles!

• David Aukin, Head of Drama at Four Films it
  isnt really about drugsits a buddy movie
• US critics compared the movie to Kubricks A
  Clockwork Orange
• Both are anti-social-realist films dealing with
  subjects gangs, violence, drugs which are
  stylised and fast-paced.
• Both are independent films which shocked the
  critics and audience

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SYNERGY film 4.

• s

• The brand Trainspotting
• Soundtrack
• Posters
• DVDs
• Copied of the screenplay
• Reprinting of Welshs novel featuring the poster
  on the cover
• Music cross-promotion

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Four weddings

• 1994
• Starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell
• Co-production with Polygram and Working Title
• Budget 6,000,000

• Marketing Played upon aspects of national
  identity
• Played upon the more naïve elements of
  Britishness
• Hugh Grants quintessential fumbling middle class
  gentleman
• Appealing to an American audience
• A universal storyline of romance and a feel good
  happy ending
• SYNERGY Soundtrack

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Last King of Scotland

• The last king of Scotland is described by Film
  Fours Tessa Ross as the film the company should
  be most proud of, because it was directed and
  written by home grown talent(Kevin Macdonald and
  Peter Morgan), has subject matter that is
  challenging political and Hard-hitting and was
  the result of partnership with an American Major
  (Fox Searchlight) So for Ross this film seems to
  represent the current success story of British
  film and the newly found ability of producers to
  attract the current success story of British
  film and the newly found ability of producers to
  attract American investment for less commercially
  obvious projects.

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The film was produced by 8 companies in
collaboration (dna films, Fox searchlight, film
Four, Cowboy films, Scottish Screen, Slate films,
Tatfilm and the UK Film council) and distributed
by 3 (Fox searchlight in the USA, Japan, Holland,
Singapore, Argentina and Germany, Channel 4 films
in the UK AND Fox-Warner in Switzerland) The
writers cast and crew were British and American.
As these details and the views of the Head of
Film at one of the production companies
demonstrates, this is a good example of a
co-funded British film with British cultural
content. Despite the Ugandan setting and
political context, the film portrays the
fictional story of a Scottish visitor to Uganda
who is taken in by the dictator running the
country, but is based on real events, hence the
title. Despite the claims made for the film as a
British success story, however, this extract from
a review in the San Francisco Chronicle sees
things rather differently Now that Hollywood
belatedly has gotten around to Amin, he shares
screen time with a fictional character, something
the self aggrandizing general surely would have
found galling. But the brilliance of The Last
King of Scotland an immediate contender for
Oscar consideration and a spot on critics top 10
lists is the way it shows his dangerous allure
through the eyes of an innocent.
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This is England

• This is England is directed by the midlands
  director Shane Meadows. The plot couldnt be more
  indigenous, but this is not the England of films
  like The Queen, Notting Hill or Pride and
  Prejudice. Instead the 1970s skin head movement,
  its uneasy relationship with West Indian culture
  and its distortion by the racist national front
  forms the backdrop for a story about the
  adolescent life of a bereaved boy. Meadows
  previously had box office and critical success
  with a range of other films all based on domestic
  life and relationships in the Midlands, including
  Twenty Four Seven, Once Upon a Time in the
  Midlands and Dead Mans Shoes. In his films the
  presence or absence of fathers and older male
  authority figures and the effects of such on
  young working class men are depicted with a
  mixture of comedy and sometimes disturbing drama.

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Another major difference between the Meadows
output and the more commercially instant
British films from Working Title and similar
companies, is the importance of cultural
reference points clothes, music, dialect that
only a viewer with a cultural familiarity with
provincial urban life in the times depicted would
recognise. This is England was produced as a
result of collaboration between no less than 7
companies Big Arty Productions, EM Media, Film
Four, Optimum releasing, Screen Yorkshire, The UK
Film Council and Warp Films. It was distributed
by 6 organisations IFC Films, Netflix. Red
Envelope Entertainment and IFC First Take in the
USA, Madman Entertainment in Australia and
Optimum Releasing in the UK.
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This is England

• The critical response to This Is England has
  largely been to celebrate a perceived return to
  a kind of cultural reflective film making that
  was threatened by extinction in the context of
  Hollywoods dominance and the Governments
  preference for funding films with an eye on the
  US market, as this comment from Nick James,
  editor of the BFIs Sight and Sound magazine
  shows
• I forgot when watching Shane Meadows moving
  evocation of skinhead youth This is England at
  the London Film Festival, how culturally specific
  its opening montage might seem it goes from
  Roland Rat to Margaret Thatcher to the Falklands
  War to Knight Rider on television. What will
  people outside of Northern Europe make of the
  regalia of 1980s skinheads from the midlands?
  Hopefully they will be intrigued. This Is England
  made me realise, too, that some British films are
  at last doing exactly what Sight and Sound has
  campaigned for reflecting aspects of British
  life gain and maybe suffering the consequences of
  being harder to sell abroad.

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Be able to compare your British Case Study with
an American One. 20th Century Fox's Avatar would
be a good choice.

• 20th Century Fox's "Avatar" (2009) By comparing
  the film  and media practices of the much larger
  US film industry with your own wholly British
  Case study you will be able to appreciate
  differences in institutional ownership and media
  convergence. You will also be able to understand
  conceptually how the massive budgets of US film
  can offer choices of genre not available to
  primarily UK production companies. The types of
  films and the scale of their releases, together
  with target audiences can also be examined and
  compared. Even the application of technology and
  the growth of 3D films and the opportunities to
  produce such films can be compared.

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• What you should do

• Now you have looked at different film companies
  both independant and co owned consider the
  differences particularly between Film 4
  production company and a big conglomerate like
  20th Century Fox. Use Avatar as an example and
  look the differences in institutional ownership,
  production, scale, budgets, genres, distribution,
  exhibition, use of technological convergence,
  synergies. This comparison will give your British
  case study a wider context and you will be better
  placed to argue how film practices in the British
  Film Industry are directly affected by the giant
  US conglomerates based in Hollywood. 

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Production Avatar

• Initial budget 287 million began filming 2005
• Principle Production 2007 utilising 3D fusion
  camera system.
• University California developed Navi language (Dr
  Paul Frommer)
• Production studio Lightstorm (owned by James
  Cameron) Dune. 20th Century).

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Distribution Exhibition

• Released 16th December 2009
• 3,457 US theaters, 2032 3D
• 90 tickets were 3D
• Film Value Cinema-DVD-Blue Ray, Download,
  Subscription, Terrestrial TV
• Every film has a tailor-made distribution plan,
  which the distributor develops with the producer
  and or the studio. The most important strategic
  decision a distributor makes are when and how to
  release the film to optimize its chances.

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Marketing

• R-Marketing
• Avatarmovie.com
• trailer released 21 august 2009
• Action figures for sale
• Tie in Merchandising deals with Mcdonands
• Avatar book deals and Art work

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