The types of films Film 4 has to offer are mainly Hollywood films such as ‘Alien Vs Predator’, ‘American Gangster’, ‘Transformers’, etc. However, Film 4 doesn’t just show films all the time with out any real purpose. Sometimes the channel may have seasons or nights or weeks which show films centered around an actor, genre, director, etc. Take the Sci-Fi season for an example, where all that's shown for the whole season is Sci-Fi films like 'War of the Worlds', 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', 'Children of Men', etc. This is what keeps the channel interesting and fresh so that its audience is kept amazed with the films the channel provides.
Here's an advert for Sci-Fi season.
When the channel first launched, it was subscription only and was £6.00 a month (depending on which t.v provider the customer is getting the channel from). Today, the channel is free to watch and no longer requires subscription to view films. The ending of subscription was on the 19th of July 2006 and the re-launch of the channel as a free service began on the 23rd of July 2006. Film 4 launched a massive campaign advertisement of it going free by hiring famous actors such as ‘Judi Dench’ (who appeared as a lobster, in a lobster suit), ‘Eve Mavrakis’ (who appeared as a large tomato, in a tomato suit) and other famous actors.
Here's an advert for the re-launch of Film 4.
Although Film 4 is known by the majority of people for broadcasting films on television, the company is also known for creating and producing British Films. Film 4 has produced many British films in the past ranging from drama to action adventure. The example of movies Film 4 has produced are the following:
- Beautiful Thing
- Brothers of the Head
- Slumdog Millionaire
- The Last King of Scotland
- This is England
- Deep Water
- Bruno
- Fever Pitch
- Happy Go Lucky
If Film 4 produces movies then like all film companies, the most important aspect of creating a film is the production, distribution and exhibition. The aspects of production are about how the film is created and developed such as the company having to get the right director for the movie, star power actors, great script writers, perfect music composers, etc.
The aspects of distribution for a film company are about how the film is shown to the audience such as the film company having to think about aiming its movie at a type of target audience; creating different ways in order to advertise the movie (e.g radio, television, internet trailers and poster), etc.
The aspects of exhibition for a film company are all about the different ways in which the film is shown to the audience and how it affects them such as deciding if a movie is going to be universal released or not, how long will the movie be in cinemas, where will it be shown on television, etc. These aspects for production, distribution and exhibition must be all planned and thought through well by the film company in order for the film to be successful.
Take the film 'This is England' as an example of a film which Film 4 has produced and applies to all the three aspects of producing a film. 'This is England' is a drama written and directed by Shane Meadows, produced by Film 4 (obviously). The narrative of the film is that it's centerd around 'Shaun', a 12 year old school boy who's being bullied at school due to his farther dying in the falklands wars. Later on Shaun joins a skinhead gang, who accepts him as a member but when an old member of the gang is released from prison, things turn for the worse. The movie simply explores the problems of England in the 1983 such as cultural identity, white nationalists, racism and war.
Here's a trailer of 'This is England'.
Production of 'This is England'
Casting
It's always important for a movie to to bring it's characters to life through the way they sound and behave due to the quality performance of the actors. For 'This is England', Shane Meadow's had to have a specific acting crew which would perform the roles of the fictional characters in the story perfectly. The one major issue with this was that Shane Meadow didn't have a high enough movie budget to hire famous British actors. If Shane Meadow did, he not only would of had actors who played character roles well but he would have also gotten his movie star power, giving customers another reason why to see the film.
How Shane Meadow dealt with this issue was by simply hiring actors who could perform the roles of the characters as best as possible, so that the realism of the characters would fill in for the small star power in the film. The actors the director got were through auditions and previous films he had already worked on. Actors such as Joe Gilgun (who plays Woody) was hired to work in the film through the auditions. Actors such as Andrew Shim and Vicky McClure, worked with Shane in his previous film called 'A room for Romeo Brass'. For Shane, finding the right cast to play his characters were fairly easy accept for the character of Shaun.
When Shane Meadow nearly finished gathering up all of the acting cast, he came across the issue of not having an actor for 'Shaun' (the main character of the film). Finding an actor for the main role of a film is the most important part to creating a sucessful cast because if the actor dosen't perform well, then the director won't be able to get his views across to the audience through the main character.
After many auditions for the role of Shaun, Shane Meadow then thought if he was going to get the right actor for the role of Shaun, he would have to get an actor who's exactly like the character him self. In the end, Shane Meadow hired Des Hamilton to help him find this real Shaun by going out onto the streets and searching for him. In the end, Des and Shane found a child named 'Thomas Turgoose' who filled the requirements for the role perfectly.
After Shane Meadow found the right actor for Shaun's character, he then had the issue of working with Thomas Turgoose. It isn't the issue of Thomas not acting which the director faced (because he could act) but it was the level of profession he was acting at. Thomas never acted before and so it was his first time acting in such a big and important role in a movie, which involved determination and concentration. Due to Thomas's lack of experience, he found it hard to keep up his concentration and this is what made it hard for Shane to work with Thomas sometimes. How Shane managed to solve this issue was through discussing with Thomas his future. Thomas could either work in this movie and become known as an actor or he could leave and make the biggest mistake of his life. In the end, Thomas chose to stay and after a while of filming on set, he got used to the hard working atmosphere and started to act more professional.
Cast:
