Exhibition

Box Office Grossing

This is England generated £207,676 on its first opening week in the UK box office, at 62 screens. The films highest ever grossing in the U.K was £1,315,593. The film made a box office grossing of $8,176,544 world wide in total, making it a huge success for an independent film and surpassing Shane Meadow's previous film Dead Man Shoes which was also produced by Film Four.

Rewards

This is England won a few awards such as a BAFTA for best British film in 2008 and British independent award for best British independent film.

Critic Reviews

On 5 January 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 93% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 82 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 23 reviews — indicating "universal acclaim".This made it the tenth best reviewed film of the year.

The film appeared on several US critics' top ten movie lists of 2007; it was third on the list by Newsweek's David Ansen, seventh on the list by The Oregonian's Marc Mohan, and ninth on the list by Los Angeles Times' Kevin Crust. In Britain, director Gillies Mackinnon rated the film the best of the year and David M. Thompson, critic and film-maker, rated it third.The film was ranked fourteenth in The Guardian's list of 2007's Best Films and fifteenth in Empire's Movies of the Year.

Technological Convergence

The introduction of new technology has helped change the film industry vastly by creating new ways of distributing, marketing, producing, exhibiting and exchanging films. This is England is an example of a film benefiting from technological convergence such as Film Four marketing the film online through the use of the web 2.0. Websites such as video streaming sites, social networking sites and online radio sites has created a larger appeal for 'This is England' and has created a more viral marketing affect which has created a larger 'word of Mouth' affect. The larger the advertisement, the larger the chance the film has in attracting its target audience, improving the chance of more viewers for the film and more profit for Film 4 and the other synergy companies in the production of the film. 

Though technological convergence has brought about a positive change in the film industry, it has also brought about a negative one which is 'piracy'. The web 2.0 is a major example of piracy due to how people can now go onto video streaming websites and download illegal films onto their computers without having to pay the original producer of the film. This has left the film industry in the U.K to lose hundreds of millions of pounds. Though there is new technology being created through technological convergence once again to halt the piracy of films such as new blue ray disks, which have a heavier encryption code then DVD's to stop people from pirating films. The negative side to this is that blue ray disks are not as popular as DVDs and so people will buy DVD's more then Blue Ray disks, due to how Blue ray films are more expensive and they need a blue ray player in order to play them which costs more then a DVD player. 

Digital Technology at the Cinemas  

• Fitting the cartoon is a European non-profit organisation set up to increase the animation of European films.

• Digital distribution is cheap, efficient and fast.

• Cinemas are now having digital equipment installed in them such as servers and screen projects to show films at a higher quality and faster pace.

• Traditional cinema methods are now being left for digital techniques.

• Advantages of digital complex cinemas are that films can be changed from one room to another without the physical removal of the film disks. Digital projectors never lose quality.

• 33mm films are old fashion methods of filming which easily got damaged when projected and the quality of the films would be lost due to dust in the film’s disks.

• 3D films are now being created at a rapid paste to entice film goes to come to cinemas, due to the rise in video game entertainment systems and home cinemas technology.

• Cinemas are trying to offer cinema goes realist experience of films through 3D technology and surround sound.

• Digital technology helps distributors save vast amounts of money through not having to create thousands of copies of the film on DVD or Blue Ray. People can digitally download the films.

This is England - Technological Convergence

This is England was distributed to cinemas on a printed 35mm (blowup), never made to be distributed digitally to play on Imax cinema screens. When the film was released for home cinema entertainment, it was released on video tape, DVD, then later on Blueray enabling the film to be viewed in high definition.

Distribution and marketing

‘This is England’ was given a wide release in England due to how all the film production companies (Wrap Films, Film 4, EM Media, Optimum Releasing and Screen Yorkshire) didn’t know how successful the film would have been if it was to become a universal release.

Shane Meadow was known for making other award winning movies but the production companies still couldn’t take a risk with the movie being distributed else where and not selling due to people not liking. In the end, the film was distributed through theatrical cinemas (by Optimum Releasing), television (e.g Film 4, channel 4, etc), DVDs, Internet (itunes), etc. It’s only till it was released in the UK and people found it amazing, that the movie was then distributed internationally to other countries such as the following:

• A-Film Distribution (2008) (Netherlands) (theatrical)

• Arthaus (2007) (Norway) (theatrical)

• IFC Films (2007) (USA) (theatrical)

• IFC First Take (2007) (USA) (theatrical)

• King Record Co. (2009) (Japan) (theatrical)

• Nippon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippan) K.K. (2009) (Japan) (theatrical)

• NonStop Entertainment (2007) (Sweden) (theatrical)

• Optimum Releasing (2006) (UK) (theatrical)

• A-Film Home Entertainment (2008) (Netherlands) (DVD)

• Ascot Elite Home Entertainment (2008) (Germany) (DVD)

• Canal Film (2008-2009) (Norway) (TV)

• Madman Entertainment (2007) (Australia) (all media)

• NetFlix (2007) (USA) (DVD)

• Red Envelope Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)

• Sandrew Metronome Distribution (2008) (Finland) (DVD)

This is England was produced by a synergy of institutions and so the film had a budget of 1.5 million pounds in order to help distribute and market the film, although the effort and impact of the budget would be relitivley small due to how the budget would be able to fund for expensive and large ranged advertisement schemes such as television adverts of the the film inbetween football television breaks, to target at mass audiences. Here are the following production companies of the film.

Big Arty Productions

EM Media

Film4

Optimum Releasing

Screen Yorkshire

UK Film Council

Warp Films
 
This is England was screened at a number of film festivals around the world such as the London Film Festival in England. This was done so that film fanatics would hopefully cause a 'word of mouth' effect about the film, in order to give it a viral marketing effect. This way of marketing was expensive but it gave the film the chance to entice viewers who would be the type of audiences that would watch the film, due to Film festivals mainly showcasing the latest innovative films from short to large from known directors to upcoming directors. This made this is England the perfect film to be marketed through a film festival, due to how it met all those categories.

Here's a theatrical poster of 'This is England' showcasing some of the casting of the film. The colours red, white and blue in the title of the film represent the traditional colours of the England flag, emphasising the title of the film being about England. The customs the characters are wearing suggest that the film is set in the 80's in the time of he skin head movement, due to how they all seem to be wearing light blue jeans, where most of the men's heads are shaved off and the women's heads have a very masculine hair cut style, which clearly stands out.

There's a small boy at the front of the poster who's the only one out of line with the rest of the characters behind. This suggests that the film could be based around this boy and his life as a kid growing up in the 80's, in the skin head movement. There's only one black male character in the poster suggesting that the film could also be relating to the culture aspects of England, maybe showing the prejudice and discrimination against non-whites in the Country.

Certificate rating

This is England was certificated an 18 by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), which prevented the film from being aimed at younger age audiences from 15 to 17, which Shane Meadows had originally hoped for. Shane Meadows appealed to the BBFC, aruging that This is England was given the wrong age rating, which would prevent it from being watched by younger viewers who would benefit from it greatly. After this appeal, city councils started looking into the film themselves which led to This is England being rated 15 in certain areas throughout England such as Bristol, Westminster and Camden, due to how certain city councils found BBFC's age rating unsuitable. This led to This is England being made more accessible for younger age audiences throughout certain cities in England.

Avatar

Avatar is a film directed by 'James Cameron' and created by '20th Century Fox', which was released on the 17th of December 2009. 

Production of Avatar

Movie Budget 

Avatar had a budget of $200 million for its production budget, making it the highest film production budget of all time world wide. How Avatar managed to get this large sum of finance was mainly due to 20th Century Fox, due to the film institution being a conglomerate and so has a wide range of subsidies and other media institutions to gain its profits from. 20th Century Fox was also in synergies with other film institutions which were smaller but contributed a significant amount to the production budget. The following film production companies of Avatar are:

• Twentieth century -fox film 
• Dune entertainment
• Giant studios 
• Ingenious film partners 
• Lightstorm Entertainment 

If I compare Avatar with 'This is England', the budgets between both films is large in difference due to Avatar having the highest production budget ever, while 'This is England' having a very low budge of 1.5 million due to it being a British independent film. This contrast largely emphasises how small the British film industry is compared to the American one.

Casting

The cast of Avatar are mainly known from sci-fi and action genre films and so certain audiences of Avatar may have already known them. 'Sigourney Weaver' was apart of the Avatar cast, known for her role as the main character in the alien franchise which was also created by James Cameroon and so fan's of James Cameroon and his films would have already known Sigourney Weaver. Sam Worthington was the protagonist of the film, who was known for his role in 'Terminator 3' and 'Clash of the Titans'. Zoe Saldana plays as the nav'i princess, know for her roles in 'Star Trek' and 'After Sex'.

If I compare Avatar with This is England, there is a large star power difference in terms of well known actors used in each movie. This is England used a low key unknown cast of members, who made the film a success based upon their sheer acting performance which gave the movie realism to the audience to make them want to watch it. Avatar had well acting actors and medium star power, which certain cast members were known from previous major films which audiences of Avatar would have probably already known.   

Composer  

Avatar's music composer was 'Horner', known for composing songs in the hit movie Titanic (another film directed by James Cameroon). Leona Lewis song 'I see you' for Avatar's promotional music song, giving Avatar star and music power due to how Leona Lewis is a huge national singer known world wide.

This is England didn't have a well known music composer due to its low production budget. Most of the 80's songs which were used in the film were mainly reused songs from famous singers, it was only a few number of songs which were composed for the film, which were really even used. 

Distribution

Avatar was given a universal release, where it was released through most of the world on the 17th of september 2009. The film was released in thetrical cinemas, especially in cinemas with digital 3d and Imax screenings to show the film. the film then was released on home entertainment on DVD, Blueray and on downloadble websites.

This is england wasn't ever given a universal release and wasn't released through nearly every country the world as Avatar was. This is England surely wasn't released in 3D aswell at cinemas and at home entertainment, although 3D technology wasn't widely used back in 2007 as it is now and so the film never got the opportunity.

Exbition

Film 4 - Institutions and Audiences

Film 4 is a television channel which is dedicated to showing movies 24/7 and is available on Sky, Virgin Media, UPC Ireland, Freesat and Freeview, Astra 2D, Cablecom and Tiscali TV. The channel was first started up on the 1st of November 1998 and is owned by Channel 4 Television Corporation.

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

And many more...

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'

Production Studio

The first important aspect of a film's production is the production studio itself. Due to this, how successful the film is, is based on the production studio it has because of the many issues which must be taken into consideration by the production studio. The issues which it must taken into consideration are budget of the film, equipment needed for filming, etc. For 'This Is England', it didn't have just one production studio but two which was 'Film 4' and 'Warp Films'. Due to the film having two production studios, it would not only have advantages over films with just one production studio but it would also have disadvantages. The advantages were that the film's. The disadvantage budget would ultimately be higher then to a film with one production studio. 'This is England's' budget was £1,500,000, which when compared to other british budget movies is quite small. The reason 

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:

(Thomas Turgoose (Shaun

(Stephen Graham (Combo

(Joseph Gilgun (Woody

(Andrew Shim (Milky

(Vicky McClure (lol

(Andrew Ellis as (Gary Gadget

(Rosamund Hanson (Smell

(Jack O'Connell (Pukey

(Kieran Hardcastle (Meggy

(Perry Benson (Meggy

(George Newton (Banjo

(Kriss Dosanjh (Mr.Sandhu

Composer

It's not just the casting which is really important in the production of a movie but also the composer who creates the music which is used through out the entire movie. Music is very important because it can make a scene in a movie more powerful and affective on the audience. This is why a movie always needs a good music composer to create that specific music needed to generate that affect. In 'This Is England', the movie's music composer is Ludovico Einaudi who's known for creating the two songs 'Dietro Casa' and 'Fuori Dal Mondo' used throughout parts of the film to emphasize certain scenes.

The Fuori Dal Mondo Song.

An image of Ludovico Einaudi.

Although Ludovico created those two songs, he didn't create the rest of the music used throughout the film. The rest of the music was picked out by the director himself (Shane Meadows) which is generally Ska and reggae, to really help create the 1983 atmosphere of the movie for the audience. The types of songs used for an example are 'Tainted Love', 'Do The Dog', 'Pressure Drop' and many more ska and reggae songs from the likes of artists such as Soft Cell. This is because Ludovico doesn't create old 80's ska and reggae music but minimalist music (calm melody music). This is why Shane himself chose the ska and ragge songs because he knew what type of music he wanted. It was only for dramatic and emotional scenes the director needed music which was specifically created for that and so he hired Ludovico to create that type of music.

A slate of films in production

Genre

Original idea - for the film, from a book, other film, comic books, etc.

Casting – associations from other films of cast members. A list or unknowns? Why

production company

Studio – track record, successful films, genres

Director – other films, track record,

Producer - other films, track record

Greenlighting films

Script

Screenwriter – other films, track record

Composer - track record, genres,

Funding

Budget (the production company’s overall budget for making several films and individual films. )

Locations - issues

Special Effects - technology issues, expense, blue-screen, etc.

Mainstream film

Independent film

Art-house film

Proliferation – of films in a particular genre, technology in making, distributing or watching films, i.e. digitally by downloading from the Net.

Synergies – the benefits o fworking within a larger organisation or working with other companies.

Cross media convergence – issues of ownership, choice, promotion.

Other terms and words you think are topic specific.