Film production and distribution research

Dreamwork
It was founded October 12, 1994 about 18 years ago and was founded in California. Its owners are: Independent (1994-2006), Viacom (2006-2008) and is currently owned by Reliance ADA group (2008-present). Dreamwork s both produces and distributes films. Toy story 3 is Dreamwork s highest grossing film earning $1,063,171,911. They usually produce animated films focused on children.

20th Century fox
This company was founded in May on the 31st in 1935. The company was founded in California. It was owned by Independent (1915-1985) but is now owned by News corporation (1985-present). They both produce and distribute films. Their highest grossing film was Avatar earning $2,782,275,172. 
They produce mostly sci-fi or fantasy films but also produce some very well known dramas such as Titanic.

Working title
working title was founded in 1983, it doesnt state the founders but mentions the key people involved with this film institution and they are as follows: Tim Bevan, Sarah Radclyffe, Eric Fellner, Lisa Chasin, Debar Hayward and Natascha Wharton. It was owned by PolyGram (1991-1999) and then by universal studios (2000-present). they only produce films and don't distribute. they produce british films which are usually romantic and also sad.

Universal studios
This production company was founded April 30 1912 in california. its owners are/were independent (1912-1952), Decca Records (1952-1962), MCA (1962-1997), Panasonic (1990-1995), Seagrams (1995-2000), Vivendi (2000-2011), NBC universal (2004-present), General electric (49% 2004-present) and Comcast (51% 2011-present). this company both produces and distributes films. their highest ever grossing film was Jurassic Park earning $920 million. they produce well known films such as E.T and Dracula etc.

Lionsgate
This was founded July 3, 1997 in Vancouver. It is a public company and doesn't seem to say that is owned by anyone. Their highest grossing film was The Hunger Games earning $408 million, they produce a few horror films and also action films. they both produce and distribute films.

Warp films
it seems to have been formed around the year 2000, and its founders are Rob Mitchell and Steve Backett. it is a production company which only produces films. their highest grossing film was Four Lions earning £2.9 million. They produce british films based in the United Kingdom, they produce comedies and dramas mostly but have produced different types of films as well.

Film Distributors

Production Company

For our movie the production company i plan to use to distribute and produce my film is Screen Gems. This is due to the fact that this production company produced a film  called "The Roommate" which is what we are basing our film on. I feel it is appropriate because they already know how to produce and distribute this this type of film.

Credit List

Credits Lists

BBFC presentation

The History of Film Censorship in the UK s

Costume List

Costume List

Prop List

prop list

Location Recce

Location Recce

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment 2

Risk Assessment 2

Treatment on Prezi

Mind map: Thriller codes and conventions

Thriller on Prezi

Introduction to genre

The genre i have chosen is thriller, this genre is full of suspense and anticipation. thrillers are used to keep the audience watching the filmer, being entertained at all times. The protagonist in these films is always against a problem for example if there were a mission, an escape and even a mystery. there is always a lot of emphasis on the problem the hero/protagonist faces in the sense that it will be focused on a lot throughout the whole film, for example if there is a escape from some the film will focus on what they are escaping from and why.

180 degree rule

When the establishing shot is shown, the camera should always stay on the same side, for example if two people are having a conversation they should always be filmed on the same side as the establishing shot. It keeps the flow going and makes it a lot more realistic, furthermore if you break the rule it looks very wrong and will ruin the flow of the scene.

Target Audience Profile

Mind map of TA

Character Profile: Janet

Character Profile on Prezi

Character Profile: Claire

Character profile on Prezi

Final Synopsis

17 year old Jannet has always been a lonely individual. She never really had any friends and always spent time alone. This all changed when she met 16 year old Claire. She seemed to fit in with Jannet so perfectly, they both happened to like the same music, films and had the same opinions on everything. Jannet didnt find any of this weird because this was the first real friend she had ever had.

on the 16th of november they decided to go out. they went to london and went to various clubs, they stayed till late until Jannet said she really needed to get home because her mum is probably worried. Claire grabbed Jannets arm and ordered her to stay. Jannet was shocked by this new attitude she had never seen from claire before and felt threatened but decided to stay. they carried on going from place to place partying.at one of the clubs Claire had spiked a drink and offered it to Jannet, Jannet noticed Claire doing this and rejected it. Claire told her she had somehting to show her. She showed her various photos of her in school, at her house and everywhere. Jannet was shocked when Claire showed her this, she carried on showing her stuff that Jannet would never expect. Jannet was now feeling nervous and scared and as Claire went to grab her she immediately grabbed the nearest object and hit Claire round the head with it. 

There was now a body lying on the ground and Jannet was left stuck wondering what to do.

Synopsis

17 year old Stacey Miller was an ordinary student with an ordinary life, this was all about to change when she met Claire O'neil. she didn't manage to fit in school and never really talked to anyone. a new girl joined the college: 16 year old Claire O'neil. She started to becoming very close to her and they never spent a day apart. Stacey realised that Claire really enjoyed spending time with her and didn't really mind. after about a month or two she noticed Claire constantly staring at her and following her everywhere she went.

It was half term and Claire asked if she could spend the half term round her house, Stacey noticed she was very obsessive and didn't like this. Claire was obviously very angry when stacey rejected her and planned a way to spend everyday with her. This is when Claire attempted to kidnap her by spiking her drink. Stacey didn't trust Claire and rejected the drink, at this point Claire became very anxious and angry and attempted to grab Stacey. Stacey then instinctively grabbed the nearest object and hit Claire round the head with it, in this case a glass. Now Stacey had a problem and needed to get rid of the body!

I think as a whole the entire opening sequence worked very well with the music, sounds, acting and special effects. The greyscale effect added revealed the genre and also made the opening look much more professional. one if the things they could have improved on is making it look as if it is a film opening because for me it looked more like the credits of a movie and also could not really tell the story behind it. To make theirs successful they could have possibly added some sort of story line behind the opening sequence to reveal it slightly to the audience.  

The opening sequence of this film was very good because it seemed very professional based on how realistic everything looked including the blood and the dead body although the acting wasn’t perfect it was still good enough. They could have improved by adding the credits where the action was taking place to make it look better and more realistic in terms of actual thriller openings. To make their opening successful they could have added the credits in straight away during the scene which makes it a lot easier because then at the end or the beginning their wont be just credits on a background.

The things they have done well in this opening is use music which is very fitting to the scenario, show the credits during the action taking place and the fact that you can see a clear storyline to it makes it interesting. They could have improved on some of the acting, the sound effects and also the acting did not suit the scenario, for example they should look nervous but instead look happy and cheerful. To make it successful they could have improved on all of these factors and maybe could have added some more editing in it to make it more realistic and enjoyable. One major thing they should completely avoid is using another company at the beginning of the video; this is because they were not involved with this company and may also lead to problems in the future.

Preliminary task

What we did:

This video shows what we have created for the preliminary task at the beginning of the course. We use things like match on action and the 180 degree rule, furthermore we edited this video using final cut express to make it seem smoother and much more realistic.

Narrative:

The story is about an individual (Enid) attending a job interview but has the wrong attitude and is far from prepared. As she enters the interview it all seems fine until she starts talking about how she only cares about the money and doesn't really have any interest in the job, she soon faces the consequences of her attitude and faces being rejected.

Evaluation:

The things that went well in our preliminary task was the acting, the match on action and the camera work as well as the editing. The things that we could have done better were to adjust the lighting in the first scene to make it brighter so it makes it clearer. One of the things I would change is to try a make the video a bit longer and to add a few more transitional effects.  Think that we followed the brief very well by following all the rules such as the 180-degree rule and we included the match on action scene, which was required, we also included the shot-reverse- shot, which was also required and was mentioned. During this task I developed my editing skills on final cut express and also learnt about how to handle the camera and how to use the features on it.     

The Shining

Title Sequence Work Sheet MUJO

Introduction to the Brief

Today we have been introduced to our coursework task and overall i think it will be an exciting but long project. Our task is to create a title and opening of a new film, to last a maximum of two minutes. I feel this will be a tough but enjoyable project due to the fact that we will get to use a variety of technology, it will also be tough because we will have to learn how to use all the softwares, equipment and programmes.

Tidy up trevor

in this lesson we wrote scripts based on children books Tidy up

The opening credits of the film 'se7en' uses many codes and conventions based on its genre: thriller. some of the codes and conventions it uses in the opening credits were: the fast editing, the quality of the scene, the text, the camera angles, the filter and many other things which are used to add to the thriller effect.

within the opening scene of 'se7en' one of the codes used is fast editing, this is something you would expect when watching a thriller, it makes it seem as if everything is going by fast paced and makes it a lot more interesting. The use of the fast editing associates with the thriller genre because you are viewing many scenes over a short period of time; you get shown vital information which may lead to clues later in the film for about 1-2 seconds. It also shows some disturbing scenes for a very short period at a time so the audience becomes surprised when they view it, during the opening scene these images are scattered about so they pop up unexpectedly which also associated to the thriller genre.

Another important convention is the quality of the video, it makes it seem as if it is a very old tape being played and also look grainy. This adds to the effect of suspicion which makes the audience wonder why it is this way and also makes this scene seem like something which has already happened and the audience is watching it because it may lead to clues later on within the film. Another technique that the film maker uses related to this is the filter on the camera, it makes the scene look red, grey and also gives it an earthy tone, this conveys the impression that the life out of the opening scene has been drained, this also relates to the fact it looks old and not very important.

One other important code and convention which is used by the director of the film 'se7en' is the font he uses within the opening scene/credits. the opening credits look broken and look as if they are falling apart, this also relates to the fact that this film is a genre, it makes it seem unusual and also looks like it belongs to a horror film, it adds to the effect of mystery because you are unsure as to what it has to do with the rest of the film. in relation to this (the font) within the opening scene you can see a mans hand and he is writing something, the audience does not get to clearly see what the character is writing therefore this also relates to the mystery of this film because it gives to audience the impression that this will also be revealed later on but for now they are still having to figure out what is going on within the scene, also what this will lead to later on in the film.