8/8/2019 Essay Question - Production Process

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Matthew Dalby

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Essay Question Discuss the issues and patterns which enables your institution to

thrive as a film business, with a focus on the production process:

Ensure you include examples form Working Title and Warp Films C ompare your British case studies to Hollywood (Universal)

The institutions that produce and become successful film businesses all follow the same issues andpatterns throughout the production process. In this essay, I will discuss these issues and patternsthat these institutions face and will compare them to a Hollywood Institution (Universal).

In every production, the centre person is always the producer; as he has the main idea and themeof the film and begins to know the drive that the film will need during and after the productionprocess. The main job that the producer has is that he has to protect the director throughout thefilm s production and has to develop, fund, make, and take it into production whilst protecting thedirector s creative input.

The main issue that is faced by the producer at the beginning of production is developing an ideaso that it is suitable for a particular audience or genre and is realistic when it comes to planning for

the rest of production. The producer will have to have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the targeted audience in order to develop the idea into a good and well thought-out script. Thisscript must inspire the director whilst producing the film so that the director can incorporate asmuch of his/her imagination as possible into it. Therefore, many drafts have to be made of the scriptbefore the right script can be developed; which is a pattern throughout the film industry.

Co-production is a method that an institute can take because this is when several productioncompanies work together on a film and therefore can share their experience and strengths in filmproduction to make a better film. For instance, Working T itle has done international co-productiondeals with Studio Canal (a French based production and distribution company) to create the film Jonny English along with Universal Studios in America. This has given them a boost in the productionprocess because the different producers have different cultures and backgrounds; therefore makingtheir expertise together produce a wider audience because the humour can be shared to a widerrange of people (making it a four-quadrant picture).

Script development is one of the main key areas that enable our British case studies to thrive asfilm businesses because this process is about getting that script just right in order to effectivelyrelate to the big idea that the producer has and the discussion of how this will be put across to theaudience visually. Without the screen writer and script developer making this process as painlessand effective as possible, the whole of the film may not make sense to the audience when viewingitand could cause a major problem when the institution cannot market the film because the film doesnot relate to the main idea of the plot.

A good example of a thorough script and plot is the film by Working T itle called Hot Fuzz because

the whole film relates to the big idea of how people will go that little bit further just to get theirperfect world, and comedy is used alongside this to really present this idea all the way through thefilm. The script development process must have taken a key part in assuring that this idea flowsthrough the film because the screen writer and script developer would have talked about how theycan keep hinting to the audience about this main idea and how it can flow during the film.

Furthermore, another big issue that is faced by the producer during the production process isfinding the funding for their institution and films. Several investors need to be found by the producerthrough pitches and presentations because if one of those investors drops out, then they will still

8/8/2019 Essay Question - Production Process

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Matthew Dalby

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have the other investors to gain funding from. Also, if you have multiple investors then one investordoes not have a high enough percentage of the film s ownership to control the creative side of thefilm. The type of investors that the producer finds depends upon the budget of the film and alsomaybe the genre and style of the film.

As an example, Working T itle gain their funding from Universal because the institution is part of a

conglomerate and therefore would be able to create a wider range of genres because of the higherbudgets that they can gain from the American Parent institute. They also have the advantage of gaining their expertise in the film industry and their marketing brand on their films in order to berecognised by the Universal logo and therefore the audience would compare that to other Universalfilms and choose the Working T itle films because of Universal s success.

However, Warp Films gain their funding from NES TA (National Endowment for Science Technologyand the Arts), meaning that they have lower budgets to make their films and then cannot create thesame types of genres as Working T itle because aspects of different genres require features in themthat costs more to include (pyrotechnics, computer generated effects, props) and therefore limitsWarp Films films to a more social realism genre and genres that have to concentrate on the actingside of the film rather than the special effects.

Pre-sales can be made in order to secure the film s financing, but therefore makes the distributorthe power to ask for certain aspects in the film (such as certain cast or content). If these demandsare not met, then the distributor may pull out their funding from the production. This method of securing funding can be successful for institutions like Warp Films (who have made a Television Pre-sales deal with FilmFour) because they know that the television institute can act as a parentcompany. Although the downside of this method is that FilmFour then have the rights to the film.

If we then go on to compare the two British Institutes to a film like Avatar , we can see that thehigher amount of budget not only enables the production process of the film to run more smoothlyand effectively, but also can ensure that the marketing side of the film can be made as successful aspossible in order to attract the targeted audience and gain as much gross as possible.

Another pattern that is conveyed during the production process is the stage where the script hasto be broken down into a schedule in order to plan out how the budget will be used and what castwill fit into the character roles that the producer has an idea of. Bridget Jones Diary can be used asan example in order to portray the issue of trying to find the actor or actress that fits into the role of the character because the actress that plays Bridget Jones (Rene Zellweger) really plays thecharacter well because of how she talks and the way that she presents comedy well during heracting.

Dead Man s Shoes is a film by Warp Films that had one review by a critic that said that PaddyConsidine (who plays the main persona Richard) played the role calm and reasoned , but theclimaxwas weak and predictable and that the film went on too long; showing that maybe the scriptdevelopment could have flawed slightly when thinking of an effective climax that didn t seem

predictable to the audience and could have been neater when editing to make the film not asstretched as the critic stated.Moreover, a question that needs to be considered is is there an audience to cover the kind of

budget that we have? The difference between an American Institution and a British Institution(likeWarp Films and Working T itle) is that an American Institute (like Universal) really plan out how theywill market a film and find out as much information about the target market as possible (throughdemographics such as gender and age) before production. If the question is it marketable? answersas no then the producer will consider a different approach to conveying the main idea to the

8/8/2019 Essay Question - Production Process

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Matthew Dalby

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audience; which could be a different narrative or even a different genre. This however does notoccur with a British institution because they do not often realise that marketing is a hidden cost andthat the majority of the time, the marketing costs more than the actual making of the film.

Fundamentally, the production process is the main part of a film s cycle and that the smallerprocesses within production like script development and market research really make a difference to

the film s success overall and that the American Institutes maybe concentrate more on these smallerprocesses to gain a maximum amount of understanding from the audience and the most gross thatthey can from a film.