Tyrannosaur - PlotThe story of Joseph a man plagued by

violence and a rage that is driving him to self-destruction. As Joseph's life spirals into turmoil a chance of redemption appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker. Their relationship develops to reveal that Hannah is hiding a secret of her own. After years of domestic violence and rape Hannah snaps and has to rely on Joseph as well.

Tyrannosaur - Financed by…

• Film 4• EM Media• UK Film Council• Screen Yorkshire

for a budget of £1.2 million the same month Hollywood released ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ with a budget of $93 million!

Tyrannosaur - Produced by…

• Warp x - “We want our films to be fuelled by irresistible stories, and extraordinary, even exotic, worlds. To challenge and entertain contemporary British and international cinema audiences.

• The films have to be made digitally and on budgets between £400,000 - £800,000. So we need movies that can be made faster, leaner, lighter - with no excess baggage. That way the films will become profitable much quicker.”

• Inflammable films - Tyrannosaur is their first film.

Tyrannosaur - Tech Details

• Shot on Digital

• Shot on DSLR

• English cast and crew

• English subject

• Genre - Social realist

• Hard hitting drama

Tyrannosaur - Distributed by…• Many different companies• In the UK: Optimum releasing, on DVD Optimum

Home Entertainment (now known as Studio Canal owned by French company Canal+ owned by Vivendi (a major conglomerate) who have a large stake in US film production but no longer own a studio).

• In the US: Strand Releasing - An art house distributor

• Digital distribution on itunes, lovefilm, Blu-ray.

Tyrannosaur - Marketing

• Posters.

• Trailers.

• A lot of film festival promotion.

• Empire magazine podcast.

• No featurettes or TV spots.

• No major stars to sell it.

• Niche audience. Cinephiles over the age of 25.

Tyrannosaur - Exhibition

• Opened on 5 screens in the US• Film festivals - Toronto and Sundance, amongst

others.• Limited release - They knew it wouldn’t do well

in cinemas and the money to be made was through downloads and dvd sales.

• Digital distribution meaning exhibition was a lot cheaper. Instead of spending £1000 for each printed reel of film (a film usually has around 4 -5 reels).

Tyrannosaur - Profit

• Only a few thousand at the cinemas.• Opening Weekend• $7,635 (USA) (20 November 2011) (5 Screens)

Gross

• $22,088 (USA) (11 March 2012)$21,062 (USA) (4 March 2012)$19,998 (USA) (12 February 2012)$19,483 (USA) (5 February 2012)$18,525 (USA) (22 January 2012)$17,219 (USA) (8 January 2012)$15,085 (USA) (11 December 2011)$13,454 (USA) (4 December 2011)$7,635 (USA) (20 November 2011)£243,252 (UK) (1 January 2012)

Tyrannosaur - Reviews Generally Tyrannosaur has been received well

by critics - this is what the American top critics said:

• This isn't the kind of movie that even has hope enough to contain a message. There is no message, only the reality of these wounded personalities. Roger Ebert - Top critic

• Tyrannosaur is British miserabilism at its most numbingly brutal and blunt. - Melissa Anderson - Village voice

Tyrannosaur - Issues• Horizontal integration• Distributed by a subsidiary (Canal+) of a major conglomerate (Vivendi), therefore money goes back to

them as 50% of cinema sales goes back to the distributor after they have recouped their marketing costs.• A very British style - miserablism! Or social-realism (this is not a film for a mass market) and so many

U.S citizen’s may not have wanted to see the film. What is popular with a U.S audience is period dramas or quaint village dramas reinforcing there stereotypical view of Britain e.g. The King’s Speech.

• With the influx of American films, British people feel the same too and want to see mainstream films, so does David Cameron:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/14/british-film-lord-smith-review-brand-promotion• Only opened in 5 cinemas in the U.S.

• Digital production and distribution has kept costs low, therefore the production companies maybe able to

turn a profit over a longer period of time with dvd and download sales.

• Questions to ponder: Should we make mainstream films in Britain for a British audience? Or should we make culturally significant films?

• If we made mainstream films that sold well abroad, would we be able to make more lower budget films that are culturally significant due to a healthy industry?

Case Study: Black Swan and Fox Searchlight Pictures

Plot

• Nina (Portman) is a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother Erica (Hershey) who exerts a suffocating control over her. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side - a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.

Financed by…

• Black Swan began its development initially through Protozoa Pictures and Overnight Productions.

• Overnight productions financed the film.

Produced by…

• Producers: Ari Handel, Scott Franklin,Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer and Brian Oliver.

• Studios:Cross Creek Pictures, Phoenix Pictures and Protozoa Pictures

Black Swan - Tech details• Camera

• Arriflex 16 SR3, Zeiss Ultra 16 LensesArriflex 416, Zeiss Ultra 16 LensesCanon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon L-Series LensesCanon EOS 7D, Canon L-Series Lenses

• Laboratory

• DeLuxe, Hollywood (CA), USA (prints)Technicolor, Hollywood (CA), USATechnicolor, New York (NY), USA (digital intermediate)

Film length (metres)2946 m (Spain)2952 m (Sweden)2954 m (Portugal)

• Cinematographic process

• Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format)HDTV (1080p/24) (source format) (some scenes)Super 16 (source format)

• Film negative format (mm/video inches)

• 16 mm (Fuji Eterna Vivid 160T 8643, Eterna Vivid 500T 8647) Digital

Aspect ratio2.35 : 1

• Printed film format

• 35 mm (anamorphic) (blow-up) (Fuji Eterna-CP 3513DI)D-Cinema

Director (Aronofsky)- ”I really wanted the camera to dance, but I was nervous about shooting a psychological thriller/horror film with a hand-held camera.”

Distributed by…• The main distributor of Black Swan was Fox Searchlight. They also contributed 10-12 million dollars for the production of the film.

• The main distributor for the worldwide audience was Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

• Fox Searchlight distributed throughout the USA whilst 20th Century Fox distributed Black Swan throughout Europe and Southern America.

• Theatrical displays of the film were shown throughout a number of countries and the Blu-Ray/DVD distribution was also used worldwide.

Marketing• Methods of Marketing:

• Film Trailer

• Posters

• Social Media

• Website

• Apps

• Publicity from the Media

This publicity was mainly from nominations and collections of awards. This recognition then spread worldwide which helped broaden the initial target audience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jaI1XOB-bs

Black Swan managed to capture the binary opposition of good vs evil simply within their posters and the success of these posters managed to expand their originally niche audience into a mass audience.

Exhibition• The overall exhibition cost around

$13,000,000. A further 50% was expected to be spent on the marketing of the film. Fox Searchlight produced a fairly small budget for the film however the worldwide distribution (through cinemas, online and hard copies) helped achieve a gross profit of $329,398,046.

•The film was premiered in New York on the 30 Novemeber 2010.

Black Swan Premiere

Synergy• Fox Searchlight is an American film division of Fox

Entertainment Group alongside the larger studio 20th Century Fox. Together with Warner Bros. they helped to promote Black Swan.

• Fox Searchlight also introduced the $13,000,000 budget towards production.

•

Reviews/Awards• Black Swan received a number of nominations within

the Academy Award nominations (Oscars). Natalie Portman won the best actress Oscar for her performance in Black Swan. The film also won best film of the year at the ‘AFI Awards’. Portman and Kunis won best actress and best supporting actress, respectively, in the Academy of Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA.

“Natalie Portman excels in this gripping ballet psychodrama from Darren Aronofsky. Peter Bradshaw applauds a film about fear, love and hatred.” – Guardian.

“Black Swan is one of the finest movies of the past few years; it is also sure to be among the most unjustly vilified and misunderstood.” – Mail Online

Issues• Although Black Swan was widely accepted around

the world. It does not come without its critics. • The rating of 15 was questioned upon throughout the UK as the strong

sexual content, strong language, drug use and violence were seen as beyond these age brackets.

• Many parents complained about the explicit content with comments such as “Surfeit of gory, badly executed violence and unnecessarily explicit sex scenes” and “As a parent of a 15 year old, we left during the taxi scene between the two main characters.”

• The main issues orientated around the strength of the scenes and whether the age ratings world wide fairly reflected what content was included throughout the film.

Black Swan and Tyrannosaur comparison• The production budgets were incredibly different between Tyrannosaur and Black Swan with

Tyrannosaur having a small film budget compared with the larger film budget of Black Swan. Tyrannosaur was filmed digitally due to the small $1.2 million budget however Black Swan converted back to filming on film as they had a larger budget to achieve this.Black Swan worked with high convergence to produce posters and soundtracks to help promote their film, this was done through Fox Searchlight and the high number of resources they have. However Tyrannosaur had to market their product individually through Warp X with the use of posters and trailers. Both films were promoted in similar forms however the resources of each company meant that the success of each method differed and Black Swan was able to distribute the product world-wide.

• The influence of American films has affected the British audience as they now require mainstream films that are being distributed world-wide. This means that the niche audience for independent British films is slowly deteriorating as mainstream big Hollywood films are taking audiences away from watching small low budget films. The oppositions of Tyrannosaur and Black Swan is a perfect example of how the higher budget larger film (Black Swan) is attracting a huge audience compared with the smaller budget film (Tyrannosaur) attracting small audiences due to the limited resources and difficulties behind distribution.

DEBATES• MEDIA COMPANIES ARE BLAMED AS MEDIA

CONCENTRATION LEADS TO MONOPOLY IN THE MARKET

• SPONSORS AND ADVERTISERS MORE IMPORTANT THAN VOICE OF THE MASSES

• LACK OF HEALTHY MARKET COMPETITION • PEOPLE HAVE LESS DIVERSE OPTIONS• INCREASED CONCENTRATION OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP

CAN LEAD TO THE CENSORSHIP OF A WIDE RANGE OF CRITICAL THOUGHT.

• HENCE SLOW MODERNIZATION AND INCREASE IN PRICES

• DOES NOT SERVE PUBLIC INTEREST• CONCENTRATION OF MEDIA CONGLOMERATES IN US

HAS LED TO AMERICANIZATION

COUNTER VIEW• MEDIA COMPANIES STATE THAT IT LEADS TO

BETTER COMPETITIVENESS BETWEEN GIANT MEDIA CONGLOMERATES

• REDUCED COST OF OPERATIONS DUE TO CONSOLIDATION OF SOME FUNCTIONS

• MORE SEGMENTED OR DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO RESPOND TO A WIDER VARIETY OF DEMANDS BETTER

• INTERNET HAS BECOME A NEW SOURCE OF AQUIRING INFORMATION. THROUGH BLOGS, FORUMS.

• THANKS TO THIS TREND GOOGLE AND YAHOO ARE ALSO MEDIA GIANTS IN THE MAKING.

Piracy

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14029865

• Major issues facing British Film Makers

•According to King's Speech director, Tom Hooper, there has been a revolution in British film making due to the rise in digital technology. When he was younger digital technology was not available so he had to use film and could not afford to add sound so his films were silent. Today gadgets like iPhones etc have the ability to film in HD with sound so everyone has the opportunity to make a film. Digital is a lot cheaper way of film making however there hasn't been a reduced cost of marketing a film to the public. E.g. from The King's Speech budget of $15 million dollars it takes $25/30 million has to be spent marketing it to the US. Tom Hooper says that there is still a restriction to who can make a film that will reach everyone because even if you manage to make a film for nothing you still have to have millions of dollars to market it.

So despite the revolution the digital technology makes to the actual production of the film it has had little impact to the cost. He also mentions that the use of big name stars is a large part of the appeal to films and that also is very expensive. So although the digital revolution has change and given the British film industry opportunities film makers are still restricted by costs of marketing and distribution, and also the ability to make a film with wide appeal with blockbuster stars.

RECAPWrite down the key term on one side and the definition on the

back.

• Production

• Subsidiary

• Distribution

• Marketing

• Exhibition

• Vertical Integration

• Co-Production

• Synergy

• Niche market

• Conglomerates

• Exchange