Avatar (2009)

From 20th century fox. An American epic science fiction film set in 2154, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi—a sentient humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to the genetically engineered Na'vi and human hybrid bodies used by several human characters to interact with the natives of Pandora. 

Film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang.

Won 3 Oscars. Another 25 wins & 56 nominations.

Development on Avatar began in 1994 but the release date wasn't until 17th December 2009, 15 years later.

Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999, but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film.

Innovations include a new system for lighting massive areas like Pandora's jungle, a motion-capture stage or "volume" six times larger than any previously used, and an improved method of capturing facial expressions, enabling full performance capture. To achieve the face capturing, actors wore individually made skull caps fitted with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors' faces; the information collected about their facial expressions and eyes is then transmitted to computers.

Marketing:

Marketing began with photos, the first of which wasn't released until August 14, 2009. Next, Empire magazine printed photos in the October issue. 

The first trailer was released on August 20, 2009. Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, a 224-page book in the form of a field guide to the film's fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by Harper Entertainment on November 24, 2009. 

Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to create an Avatar game for the film in 2007. The filmmakers and game developers collaborated heavily, and Cameron decided to include some of Ubisoft's vehicle and creature designs into the film. James Cameron's Avatar: The Game was released on December 1, 2009.

Mattel Toys announced in December 2009 that it would be introducing a line of Avatar action figures. A series of toys representing six different characters from the film are also being distributed in McDonald's Happy Meals in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the United States and Venezuela.

Case Study Film4: About a Boy Film Trailer

I am going to analyse a theatrical trailer for About a Boy. I have established that it is a theatrical trailer because it contains lots of selling points and is quite detailed, in contrast to a teaser trailer. 

It starts by giving us an insight to the life and personality of Will (Hugh Grant). This is done by showing a series of clips of medium close-ups(to show there facial expressions as well to emphasize their opinions) of woman expressing there opinions on him, all of which are negative from angry, hurt women. The last shot is a medium close up of his face, to show his expression which is pretty careless. My first impression of him from this isn't a good one, these women's opinions suggest he is a selfish, pathetic "loser". Next, he gives us his own opinion of himself and we see a range of shots showing his everyday life. They're all medium to long shots and appear to be intruding and watching in on his life, which gives us pretty much the same idea as we got from the women despite him seeing himself differently to how they do. So far, we have basically just been introduced to 'the life of Will'. Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) makes his first appearance next, knocking at his door and immediately from the start, Will is attempting to keep him out of his house which could represent a bigger meaning of shutting him out of his life. This leads to an insight into Marcus' life and personality which starts, again, with someone else's opinion, "everyone thinks your weird". The following clips of his everyday life backs this up. The non-diegetic sound slows down to a sad, depressing song in the background, this brings down the mood and atmosphere. Clearly neither of them appear to fit in. A shot i like, is when Will is walking through a crowd of people in the opposite direction to everyone else which implies he is on his own and different to the rest. As expected, Will and Marcus are end up being different and on their own, together. They appear to have a laugh, look out for each other and finally be happy. By this point, the background music has picked up and is much more lively as shots of them both surrounded by friends and family, giving a clear impression that they are no longer alone. This sums up the story line but still leaves plenty more to see which is important in order to get viewers to actually want to see the film instead of being satisfied with just the trailer. Another way the trailer does this is by focusing on Hugh Grant, like the poster, because he is a well-known, award-winning actor who has starred in many more rom-coms which have been very successful.

Case Study Film4: About a Boy Film Posters

This has the features of a:

• Main Poster - Quite basic, containing information such as the stars, distributors, production personal and a picture relevant to the film
• Character Poster - Features pictures of both the main characters and the name of the best known actors starring in the film.

The title, ‘About a boy’, is central and bright red on a plain white background, so our attention is drawn to it.

As I said in my previous blog 'Case Study Film4: About a Boy', Hugh Grant is a well known, award-winning actor who has starred in many successful films, so having his name in big, bold writing at the top will attract a large audience. 

Another selling point on the poster is the mentioning of other popular films made by the same makers and producers, such as 'Bridget Jones Diary' and 'Meet the Parents'.

The plain black, white and red colours make the poster look quite simple and ordinary, implying the film could be the same. Based on everyday life, which suggests the audience could quite possibly relate to it. Also, the characters shown on the front look fairly normal. The boy is looking up to the man, which suggests quite a lot about the film, because the film goes into this with a much deeper meaning, and the boy does in fact look up to him throughout. You could say 'and vice versa' after watching the film, but this was also indicated through a quote I saw on a different poster, which reads 'Growing up has nothing to do with age'. http://www.impawards.com/2002/about_a_boy_ver2.html

The imperfect hair, wooly hat, and hopeless expression makes the boy look innocent and a bit helpless, whereas the man behind him (Hugh Grant), has a smile, smart clothes, and styled hair, which suggests they are quite contrasted characters.

Also, in my previous blog, I mentioned it features some elements of romance which could be why the main colour, other than black and white, is red, because this is associated with love and romance. 

Case Study Film4: About a Boy (2002)

About a Boy is a 2002 film 

Directed by brothers Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz

This is important for attracting audiences as these brothers have directed many successfully popular films in the past, such as:

-The American Pie's

-Nutty Professor

-Antz

-The Golden Compass

-The Twilight Saga

-Mr & Mrs Smith

If the audience recognizes the director from other films they enjoyed, they may be encouraged to watch it.

Based on the book of the same name by Nick Hornby. 

His novel "How To Be Good" won Britain's W.H. Smith fiction award, April 2002. This will definitely suggest to the audience that since his novels are award winning, they must be good. 

Starring: 

• Hugh Grant as Will, 
• Nicholas Hoult as Marcus, 
• Toni Collette as Fiona, and 
• Rachel Weisz as Rachel. 

Hugh Grant is an award winning English actor and film producer. He has also starred in award winning films such as: Notting Hill, Bridget Jones diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, Two weeks notice, Music and Lyrics.

The film at times uses double voice-over narration, where the audience hear both Will's and Marcus's thoughts. The inside shots of the school shown are of Southfields community college in London.

Release Date: 26 April 2002 (UK)

Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama

Tagline: Growing up has nothing to do with age.

Case Study Film4: Channel 4 films and the Industrial context

Channel 4 films and the Industrial context

At the top end, channel 4 films typically cost £500k-£600k. A big difference to a typical £3-4 million for conventionally funded feature films of the time. (Walker 2004). Until 1985 there was a generous system of tax write offs against production costs in which costs could be written off against profits straight away whilst films not initially targeted at TV had their cost written off over several years, therefore C4 films probed attractive to filmmakers and producers. In terms of risks and returns for investors funding C4 films was much lower risk in a high risk business. 

Film-makers wanted to have their cake and eat it too, whilst they enjoyed the tax write offs they wanted to first of all have the films given a theatrical release in the cinemas. Many wanted an 18 month to two year window for cinema release, however the commissioning editor for fiction at Channel 4, David Rose, correctly felt that this wouldn't allow C4 to build up its audiences. The reality was that these films didn't enter into the mainstream anyway usually being released in a small number of cinemas which were identified with the Art House circuit, even when they did get theatrical release. In the opinion of many of the audience, this acted as an artificial choke on the market and represented greed from the investors by tryng to squeeze every last penny out of audiences. The problem for C4 was also that the freshness and sense of the contemporary would inevitably be watered down if audiences had to wait. They might even lose interest in the film. As a result few films had theatrical release and those that did had very limited ones. At this time there was still considerable friction between the film and TV industries. Cinema was very defensive about its major circuits of distribution and exhibition which is where the real money has been made in cinema. The distributors wanted to keeep films off TV for three years and only in the case of commercial flops were they prepared to allow them onto TV inunder three years.

Channel 4 was badly effected by this industry restriction on trade practices.

Channel Four had been established with the aim of getting many programmes either by commisioning or buying in programmes from other companies rather than producing its programmes in house which was what both ITV and the BBC did. By 1987 24% of C4 programming was externally produced and films were a large part of this 24%. C4 had an ambitious target of co-producing 20 films per year which was beyond the resources of any other film making companies in the UK. According to Walker (2004) it had a budget of £6 million to spend on fully or part financing films. It typically invested between £250k - £300k per film buyijng in the TV rights. C4 also invested £750k per year in British Screen Finance  and another £500k per year in the BFI Production Board.  One of C4 first films The Draughtsman's  Contract (1982) was a co-production with the BFI Production Board. In the case of the last two investments funds were matched by the government which provided extra stimulus to the industry.

By the end of 1987 C4 was producing 17/28 films per year on a £9.5 million budget. Very few of the films directly recovered their costs and to all intents and ourposes C4 remained an 'art-house' producer as the films weren't reaching mass popular audiences they had on the other hand established a good rapport with more specific audiences and can be used as an example of how audiences were beginning to fragment as more media products became available. The breakthrough films for C4 were My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Letter to Brehznev (1985) Mona Lisa (1986). A useful boost was that these films also found an alternative audience in the United States.

The head of film at Channel Four, David Rose had had a considerable influence on the success of C4 Film with about £50 million spent on around 160 films up until this point. Many in the British film industry were critical of the C4 approach arguing that the small scale cutting edge film that C4 had built its reputation around was dead. They further argued that C4 had not acted as the launchpad for British cinema which they had expected instead film makers still had to find a considerable amount of finance for themselves. Eager to break into the Hollywood market and get themselves fame and fortune?

Case Study Film4: Introduction

Introduction
Channel 4 had a brief for commissioning and showing range of cutting edge materials which were very different to what was being shown on other channels when it became the 4th terrestrial channel in 1982. The only channels you could get then were BB1, BBC 2 & ITV. British film benefited from this and a many films were made which appealed to a range of audiences. Many of which became some of the best known and most financially successful films since 1982. Clearly Channel 4 has a very powerful influence over the long term as it has been running for over 25 years now. Channel 4 had co-produced over 20 feature films for the special slot film on 4 by 1984. There was a guaranteed premiere for these films, therefore they could afford to take more risks in terms of both their content and their treatment of this than mainstream films.