ALL Warp Vs. WT

The two films me, Jake and Curtis are comparing are Four lions & Green Zone both from different production companies below i will list the questions with the appropriate analysis.

1.Trailers

Green zone trailer

Four lions trailer

2.Film Info

Four Lions DVD Cover

Four Lions

2010 FilmFour Lions is a British dark comedy film. It is the feature film debut of director Chris Morris, written by Morris, Sam Bain, and Jesse Armstrong. 

WikipediaRelease date: January 23, 2010 (initial release)

Director: Chris Morris

Production company: Warp Films

Awards: BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer

Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Simon Blackwell, Chris Morris

Green Zone DVD Cover

Green Zone

2010 Film Green Zone is a 2010 British-French-American war thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass. 

The story line was conceived from a screenplay written by Brian Helgeland, based on a 2006 non-fiction book ... Wikipedia Release date: February 26, 2010 (initial release)

Director: Paul Greengrass

DVD release date: June 22, 2010

Screenplay: Brian Helgeland

Story by: Rajiv Chandrasekaran 

3.Budgets

Four lions budget: £2.5m

A small budget compared to the working title kind of budgets. Never-the-less the biggest budget that Warp have ever had, the film made a lot of money and profited greatly, making a bit of money in america and £600,000 in the British box office, making the real money on DVD release. it was a very controversial topic to risk the largest Warp budget ever, however a risk that payed off.

Green zone budget: $100m

A large budget by any standards even by the big 6 standards. Working titles biggest ever budget. Using the director of the bourne films, as what you would call a safe bet using a big A-list star also. However this film was a major flop US box office.

4.Distribution+Marketing

Green zone Distributors:

DVD: Universal home entertainment

Theatre: Universal pictures

A prime example of vertical integration as universal own the production side that is working title as WT is a subsidiary, they then do the box office part of it as they get the film into cinema.They also can advertise these films by using things like universal studios in Orlando  make rides etc. universal is such a big company that there is such a variety of marketing that can be used for example on their other films they advertised green zone in the adverts before the film.

Four lions distributors:

Optimum Releasing (2010) (UK) (theatrical)

Optimum releasing was the main distributor for four lions and has an ident at the beginning of the film.it isn't a big company compared to universal standards as Warp dont have the vertical integration advantage that Green Zone had. Film four payed for the rights to this film and advertised it as well.

5.Critical Reception

Four lions ratings:

Rotton tomatoes 'tomatometer'-81%

IMDB rating:7.3. Doesn't get a bad rating, a risky subject yet the risk payed off and made warp a lot of money

Green zone ratings:

Rotten tomatoes 'tomatometer'-53%

IMDB rating:6. Regarded as a massive 'flop' Working titles biggest budget and maybe the biggest failure.

Box Office + other expedential figures

Four lions:

Weekend gross: £2,686,096 (UK) (13 June 2010)

£608,608 (UK) (9 May 2010) (115 Screens)

USA box office: $301,527 (USA) (13 February 2011)

Green zone:

UK box office: £5,429,903 (UK) (4 April 2010)

USA box office: $35,024,475 (USA) (2 May 2010)

6. Media Language (A) Genre + Audience:

Four Lions:
The film makes comedy out of terrorism - a social issue, which is typical of a British comedy especially in particular because of the production company, Warp, who mainly produce social realist films which is the genre that Four lions falls into.

The target audience for Four Lions would be for an older audience as a result of the mature humor exploited. However, the audience doesn't have to be too old to understand the humor  Giving the director, Chris Morris is known for his controversial comedy, a liberal audience i needed as he does mock terrorism, which some people may find offensive as it could be interpreted as stereotypical. Therefore the target audience for Four Lions would be 18-25 and 26 on wards.

Green Zone:
The film is an action, thriller, war film, drama. These can be good genre films, while Green Zone is not—and the reasons for its failure are political and Working title has seemed to stray away from political interpretations in their other movies such as Bridget Jones Diary. Its Warp who concentrate on using political references as apparent in Four Lions. Its not necessarily used alot in Working title films anymore. However The Daily Mail called it "a preachy political thriller disguised as an action flick" and  gave its reasoning for failure as "the air of being aimed at ignorant american teenagers" and this is the area they are trying to sell to - America. Which they have basically snubbed in this movie.
The target audience for this film is teenagers as a result of the action and the war image it portrays. 15+ and for adults.

7. Media Language (B) 'British'?
Language plays a key role in Four Lions. It’s true that the film is not formally experimental or imitative – it adopts the kind of furtive handheld camera style that seems to be the default setting for this kind of quasi-neo-realist thing these days.
This is usually what we would find in Warp films, as this is a social realist comedy almost its not surprising that a film like this has come from the same production company that produced films such as This Is England & Dead Mans Shoes 

8. A typical Working Title/Warp film?:It is arguable whether the two films i have analysed are typical movies according to their production companies. One could argue that Four Lions is a typical film for Warp as it is a social realist film and does contain political interest. It is also a relatively low budget film compared to films in the big 6 (However, it was the highest budgeted film Warp had produced at £2.5m) so this isn't unusual that its a low budget movie. In addition to this, it doesn't feature any stars in the movie which is also typical for Warp productions.
Green Zone on the other hand is not a typical Working Title film this is based on the account with comparing it to previous films such as Bridget Jones Diary and Notting Hill the media language used is completely different as its a much more realistic film and contains political content which Working Title previously strayed away from as they expanded. However, The budget for Green Zone (£100m) was the highest budget they have ever had although its not surprising that the film contains an A list star (Matt Damon) which is most likely the reason as to why the budget was so high.

9. Summary

Including your personal views as UK audience member's:
I think that Working Title should leave Warp to making realistic movies and including political content as Green Zone for Working Title was an absolute flop. Therefore, Working Title should stick to making Hybrid movies as they have done so in the past, they should stick to what they are good at in the future continuing to make there money this way. Also, warp should continue making the movies they do to keep British cinema alive.


 10. Bibliography
http://mayadykes.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/genre-codes-and-conventions-target-audience-for-four-lions/
http://www.cineaste.com/articles/webtakesemgreen-zoneem
http://drnorth.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/four-lions-war-goes-bang/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Zone_(film)
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0947810%2F&ei=jMM9UYrLJsmN7AbciYDwCQ&usg=AFQjCNHN84HoHHTQZQmoddFgribuEQgeww&sig2=ALfc4NMIzNmOWzQc2dOK9w
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/four_lions/

ALL Re-Shoot

Psycho shower scene

After shooting our first rough cut, we decided we needed more footage to make our final piece great. so in school we arranged to meet at my house for the shoot, with the following characters:

Heather: scream queen

Jake: The Dr

Curtis: The killer

George:Camera Man/Director

We did our shoot after school, planning our shoot within my house. Preparing the scenes we had to do during the week. We had 2 Killing scenes, one of the final girl and one of the Dr.

 We arranged the first murder scene in the bathroom, using a kitchen knife and ketchup as blood. We used strategies that many films use, probably the most famous, the Psycho shower scene, where they used fast pace editing. Used to make it look much more realistic when special effects aren't available.

Like the attic stairs we used

The second murder Took place in my bedroom which is up some stairs in the attic. we thought it would be very effective to us this as the stairs are very effective. We did one continuous take with a false scare and a real scare.

ALL Trailer Story Boards

These are the story boards which we drew out for the trailer. We used this to help us and give us a guideline while as our shoot.

Sheet 1

Sheet 2

Scary Movie (2000, Keenen Ivory Wayans)

Budget

$19,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend

$42,346,669 (USA) (9 July 2000) (2,912 Screens)
£2,887,451 (UK) (10 September 2000) (427 Screens)

Gross

$156,997,084 (USA) (19 November 2000)

I have analysed the sound track and music on this film opening. I have done this because the film is slasher/stalker genre which also relates to our film we have produced. We haven't yet created our soundtrack for the film, therefor i have researched and analysed this film to help us. Here is the trailer for the film, this will give you a rough idea of the film. It is a hybrid film which includes romance, horror and comedy. The use of diagetic and non diagetic sound really exaggerates the film to the audience to enforce a scene or action which is on screen. The music is used to create tension and effect for a build up of a death





The begining of the film starts with diagetic sound of the nature outside, then goes straight to the sound of a phone ringing. There is no non diagetic sound at the beginning until 1:07 which is a high pitch violin sound which is ringing a screaming to the audience. This builds tension to the audience as it is a uneasy sound all of a sudden and signifies something is not right. Then we get quick sharp notes of a violin again.

The Asylum shoot

Our First Shoot

We carried out our shoot on Monday the 25th of February  we first got the train to Menston. Which is where we filmed our opening,  at Menston High Royds mental asylum. This is the perfect location for our film as its similar to the film we are basing it on, Mad House. At around 3 o'clock in the afternoon when it was still light. 

our white lab coat

We then filmed outside of High Royds, in which we acted out a chase scene in which the patient is escaping from High Royds. Curtis our patient got into his costume which was a white lab coat. The other actor - Jake, also got into his costume which consisted of doctors trousers, a doctor shirt and a doctors a ID which is a key piece of mise en scene in our opening because it provides realism to the audience.

The fig rig we used

After filming at High Royds we then went to my house to film the res of opening. We filmed Outside and inside of my house. Inside we filmed in my bathroom and landing. The bathroom was ideal because of the mirror above the toilet, this was used to create our false scare. When we were outside we filmed on my drive, using the car as part of the mise on scene to represent his social class being a doctor so quite rich and powerful.


We were lucky with the time that we went because it wasn't dark yet, which was ideal because we hadn't previously planned on taking a light with the rest of our equipment. The fig rig proved to be a key piece of equipment that we used as it provided a stable camera shot which proved handy when filming POV shot when we changed the setting of our opening.

Asylum Rough Cut

Here is the first rough cut of our film Asylum (George Holmes, 2013). We used two locations for this first at Highroyds, Mentson then secondly Jakes house, Manor Park. We only could film a certain amount of footage due to the time of the day and also other commitments.

ALL Teaser Trailer Planning TBC

Synopsis: 
The trailer opens in 1991 with media reportage of a criminally insane patient escaping from an asylum. It therefore ends in the present with the killer on the loose, atmospheric, unsetlling music and FX will be a key feature of the trailer, which we sustain a degree of narrative enigma.

Time:
We plan on filming the footage for our trailer on the 8th of february. We aim to shoot all of our footage in 1 hour however if this isn't enough time we will further plan on another date.



Newspapers

Example of a newspaper we edited

What we had planned to include  in the trailer form the start, was the newspapers we were using this method to create a sense of realism for the audience. However, to do so we had to edit all the text included in recent articles and incl;ude our own images all of which wre form the courtesy of google images. 

Another style of editing we used was an old effect to make the newspapers look aged, this was used for our preffered reading of the trailer to signify thatHighRoyds is an extremely scary lunatic asylum and to connotate the trime era that the trailer is set in (1991).

Example edited newspaper

The picture in the bottom newspaper is a legitimate photo of the doctors who used to operate in HighRoyds this also creates a sense of realism.

Pictures:

We had planned on using pictures of past patients and also shots of the asylum for the trailer
The picture to the right is a patient who was admitted toHighRoyds asylum in 1982

Example of a newspaper we edited

This is the shot we plan on using at the start of the trailer - the establishing shot. This will connote to the audience where the trailer and the opening will be set.

This shot is from the inside of the asylum we plan on using an affect to this picture as it was recently taken, which doesn't give it an authentic feel like the others do. This is something we can't ignore in our trailer because we don't want to have an oppositional reading.

Again this is an old picture from 1981 of the patients we will be using.

Editing:

The programme we used was sony vegas, what we are planning to do is test the effects and audio  we plan to test a number of different effects to see which one signifies previous time the best, we did this before we made the trailer for organisational purposes so we could include more time into creating the trailer.

Sony Vegas

This is the titles in Adobe After Effects, we used a background with a time lapse of clouds with a dark effect added which signifies horror. We also used a san serif font to connote a slasher film and we also used a stutter affect for the title to twitch out which signifies something isn't right.

Adobe After Effects

ALL Group Work - Warp Vs Working Title Presentation

Warp Vs Working

The two films me, Jake and Curtis are comparing are Four lions & Green Zone both from different production companies below i will list the questions with the appropriate analysis.

Four Lions DVD Cover

Four Lions

2010 Film Four Lions is a British dark comedy film. It is the feature film debut of director Chris Morris, written by Morris, Sam Bain, and Jesse Armstrong. Wikipedia Release date: January 23, 2010 (initial release)

Director: Chris Morris

Production company: Warp Films

Awards: BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer

Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Simon Blackwell, Chris Morris


#

Green Zone

Green Zone DVD Cover

2010 Film Green Zone is a 2010 British-French-American war thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass. The Warp Vs Working was conceived from a screenplay written by Brian Helgeland, based on a 2006 non-fiction book ... Wikipedia Release date: February 26, 2010 (initial release)

Director: Paul Greengrass

DVD release date: June 22, 2010

Screenplay: Brian Helgeland

Story by: Rajiv Chandrasekaran 

1.Budgets

Four lions budget: £2.5m

A small budget compared to the working title kind of budgets. Never-the-less the biggest budget that Warp have ever had, the film made alot of money and profited greatly, making a bit of money in america and £600,000 in the British box office, making the real money on DVD release. it was a very controversial topic to risk the largest Warp budget ever, however a risk that payed off.

Green zone budget: $100m

A large budget by any standards even by the big 6 standards. Working titles biggest ever budget. Using the director of the bourne films, as what you would call a safe bet using a big A-list star also. However this film was a major flop US box office.

2.Distribution+Marketing

Green zone Distributors:

DVD: Universal home entertainment

Theater: Universal pictures

A prime example of vertical integration as universal own the production side that is working title as WT is a subsidiary, they then do the box office part of it as they get the film into cinema.They also can advertise these films by using things like universal studios in Orlando make rides etc. universals such a big company that there is such a variety of marketing that can be used for example on their other films they advertised green zone in the adverts before the film.

Four lions distributors:

Optimum Releasing (2010) (UK) (theatrical)

Optimum releasing was the main distributor for four lions and has an ident at the beginning of the film it isn't a big company compared to universal standards as Warp don't have the vertical integration advantage that Green Zone had. Film four payed for the rights to this film and advertised it as well.

4. Critical Reception

Four lions ratings:

Rotton tomatoes 'tomatometer'-81%

IMDB rating:7.3

Doesn't get a bad rating, a risky subject yet the risk payed off and made warp a lot of money

Green Zone ratings:

Rotten tomatoes 'tomato-meter'-53%

IMDB rating:6.9

Regarded as a massive 'flop' Working titles biggest budget and maybe the biggest failure.

5. Box Office + Other Expidential Figures

Four lions: 

Gross Profit: £2,686,096 (UK) (13 June 2010)

Weekend gross: £608,608 (UK) (9 May 2010) (115 Screens)

USA box office: $301,527 (USA) (13 February 2011)

Green zone:

UK box office: £5,429,903 (UK) (4 April 2010)

USA box office: $35,024,475 (USA) (2 May 2010)

6. Media Language (A) Genre + Audience:

Four Lions:

The film makes comedy out of terrorism - a social issue, which is typical of a British comedy especially in particular because of the production company, Warp, who mainly produce social realist films which is the genre that Four lions falls into.

The target audience for Four Lions would be for an older audience as a result of the mature humor exploited. However, the audience doesn't have to be too old to understand the humor  Giving the director, Chris Morris is known for his controversial comedy, a liberal audience i needed as he does mock terrorism, which some people may find offensive as it could be interpreted as stereotypical. Therefore the target audience for Four Lions would be 18-25 and 26 on wards.

Green Zone:

The film is an action, thriller, war film, drama. These can be good genre films, while Green Zone is not—and the reasons for its failure are political and Working title has seemed to stray away from political interpretations in their other movies such as Bridget Jones Diary. Its Warp who concentrate on using political references as apparent in Four Lions. Its not necessarily used a lot in Working title films anymore. However The Daily Mail called it "a preachy political thriller disguised as an action flick" and  gave its reasoning for failure as "the air of being aimed at ignorant american teenagers" and this is the area they are trying to sell to - America. Which they have basically snubbed in this movie.

The target audience for this film is teenagers as a result of the action and the war image it portrays. 15+ and for adults.

7. Media Language (B) 'British'?

Language plays a key role in Four Lions. It’s true that the film is not formally experimental or imitative – it adopts the kind of furtive handheld camera style that seems to be the default setting for this kind of quasi-neo-realist thing these days.

This is usually what we would find in Warp films, as this is a social realist comedy almost its not surprising that a film like this has come from the same production company that produced films such as This Is England & Dead Mans Shoes 

8. A typical Working Title/Warp film?

It is arguable whether the two films i have analysed are typical movies according to their production companies. One could argue that Four Lions is a typical film for Warp as it is a social realist film and does contain political interest. It is also a relatively low budget film compared to films in the big 6 (However, it was the highest budgeted film Warp had produced at £2.5m) so this isn't unusual that its a low budget movie. In addition to this, it doesn't feature any stars in the movie which is also typical for Warp productions.
Green Zone on the other hand is not a typical Working Title film this is based on the account with comparing it to previous films such as Bridget Jones Diary and Notting Hill the media language used is completely different as its a much more realistic film and contains political content which Working Title previously strayed away from as they expanded. However, The budget for Green Zone (£100m) was the highest budget they have ever had although its not surprising that the film contains an A list star (Matt Damon) which is most likely the reason as to why the budget was so high.

9. Summary, Including your personal views as UK audience members:

I think that Working Title should leave Warp to making realistic movies and including political content as Green Zone for Working Title was an absolute flop. Therefore, Working Title should stick to making Hybrid movies as they have done so in the past, they should stick to what they are good at in the future continuing to make there money this way. Also, warp should continue making the movies they do to keep British cinema alive.

10. Bibliography

http://mayadykes.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/genre-codes-and-conventions-target-audience-for-four-lions/

http://www.cineaste.com/articles/webtakesemgreen-zoneem

http://drnorth.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/four-lions-war-goes-bang/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Zone_(film)

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0947810%2F&ei=jMM9UYrLJsmN7AbciYDwCQ&usg=AFQjCNHN84HoHHTQZQmoddFgribuEQgeww&sig2=ALfc4NMIzNmOWzQc2dOK9

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/four_lions/