LO4: legal, ethical and regulatory bodies

Ethical

Hypodermic Syringe is the thought that media has a negative impact on the viewer. This that a mass audience will believe anything that they hear or see. The things that are the big issues to do with this theory are violence, sexual content, religion, representation and role models. In relevance to the Warp film Dead Man's Shoes's the issues that are most relevant to the film are violence, sexual content and religion to a smaller extent.

Violence is easily the issue that is the biggest talking point in relevance to Dead Man's Shoe's as there are multiple scenes of the film where gruesome acts have been committed, the acts or not shown but the aftermath is such as the scenes where it shows a body that has been mutilated with an axe and another where a body has been crashed into a suitcase. If these had been shown in the film to their full extent there would have no doubt been some type of outcry by the viewer and the news as they would have been very difficult to watch, because they do not show these gruesome images are not shown in the film the regulatory bodies' (such as BBFC and ASA) will look at the film at give it a 18 rating. If the film shows thing that are to explicit they can block the film from being released, then the film has to be edited or have more content filmed so that it fits within regulatory bodies' guide lines. An example of this is Quentin Tarantino Kill Bill part 1, there is a scenes where the Bride kills a large group of Yakuza and the regulatory body for the film deemed That there was too much blood in the scenes so Quentin Tarantino dis sided to make the scene black and white to get around the regulatory body as in a film for something to be classed as blood it has to be red if it is black like in that scene from Kill Bill it is not classed as blood. Dead Man's Shoe's does he same thing as in different points of the film when character are being killed the shot goes a black, white and brown, this will have been done for the same reasons as Kill Bill. There is a scenes that have sexual intercourse in it. There is not any nudity shown in the scene and everything in covered up by a bed quilt, scenes like this are common in different film and the BBFC would have no problem letting this film throw at an 18 rating. The religious implications to do with Dead Man's Shoe's are very minor. It is mentioned at the begging of the film the views of the main character Richard. He states at the begging of the film that he can’t let them live because given the chance god will forgive them and let them in to heaven and he cannot let that happen, so he goes out and kills them all. I can’t see this being a problem with the BBFC as it is a very minor part of the film at the very begging but still the writer of the script would have had to be considerate with what was said as religion is a very touchy subject. All that has just been said is relevant because these are the things that would be considered relevant to hypodermic syringe. People may think that the action taken in the film are the actions that should be taken if someone would end up in the same circumstance.

There is a second school of thought that the viewer can filter out and adapt to any content in media so when they view particular things like in the film Dead Man’s Shoe’s. They will be able to tell that the actions in the film are just that actions in a film and they are not real or based on real character or event.    

There are no representations of any particular groups, sexes, ethnicity or sexual preference. As there is no humor in the film there is no Confucian         

Legal

All of the footage in the film was original so they would not have any problem there. Warp would only come in to legal problems with the music that is in the film, so they would have needed permission. When it comes to ethical issues Warp would have to think about offensive material and censorship. There would not be anything to be considered as offensive material but there could have been censored footage. The footage that would have been censored. The footage that would have been censored is where it show very graphic content. Like when he kills one of the members of the gang.          

Regulatory bodies 

A regulatory bodies such as BBFC are the major regulatory body with in Britain. The classification given by BBFC IS 18. So to see this in the cinema or purchase it you have to be over the age of 18. The rating of this film was never change at any time and I cant see it ever changing. The film stick to guild line. The guild lines that would have to be looked at are one to do with drugs, sex and violence here is a extract from the guild line of the BBFC

"where material or treatment appears to us to risk harm to individuals or, through their behavior, to society. For example, the detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or of illegal drug use, which may cause harm to public health or morals. This may include portrayals of sadistic or sexual violence which make this violence look appealing; reinforce the suggestion that victims enjoy sexual violence; or which invite viewer complicity in sexual violence or other harmful violent activities • where there are more explicit images of sexual activity in the context of a sex work or where the primary purpose of the images in question is sexual arousal"

As the film does not brake an of the rules stated in the extract above the film sticks to the guild lines of the BBFC       

LO 3:Understand distribution and Promotshion

Promoting a film

 There are multiple way to advertise a film, such as:

1. Trailers
2. Billboards
3. Posters
4. Websites
5. Social media  

These are a mix of old and new media (Analogue and Digital). The old would be Billboards, Poster (basically print)  and Trailers. New media would be Websites and Social media (anything that involves the internet). Trailers can be one of the first thing that is realised if there is a teaser trailer for the film, but most of the time poster are the first thing no come out.

Old Media

Trailers

Trailers where shown in cinemas first for a long time then they went on the internet (on a website such as YouTube) and then TV. Now as time has gone one all the different types of media get the trailer at the same time, except form some big Hollywood realises (like the Avenges 2) that have the trailer being released at the first showing of another film by the same studio. Teaser trailers are used to realise the first look of a film and tend to get the most hype behind them as a start point. Dead man's Shoes was Warp Films first feature film so it is likely that the trailer was only shown on local station and channels like Film 4. The trailer would have been on local cinemas such as the Odeon and the Showroom. It could have also been shown at film festivals up and down the country.

Billboard

Billboard will be next to main roads, motor way and in some cities. They can be on the side of a cinema if the film is big enough, this is done all the time at Cineworld in Sheffield retail park. Billboards tend to show all of the major character in any given film. Billboards tend to be the second thing that comes out in build up to the film first being posters or maybe teaser trailers. In relation to Dead Man’s Shoe’s they would have most like not had the money to be putting up billboards as they are very expensive and even at this time Warp Films are not a big enough name to get billboard on the side of Cineworld.    

Poster

Posters are the first thing to go up after a films is

 confirmed by a studio, poster can go up very early,

 the bigger the film the earlier the poster go up,

this is even more so if it is a pre-existing franchise.

Posters tend to consist of some type of cover

art for the Blue-ray box or showing the characters of the film.

New media

Social media

Social media is arguably the newest
 type of media and there for is being
 used to advertise products. As there
 are now profiles on FaceBook for
 films and studios and even fictional
characters. Now films are advertised
on social media by the actors,
 directors and produces. They tweet
and post thing on different social
 media to give little teaser and keep
the fans and other viewers interested
in a film that is not coming out for
months. As Dead Man's Shoe's came
out in 2004 thing and things like
 Facebook where still in there early
days so Warp will not have had the
full benefit of social media because
it was still in early day as Facebook
 had only came out early the same year.

 Websites     

Websites are a very useful method of advertising a product. They are useful because they can have a banner on a website or even the trailer for the film if your are on a website like youtube it will come up as a recommended video to watch and there are banner on the website, with some website the trailer play when you go on the website. This is an other thing that warp films will have not felt the full benefit of because of time of realise.    

Distribution

Distribution channels 

There are four classification for where a film can be sold local, regional, national and international.

Local = in the same city 

Regional = in he same county or state

National = in the same country 

International = world wide 

Dead man's shoe's would have been distributed nationally at first and then international later. The cinema will have been local and then regional. This is because that Dead Man's Shoe's was Warp's first feature film so they will not have had A massive amount of money to give it a national release.

Television networks

Dead Man's Shoe's will have not been on any television networks that will have aired this film, maybe 4 Films would air it when it is there indie mouth, but know Warp are a big name in British film makers so they would be able to show there films on a British network.

Retail outlets

Warp films will have used local retailers to sell Dead man's Shoe's HMV in Meadowhall and the Sheffield city center both have an indea category in which the film could have been sold. There are also smaller retailer thought the city center who would have sold it as well. The film would have been sold all over the country how ever as they had a distributor Studio Canal UK who would have been able to sell the film all over the UK.

Cinema 

At the time of release the film dead man's shoe's would have been shown in cinema s like Odeon and The Showroom as at the time Warp was not a big enough name to have there film shown in the bigger more commercial cinema. Letter on Warp did get there film's in commercial cinemas an example of this would be Four Lions.

LO2 : Understand the relationship between media producer and their target audience

Gender

I would say that the dominating gender for Warp Films is male because of the dark and gritty style of the film and the subject that are covered tend not to appeal to female. I think that it would be a %75 splint on the male side.  

Age

The age for War films will be 18 – 65, I say 18 because the age rating for nearly all of their films is 18. I don’t think anyone any younger would like it because there is not much action in any of their films. I think that it would go up to 65 because their films are aimed at the working class and the age of retirement is 65 in the UK. 

Lifestyle
If we use the NRS (National Readership Survey) who specialise in looking at the demographics, I would say that if we look at the demographics from NRS that it is urban ventures and producers that their films appeal to. The things that link these two demographics is that the people in them will be open minded to new things and will be more creative then other people this is more so on the producer then urban venture. That is because producers' as the name suggests are people who make something, such as films, games, books, magazines. Urban venture are the type of people who go out and try new thing and are very open to new ideas. Both demographics will be more then likely have an interest in indie film such as Warp Films.       

Spending power

The type of people who watch Warp films production will live within the UK and will be working class, there social grade of these people will be B, C1 and C2. They will have some to a lot of disposable income so they will be able to easily go to see any film when it comes out in cinema and buy it when it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray. They will be manages or self-employed and working 8 to 10 hours a day 5 days a week.  The average person who works full time earns around £500 give are take £50. That means that their average viewer has some disposable income for things like going to the cinema, buying film, games, music.       

Mood board

 The main reason I think all of these thing to be true about the target audience of Warp Films is because in pretty much all of Warp Films productions all of the characters are working class or lower (at least to my knowledge). Good examples of this is This Is England, Dead Man’s Shoes and Four Lions. There Is not one character in any of these films that is in the social grade B are above. I think that if you look at the Uses and Gratifications theory by Denis McQuail is very relevant to Warp Films products. Denis McQuail stated that medias like film appeal to the viewer because of these four reasons Surveillance, Escapism, Building personal identity, Building personal relationships. I think that Warp Films product’s are a perfect example of Escapism. I do not think that there films fall under the others on the theory.  I think that Warp Films is very good at Escapism because of how well it imitates real life, the viewer will be able to identify and relate with the characters easily and therefore be more emersioed into the film. A good example of this is This is England. Presentation of the 1980 was that well done that for no moment in the film I thought that it was anything other then the 1980. I think it was because of the escapism of the film that it did so well and went on to have a tv show. The why that all of the character or protrude may be somewhat true to life but all of these character are from the perspective of someone from a social grad of B, C1 and C2. I say this because in nearly all of Warp Films film's they all make the lower class look like they all ways up to no good and that is just not true.

Dead man's shoes

     The Warp film that I will be looking at is Dead Man's Shoes directed by Shane Meadows and staring Paddy Considine.

     Purpose
     
     The purpose of the film is to entertain the viewer and for Warp to make a profit. There is a underlining theme of bullying throw out the film, they may have also been trying to get across the physiological affect of bullying.I think that there was also other message of taking advantage of people throw fear or just don't know any better. There are also some others theme

     talked about in the film to do with religion.            

     Genre

     The genre of the film is a dark psychological thriller. The film is dark because of the theme that it covers like drug users/abuse, people being focused to have sex, bullying and suicide. It's a psychological because of events that happen throw the film you see in a different light after the films climax. The film is a thriller because of the scenes where the main character Richard played by Paddy Considine stalks drug deals throw out the film, When these scenes happen every thing is shown from the drug deals point of view so you know as much as them. You never know when one of them is going to die a couple of time in the second one leaves the group they turn up dead in the next scene.             

     Form

The film is rather short as it clocks in at 1:26:28. This is rather short for normal films as the convention was for a film to be about 2 hours long give or take a couple of minutes. It was a rather small film because of Warp being a small studio at the time there was not much of a buzz about the film. This was because at the time this was their first big budget film as beforehand they had only made short films. 

      Style

Dead Mans Shoes was Warp's first full feature film. This is where they made there style of realism and grittiness. Their film have a very heavy focus on people in working class backgrounds and Dead Mans Shoes is no exception. The film is very gritty as all of the film has lots of dark grays and browns and this is the norm for most of Warp films. 
     
     There is a double helix style of story tell in this film, by 
     this I mean there are two story's being told thought out
     the film that are connected to one and other. This is done
     by setting the bulk of the film in present day and the 
     second story is being told throw flash backs. Each of 
     the story's is focused on one of the two brother.     

Content

     
     The film start off with its opening credits, they are rolling over what looks to a family film from the 80's presumably the main protagonist's of when he was a young child with his little brother. Throw out it is alternating the two brothers walking down a country path. The film is split up in to five days, of which the main character stalks and then kills a small group of men. The film doesn't have a lot of locations, it starts off in a abandon farm then village, snooker hall and a number of houses that all looked very similar and ends out side of  a church. The film starts off with the two brothers talking in there new home an abandon farm. They then walk throw the nearby village and try to find the men that took advantage of the younger brother. They find one dealing drugs in a snooker hall/pub. He then finds all the other men and terrorizes all of them in the night. Spray Painting them and scaring them when they are high on drugs. He then proceeds to kill all of them one by one until there is just on leafed and we as the viewer then finds out some new information that make me/us view the film in a new light. The film is rather gory at time like when it shows a body that has be mangled with an axe. I thought that the acting in the film was top tear, every thing that was said was performed perfectly by Paddy Considine, every thing he say is filled with emotional and you will feel like he is on the edge and is about to just kill everyone, I also got the seance that he has no regard for his own life. Toby Kebbell gives a good performance as Anthony who is the younger brother, his character has some mental problems which are never stated but from his performance it seamed very natural and not forced at all, from his jesters and to the dialect it never comes off as novice. Paddy Considine character Richard has meant to have just leafed the army and this is shown in his costume.

     The two main things that show this is
     his army jacket and boots. One of the 
     props he has is a combat knife which he could have obtained when he was in the army. Inter laced throw out the film are flash backs depicting the event leading up to Anthony death. All of these seance are in black and white, I think that this has been done for two reasons one to have clear seance of when the will was in a flash back and two to give the feel that it is not the present and making it black and white gives the impression to me that it is older.                                           

      Meaning

I got a lot of the meaning behind the from the opening credits. The fact that it starts off with a film that is of a family playing tells me that the bond of family will be prominent throw the film. This may give the view some type of sympathy to the character if they have a similar family bond in there life. There are a lot of establishing shot in the film of the quint village that the film is set in. I think that this is meant to connote to the reader that ever in small little villages in the countryside thing bad thing still happen. I think that this is reinforced in later scenes of the film where Anthony is with the group of drug deals and is having fun one minute and the next is being bullied or taken advantage seconds later. This is accomplished throw the editing of the film as these scenes are also flash backs they are made with a very fast pace with each shot only being there for a couple of seconds. In later scenes when people or found dead or being killed the entire color starts to fade and there are just lots of grays and browns. I think that this film has uses it preferred meaning thought out most of this feature film as there are only a couple of time in it that they ever explain anything. A very good example of this is the ending to the film where a member of the gang that bulled Anthony is talking to his wife about what they did to him when they terrorized him. He does not say all that much because most of it is just black and white flash backs with just music but throw the shot types and camera angles used I got that this man had serous regrets about what happened. They did this by putting closes up of him and his wife alternating. This was done to give you the full frontal impact of how they are felling. The man brakes down and his is truly horrified by what she is hearing. I think that this connotes to the listener and that they will be feel sad and may even cry as before we hand never really new what happened until this point. When the film is in a flash back and Anthony is being abused the levels of the act increases as the film goes on, this mirrors his brother as the whys he kills the members of the gang increases in violence as the film goes on.                  

      Production process 

The film location was most likely chosen because this was Warps first feature film and there would have been budget concerts so rather it being filmed in the heart of London where the rates for filming on location is much higher they would end up spend most of there money on that alone but filming in a little town in the country side would be a lot more ideal for what they where planning and I think it would not have been as good if it was filmed in any other type of area. I think that the costumes where very well done I got the idea that every one in the film was working class or below, as nearly all of the characters wear tracksuits. The exception to this is sonny (the antagonist of the film). Sonny wears a nice leaver jacket he would most likely have the most money out of everyone in the film as he is the leader of the drug deal so i would think that he get the biggest cut of the money. As I said be fore Richard wears a army jacket and boots. This is to always reiterate that he was once in the army. I think that it was done to give the viewer a better understanding of the character and that he is trained in the art of war and could bet them even if he is out numbered and out gunned. The filming took place over 3 weeks and Toby Kebbell was not casted until a week before filming and his entire scene where filmed in the third week. The flash backs would have been easy to set out if they had done proper pre-production, as they would have had to make story boards for the films story this is where they could play around with where the flash backs will happen. They could find the best place to put the flash back by using story boards, places where i has the biggest impacts in relevance to the rest of the film.      

LO1: Task 1 draft scipt

  Intro

Hello my name is Harry Swallow and today we will be looking at media terms and the Film studio warp films. We will be looking at different types of ownership. Here are the key terms and definition for the different types of ownership.

Key terms

• Conglomerate - A Conglomerate is a company made up of smaller companies. These smaller companies are known as subsidiaries.
• Independent - An independent company is a company that is not owned by a bigger company. They do not own any smaller companies. They will operate and produces their own content.
• Cross media company - Is a company that is a conglomerate but the difference is it provide two different are more types of media product.  
• Commercial - This is a company that is about making a profit.
• Public service broadcaster - Public service broadcaster or PSB is a broadcast service that is uses the public’s money to fund their broadcast station.  
• Join Venture - This is when two or more company come to gather to accomplish a mutually beneficial goal. 
• Profit - This is the main goal for most companies’ media or not.
• Target Audience - A target audience is what a media company aims there product at. The idle customer for whatever the product is.
•  Vertical and Horizontal integration - This is when a subsidiary uses other subsidiary in the same conglomerate to advertise, produces and distribute their product.

Warp films

Warp is an independent film studio from the UK there specialism is film and music. As Warp is independent they cannot use vertical or horizontal integration. So they will have to work with other companies to accomplish their goal. They can however produce their own product but they need help with distribution. They don't tend to advertise their product unless they are in a joint venture like when they were working for Channel 4 on this is Britain. When they do advertise their products they use film 4 and screen optimum screening to advertise. Warp its self has two subsidiaries Warp films and Warp Films and Warp records. Warp does not specialize in any other forms of media. I would say that Warp is more known for the films that they make, as they have made some award winning films and have even been no nominated for BAFTA’s. I would say that there most well-known films are This Is England, Four Lions and Dead Man’s Shoes.

The operating model for Warp films will be pretty much the same as any other studio but probably on a much smaller scale. There would the three stages of production post-production, production and pre-production. Post-production is the making the script, story boarding what will be happening in each part of the film, finding an appropriate budget for the film. The production is the making of the film so that will concern thing that are to do with that such as cameras, lighting, effects, makeup, costume, makeup, actors, directors. Post-production would be adding the CG, editing and advertising the film. If Warp was a subsidiary they would use vertical or horizontal integration to advertise their films and music but their independent so this is not possible for them.       

The films that Warp tends to make are dark dramas that have some link to a big past event. In Dead Man's Shoes it's about a man avenging his brother and commits great acts of violence. This Is England is about a small group of people who go around abusing other ethnic group because of what Margaret Thatcher did when she was in power and the Falklands war. Four Lions was a very big dispatcher from the type of films they make as it was a comedy about a group of idiot terrorists. But still it was a massive success. It tripled it money. The target audience that Warp aim for id different for each film but as for This Is England was aimed at people who grow up or lived in the 1980's and for Four Loin's the target audience would have been people between the ages of 16-40. I would say this because of the type of comedy that is used throw out the film. Over all I would say that their audience are adults because of the mature themes and sometime graphic thing that are presented in there film.    

Over all Warp has been a very successful company. In the past ten years none of their film have flopped and as an independent company they tend to make a rather big amount of profit. Because of this over the year they have been constantly expanding and now have branching of department India.

Some of warp films have gone worldwide like Four Lion's and this is England was successful in America as well. To date Four Loin's has made £6,968,562 This Is England has made £5,058,600.  

Warp's films are aimed at such a niche group that most big film studios will not bother. Considering their films are aimed at such a small group they always seem to do very well at the box office. They still have competitors like Working Title and Big Buddha. Working title was founded in 1983 by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe. Working title started off as a independent film studio but then became a subsidiary of PolyGram in 1992, because of this they had now got a company backing them they could now make film with a bigger budget. In 1999 PolyGram became a major Hollywood player. This gave Working title a chances to make some big Hollywood movies. PolyGram was sold to Seagram and merged with MCA Music Entertainment, to form Universal Music Group. PolyGram Films was sold and folded into Universal Studios in 1999. Now with the backing of Universal Working title can get a maximum budget of up to £35 million. Working Title is a subsidiary but is still based with in the UK and make films of a same theme and nature as Warp. Both have films that are based on emotions rather then action. They are very similar to warp except they chose to become a subsidiary, unlike Warp who have had many offenders but always declined. 

This a link to Working titles website https://www.workingtitlefilms.com/   

Another competitor that Warp has is Big Buddha films. They are also an independent film studio based with in the UK. But there film are very heavily based with in reality or is a documentary. This a quot from there website about what they try to tackle and base there film around  "Big Buddha Films is UK based independent film company that focuses on making films with a strong female voice, that tackle human dilemmas, and show the vulnerabilities of human existence.

We look at how individuals respond to challenges and difficulties, and just to each other. Our films have screened at film festivals all over the world, and received many nominations and awards." . They are very similar to Warp with budget they can afford for their movies. A lot of their film are dramas like Warp but based around thing that happen in day to day life such as bullying, couple that find it hard to have a baby and speed dating. Big Buddha is the opposite of Working Title, Working Title make makes film with a very big budget and the story are about things that will never happen. This for most of their films they have a couple of acceptations like The Kings Speech and the boat that rocked, as these film are based on real events. Big Buddha's Film are all made in a very raw way. This is to do with there budget constraints. 

This is a link the Big Buddhas website   http://bigbuddhafilms.co.uk/