Paranormal activity and The Blair Witch Project

Paranormal activity:
Production:

• House prepared for a year and re-designed to be filmed in.
• Shot on a hand-held camera.
• Actors not given scripts, they were retroscripting, knowing the outline of the story.

Distribution:

• Sent to horror film festivals where it impressed
• Tested in cinemas where people walked out due to fear
• Paramount bought the company who'd acquired rights to distribute the film and sent it out to a wider market

Marketing:

• After being shown at festivals, people were asked to vote where it would next be shown
• The more votes on the website, the further wide it was shown. 

Exhibited:

• Film festivals-directly at target audience
• Small number of cinemas where tagret audience were situated
• Voted places
• Nationwide (USA)
• Global

The Blair Witch Project:
Production:

• Advertising in a magazine where improvisational actors were requested-a magazine they'd read.
• Stooges unknown to cast and general public featured in the film
• Actors deprived of food

Distribution:

• Three universities funded distribution and Artisan bought the film and sold it
• Screened at a film festival then screened wordlwide

Marketing:

• Suggested as a real event over the internet

Bullet Boy marketing

festival screenings at the end of 2004.
it had accumulated both word-of-mouth and press coverage in the news pages due to being about tackling gun crime in hackney.
advertised in all of the national daily newspapers that allocate significant space to film reviews, plus two tabloids, newspapers with a black perspective, a selective London Underground campaign and extensive use of radio stations with a concentration on R 'n' B and Garage, the musical forms with which Walters is associated.
carefully selected urban multiplexes.
http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/bullet-boy

Gladiator

http://www.dreamworks.com/gladiator/
 

• DreamWorks SKG
• Universal Pictures
• Scott Free Productions
• Mill Film
• C & L
• Dawliz
• Red Wagon Entertainment (uncredited)

www.moviemistakes.com/film541 Lots of mistakes found in the film, listed with what and where they are.

Box Office

Budget:

$103,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$34,819,017 (USA) (7 May 2000) (2938 Screens)

Gross:

$258,264,745 (Worldwide) (except USA) 

Synopsis

 

 

Bullet Boy

Director: Saul Dibb
Distributed by Verve
Produced by: BBC, Film Council, Shine.
Funded by the National Lottery

Old Hollywood

Old Hollywood had 5 main studios. They each owned their own sets, locations, actors and film crew. Everything was under a long term contract, meaning the studio always had work.
There were around 6-8 films made every year by each director, far more than there are now. These would then be distributed all over the world to cinemas which, again, would be owned by the studios meaning that these cinemas all showed the same type of film since the crew would specialize in the genre the company was known for.
The audience would be able to easily decide on which genre they liked, and go to the cinema which showed that genre. Their preferences would be well catered for at the cinemas belonging to studios which were famous for their favourite genres. EG RKO's cinemas would show RKO's horror films.
All films however, would be very predictable, as sets and actors would be re-used.

Producer unit system

Near the end of the one-reel era, the director-unit system gave way to the producer-unit system. While studios maintained director-led units, many of the managerial tasks, particularly in the pre-production phase, that had traditionally fallen to directors were assumed by central managers. Thomas Ince of Triangle stopped directing in the early 1910s and soon became one of the industry's first – and most powerful – central producers, running a 43-acre studio facility with over 1,000 employees. This system was closely linked to the rise of feature filmmaking, which required significantly greater investments per film and therefore much more detailed planning and managerial oversight than in the one-reel era.
This control over production was accomplished primarily through the continuity script – essentially a complete blueprint for and record of a film shoot. The continuity script featured many of the same elements as the earlier scenario script, but in significantly greater detail. It also contained shooting dates, highly detailed description of actions, footage estimations for each shot, complete budgetary data, and information on release prints and distribution. The evolution of the continuity script is concurrent with a set of profound changes in film style, as filmmakers began to explore in earnest scene dissection (i.e., the division of scenes into multiple shots). This emerging mode of representation required careful attention to the proper matching of positions and movements across shots – and the most effective way to do so was by planning every detail in advance. The continuity script led to a further division of labor within scenario departments, with "creative" personnel responsible for developing film stories and continuity experts responsible for converting them into detailed scripts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S6IJWilpx4

DVD cover analysis

 The name of Leonardo DiCaprio is the very first thing in the top left corner of the dvd cover. His name is here because he is the star and seeing his name will make his fans want to buy the dvd and watch the film.

Claire Danes was also a star at the time, because of her tv series, so seeing her name on the box would be appealing to the teenage target audience that she already had in her fanbase.

The close up of the two's faces right against each other shows that it is a romance, as the tight framing shows how close they are, representing their love for each other.

The gun, with an image of Mary and the cross attached to it suggests it may be set in a religious area, in this case the Hispanic area of LA.

Review of a film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTm3jquo_Mk&feature=related

The clip begins with silence, just watching the dog, from a long shot. This is a good way to observe the dog’s seemingly natural behaviour.  It sets a serene and calm atmosphere within the scene, allowing the audience a moment to relax, yet building suspense within them, anticipating what might happen next. It is a key element of the whole film, and done here very well.

The still camera continues this long shot for a very long time, watching the dog’s twitches, suggesting something may be a little amiss, but there is nothing obvious, so suspense and tension is continued to be created.

There is a cut away to the living room, again a long shot, where the camera focuses on the opening of a door. All of this is done in silence to build the tension and fear within the scene.

Cutting to the bedroom and the living room alternately, showing the dog getting more and more worried at what appears to be nothing, will strike more fear into the audience. Dogs are supposedly better at sensing things than humans, so the fact a dog has sensed something worthy of leaving the room to investigate will make the audience fearful since they have no idea what to anticipate. They will fear the unknown.

The dog’s barking shows it is in distress. Even though this is done off camera, the off-screen diagetic sound scares the audience, making them wonder what on earth it could be that the dog is so fearful of.

The handheld camera held by the girl is unsteady to show it as a home-movie. Also, the girl’s trembling voice is another off-screen diagetic sound. These things show panic within the character as she has no explanation as to what happened, just like the audience, who can also be scared by not knowing what’s gone on.

There is a long scene, again a long shot, with the girl on the stairs, she is obviously distressed and the lack of anything around her suggests she is lonely and feels weak and small, as she appears to be on screen.

MGM label research

History:

• After gradually being built through purchasing higher quality workers, MGM surpassed Universal Studios as the largest studio in Hollywood, a distinction it would maintain for over 30 years. 

• Fox tried to merge with MGM but the deal fell through.

Golden Age:

• Made films with glamour and sophisticated elements.
• Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, William Haines, Norma Shearer, and Joan Crawford were stars created by the label.
• one of the first studios to experiment with filming in Technicolor.
• The Wizard of Oz and Northwest Passage are two big films that were made in the early years.
•  MGM made films that were sophisticated and polished to cater to an urban audience.
• MGM never lost money during the Great Depression
• MGM stars dominated the box office in the '30s
• MGM created the Hollywood star system
• MGM released very successful musicals with players such as Judy Garland  Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Frank Sinatra

After a huge fade for a number of decades, MGM became big again with the James Bond franchise. It also distributed pictures internationally through 20th century fox, rather than the older method through UIP which was accused of being illegal.

 

MGM has now been taken over and does not produce any films of its own right, though it is still in business.

Star Powerpoint

Summarize Brad Pitt PowerPoint

Stars sell products and advertise business. Add examples here
Many hair shampoos are advertized by actresses, for example Penelope Cruz with loreal. A lot of other cosmetics companies advertize using ators and actresses, like Avon with Reese Witherspoon, and Orlando Bloom with Hugo Boss.

Do stars influence the way ordinary people live? Add examples here

Top 100 box office stars of all time

All Time Top 100 Stars at the Box Office

		Name	Movies	Total Box Office		Average
1		Frank Welker	96	$6,279,159,825		$65,407,915
2		Samuel L. Jackson	85	$5,282,375,720		$62,145,597
3		Tom Hanks	44	$4,449,980,530		$101,135,921
4		John Ratzenberger	32	$3,912,466,989		$122,264,593
5		Harrison Ford	41	$3,784,518,909		$92,305,339
6		Eddie Murphy	36	$3,710,539,654		$103,070,546
7		Warwick Davis	18	$3,512,651,328		$195,147,296
8		Tom Cruise	35	$3,355,871,014		$95,882,029
9		Hugo Weaving	22	$3,353,109,744		$152,414,079
10		Alan Rickman	32	$3,332,856,277		$104,151,759
11		Jack Angel	28	$3,317,891,129		$118,496,112
12		Morgan Freeman	52	$3,279,026,218		$63,058,197
13		James Earl Jones	47	$3,261,150,733		$69,386,186
14		Robin Williams	58	$3,234,383,008		$55,765,224
15		Gary Oldman	34	$3,233,669,787		$95,107,935
16		Bruce Willis	62	$3,219,308,730		$51,924,334
17		Robbie Coltrane	33	$3,167,825,183		$95,994,703
18		Johnny Depp	47	$3,118,037,105		$66,341,215
19		Stan Lee	16	$3,071,203,283		$191,950,205
20		Mickie McGowan	25	$3,011,117,406		$120,444,696						Here are the top 20 stars in film.

Stars, past and present

Shirley Temple:

• Filmography- 
• The Red-Haired Alibi
• Out All Night
• To the Last Man
• Carolina
• Mandalay
• As the Earth Turns
•  Stand Up and Cheer!
•  Change of Heart
•  Little Miss Marker
•  Now I'll Tell
•  Baby Take a Bow
•  Now and Forever
•  Bright Eyes
•  The Little Colonel
•  Our Little Girl
•   Curly Top
•  The Littlest Rebel
•  Captain January
•  Poor Little Rich Girl
•  Dimples
•  Stowaway
•  Wee Willie Winkie
•  Heidi
•  Ali Baba Goes to Town
•  Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
•  Little Miss Broadway
•  Just Around the Corner
•  The Little Princess
•  Susannah of the Mounties
•  The Blue Bird
•  Young People
•  Kathleen
•  Miss Annie Rooney
•  Since You Went Away
• I'll Be Seeing You
•  Kiss and Tell
•  Honeymoon
•  The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
•  That Hagen Girl
•  Fort Apache
•  Mr. Belvedere Goes to College
•  Adventure in Baltimore
•  The Story of Seabiscuit
• A Kiss For Corliss

Box office success-

1. Stand Up and Cheer! became Temple's breakthrough film
2. success continued with a loan-out to Paramount for Little Miss Marker
3.  Bright Eyes was released. It was the first feature film crafted specifically for Shirley's talents

Attached to Twentieth Century Fox label.

Johnny Depp:

• Filmography-
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• Private Resort
•  Platoon
•  Cry-Baby
•  Edward Scissorhands
•  Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
•  What's Eating Gilbert Grape
•  Benny & Joon
•  Arizona Dream
•  Ed Wood
•  Nick of Time
•  Dead Man
•  Don Juan DeMarco
•  Cannes Man
•  Donnie Brasco
•  The Brave
•  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
•  L.A. Without a Map
•  Sleepy Hollow
•  The Astronaut's Wife
•  The Ninth Gate
•  Chocolat
•  Before Night Falls
•  From Hell
•  The Man Who Cried
•  Blow
•  Once Upon a Time in Mexico
•  Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
•  Happily Ever After
•  Finding Neverland
•  Secret Window
•  The Libertine
•  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Corpse Bride
•  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
•  Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
•  Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• Public Enemies
•  The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
•  Alice in Wonderland
• The Tourist
•  Rango
•  Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Box office success-

1. Edward scissor hands was nominated for a golden globe. (best actor)
2. Received 47 other award nominations.
3. Also received 12 awards.

Created his own production company; Infinitum Nihil