case studies

                                     us independent film

short term 12- 2013

Director:  Destin Daniel Cretton
budget: less than $1million
stars: Brie Larson (in another independent film called room that won awards at the BIFA), Rami Malek, John Gallagher jr
genre: drama
box office: $56,206 opening weekend)
certificate: R
independent films often forces on telling a story and getting across a message more than having their aim be to make money and gain popularity. Because of this, they are able to focus on more controversial topics and issues that hollywood studios do not want to be associated with. This film used the awards it got to promote itself, the first shot in the trailer is of an award which shows people how it is a good film.

us blockbuster film
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 -2015
Director: Francis Lawrence- directed the previous two hunger games films
budget: $160million
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence (one of the highest paid actresses), Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth
Genre: Adventure/sci-fi
Box office: $300million
Certificate: PG-13
The fact that this film is the last of a huge franchise helped bring popularity and money.  Hollywood tends to not take risks in their film making which is why they generate a lot of franchise films or reboots, it is a way of guaranteeing an audience. The advertisements for this film were massive, posters, clothes, jewellery, re releases of the book and other forms of merchandise were bought out as well as the trailer for the film.

British Production film - BBC films -2011
We Need To Talk About Kevin 
Director: Lynne Ramsay - done a few indie film
Budget: $7,000,000,
Stars: Tilda Swinton, John C Reilly, Ezra Miller
Genre: Drama
Box office:  $1,738,692       
Certificate: 15
based on a 2003 novel by Lionel Shiver, making a film that is based on a popular or successful book almost guarantees an audience because the storyline has proven to be appealing to people.




World Cinema
Suicide Room
Director: Jan Komasa
Budget:
Stars: Jakub Gierszal
Genre: drama/thriller
Box Office: PNL 6,000,000
Certificate: 15
the film was nominated for 18 awards and won ten of them








deadpool (2016)
director: Tim Miller - did visual effects for Scott Pilgrim
Budget: $58,000,000
stars: Ryan Reynolds, T.j. Miller
Genre: action/adventure/comedy/sci-fi
Box office: opening weekend- $135,050,000  Gross-$355,363,047
certificate: R - first R rated film to open at above $100 million at u.s. box office

Film noir

For this project we aimed to complete a short sequence that accurately represented the conventions of a film noir. Typical conventions include, low key lighting, some sort of case to solve, a femme fatale and almost every character smokes. When making this short sequence we decided to employ the aspect of having a murder in the story line and so made our protagonist detective/hit man type character. We also decided to give the protagonist a hat which made it easier for him to hide his face and give off the impression that he is a mysterious and shady character. We started off by filming the detective in a grave yard as he mourned over a grave stone (unfortunately this footage was lost) as this is being shown, the voice over of this character narrates a reflection of the events that have recently played out. We then filmed the events he is narrating in the form of a flashback, this included our character being asked to take on a risky case that he accepts. As he is asked this, we use high angles and got him to look up directly into the camera as we felt like this would make him feel very intimidating but still mysterious. We set up an office for the detective which was very simplistic and included a typewriter on his desk which gave the era of the sequence more depth and made the authenticity of our interpretation of film noir better. In editing we also made the film black and white to mimic the conventions of film noir.