Working Title and Warp Films Research Questions

Working Title and Warp Films
Institution and Audiences

AOs
Production Practices to appeal to audiences
Distribution and Marketing strategies to raise audience awareness
New technologies to help target specific audiences
Audience and how they challenge institutions


1. Who are Working Title?
Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London, England. The company was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1982. It produces feature films and some television productions. Eric Fellner and Bevan are the co-owners of the company now.

2. Who are Warp Films?
Warp Films, a sister company of Warp Records, was set up in 1999 with funding from NESTA. It is based in Sheffield, England with a further office in London and has 14 full-time staff.

3. Are they independent or part of a conglomerate?
Working Title is a conglomerate company meaning it is part of other film company’s e.g. universal studios, whilst Warp Films are an independent film company.

4. How does the ownership of the company affect the budgets for film?
The ownership of the company effects the budgets for a film because larger more successful film companies would have more money to spend and therefore higher budgets for their films than smaller film companies.

5. Create a list of films that both institutions have produced.
Working Title Films About a Boy (film)
Ali G Indahouse
Atonement (film)
User:Nayrouz Aly/Atonement
Barton Fink
Bean (film)
The Big Lebowski
Billy Elliot
The Boat That Rocked
Bob Roberts
The Borrowers (1997 film)
Bridget Jones's Diary (film)
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (film)
Burn After Reading
The Calcium Kid
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (film)
Catch a Fire (film)
Chicago Joe and the Showgirl
Chihuanhas
Dead Man Walking (film)
Definitely, Maybe
Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur
Drop Dead Fred
Edward II (film)
Elizabeth (film)
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Fargo (film)
For Queen and Country
40 Days and 40 Nights
Four Weddings and a Funeral
French Kiss (film)
Frost/Nixon (film)
Green Zone (film)
The Guru (2002 film)
The Hi-Lo Country
Hippie Hippie Shake
Hot Fuzz
The Hudsucker Proxy
Inside I'm Dancing
The Interpreter
Johnny English
Land and Freedom
Loch Ness (film)
London Kills Me
Long Time Dead
Love Actually
The Man Who Cried
The Man Who Wasn't There
Map of the Human Heart
Mickybo and Me
Moonlight and Valentino
Mr. Bean's Holiday
My Beautiful Laundrette
My Little Eye
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang
Nanny McPhee
Ned Kelly (2003 film)
Notting Hill (film)
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Panther (film)
Paperhouse (film)
Paul (film)
Plunkett & Macleane
Posse (1993 film)
Pride & Prejudice (2005 film)
The Return of the Borrowers
Robin Hood (1991 film)
Romeo Is Bleeding
Rubin and Ed
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
A Serious Man
Shaun of the Dead
Smokin' Aces
The Soloist
State of Play (film)
Tales of the City (TV miniseries)
The Tall Guy
The Comic Strip
Thunderbirds (film)
United 93 (film)
Wild Child (2008 film)
Wimbledon (film)
Wish You Were Here (1987 film)
A World Apart (film)
The Young Americans (film)

Warp Films
My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117 (Dir: Chris Morris - 2003)
Dead Man's Shoes (Dir: Shane Meadows - 2004)
Rubber Johnny (Dir: Chris Cunningham - 2005)
Scummy Man (Arctic Monkeys short film/music video)
This Is England (Dir: Shane Meadows - 2006)
"Grow Your Own"(Dir: Richard Laxton - 2007)
Dog Altogether (Dir: Paddy Considine - 2007)
All Tomorrow's Parties (Dir: Jonathan Caouette & All Tomorrow's People]] - 2009)



6. Choose one from each list and compare the budgets for these films and how much they made.

Warp Films-"Grow Your Own" Budget £2.5 million

Working Title Films-State of Play (film) - Budget $60 million Gross revenue $88,336,552


7. Now choose a Hollywood Blockbuster and research the budget.
The Dark Knight- Budget $185 million Gross revenue $1,001,921,825

8. Where do Working Title and Warp Films get their funding from?
Warp Films - NESTA provided early-stage funding to Warp Films. Their debut project won a BAFTA and they have gone on to create a niche brand of short films. Since their NESTA award, the company has been awarded £4.5 million from the UK Film Council, FilmFour and regional funding bodies to introduce the next wave of cutting-edge British filmmakers.
Working Title - Working Title began as an Independent, then had a term deal with Polygram (1992-1998) and currently has an ongoing financing and distribution arrangement with Universal Pictures and Canal Plus.

9. In the case of Warp Films, how does the budget affect the genre they use?
In Warp Films, the budget affects the genre they use because a lower budget film limits the amount of genre’s that can be produced as some films e.g. action will need expensive special effects and more realistic props which low budget films simply can’t afford.

10. What is the main appeal of this genre? Give examples.
The main appeal of this genre is that it is set in real places which make the films more realistic and believable to viewers as it is made in places that exist.

11. Who are the target audience for Working Title and Warp Films?
The target audience for Working Title Films are – a ‘four quadrant’ movie. appeals to all people.
The target audience for Warp Films are – smaller audience, sticking to the genre of the film

12. What is the main genre of the films Working Title produce?
The main genre of the films Working Title produce are mainly comedy films as they appeal to a wide array of audiences.

The Culture Show

Mike Goodridge

talked about four quadrant movies, which are big hollywood blockbuster movies that appeal to a wide audience, and tent pole films, which are films that have a zero risk at loss as they are remakes of things such as comics, that have been popular before e.g. superman, to make a film companys money back for any losses incurred from other more risky films.

Lord Puttnam
talked about how films nowadays are more about "who's in it, not what's in it" showing that a modern day audience doesnt care much for the storyline if it has a famous actor they like in it, thats why they'll see the film. the problem with this is, the actors can not only be incredibly expensive and take a lot of the money that is spent on the film, but also they can be incompatible with the script and so they have to change the film to fit the charecter not the other way around.

Sandra Hebron
says how directors need to take more risks in creating films that make people think more and have a political message. she also says that actors who 'coventure' help with the film producton greatly as they lower their fee to help with the movie and get a cut of the profits.

Shane Meadows
said that he believes relationships with the actors are important
cutting costs such as using room lighting and bying cars from ebay can maake the film have less risk for making profit
uses scenes that already exist for realism in films

Preliminary Task Magazine Cover

I worked with Paul Briggs, and we managed the task between us by each making a basic magazine cover and putting them together, we both took a number of pictures, so that we had a decent spectrum of pictures to choose from, which helps as it shows that we can select the best pictures to use for our magazine so that it can look as good as possible.

We used the school website and newsletters as inspiration, but added our own personal touches to improve the basic school format, such as an updated logo appealing to a more teenage audience with a bright cyan colour and black stripes contrasting on the school emblem.

We used computers with Adobe Photoshop to complete this task, as Photoshop has all of the tools needed to create a magazine cover, such as layers, effects, and the range of photo editing tools that can be used to do a variety of things to make the magazine cover pictures and text look the best that they can.

When planning, we had to take into account the audience and what information would be needed to be used, during shooting the pictures we took into account the relevancy of the pictures in contrast to the information on the page, and whilst editing we took into account the rule of three colours and three fonts, and also we took into account the basic layout of a magazine cover, that can be used to make our magazine look very professional and publishable.

I believe the consistency of the magazine layout worked well, as all font styles and layout colours were the same from both the magazine cover and contents page, and use the traditional basic magazine layout, where the masthead is on the top of the cover to keep a very simplistic but effective layout. We kept the colour palette to the school colours theme with turquoise and black fonts, and with cyan, yellow and white as a background colour to contrast the text on the page so it stands out effectively. The colour palette appeals to a teenage audience as it uses bold and bright colours, whilst still using dull colours to show the more adult like and professional look, which shows sensibility and practicality as the text contrasts well with background images and background colours.
If we had more time/ another chance to do this I believe we would use a variety of different Photoshop tools to make our magazine cover work a lot smoother, as the colours scheme is very block coloured. Also we could have taken more pictures, to have a larger variety of options for the front cover and therefore improving the overall look of the magazine/

From completing this task, I have learnt a variety of things, mostly how to use Photoshop tools effectively and have improved on using the magnetic lasso tool, which in future will help me with other picture related work. I also have learnt further aspects of magazine covers such as the placement of pictures, and text on the page to be effective and follow traditional magazine layouts.

The Royal Tenenbaums 'Chas' Charecter Analysis

Directed by Wes Anderson, “The Royal Tenenbaums” follows the lives of three extremely smart children, Chas, Margot and Richie who are the main characters of this film that introduces them as a ‘family of geniuses’. The character I shall be analysing is Chas
The character I shall be analysing is Chas, a very successful and serious child as, being much like a little business man, who takes most of his meals in his room on the second floor of the house at his desk to ‘save time’, this shows the business like essence that Chas has as he is not prepared to waste time while in the middle of some very business related projects, such as in the sixth grade, he went into business breeding Dalmatian, mice which he ‘sold to a pet shop in little Tokyo’ showing again his ingenuity as a child genius, who was also a successful business man making money from a very young age. For a child, Chas shows his mature nature as he started buying real estate in his early teens, and also negotiated the purchase of his fathers summer house on eagles island, which shows again how intellectual this young boy really is, understanding when to buy and sell real estate and negotiating the summer houses purchase, where whilst shooting, his father shot a bb between two knuckles in his left hand which was stuck for the rest of his life. Unlike his brother and sister, he was not as close to them as they were together as he seems to be a rather loner of a character that was only interested in the money, although he participated in Margo’s first play, on her tenth birthday party, which their father (Royal Tenenbaum) drenched their spirits by saying that the play was unrealistic. However, Chas seemed very distant from his father, who seemed to favour his other son Richie, possibly because of his incredible sporting skills. One last point I would like to get across is the fact of how Chas has been a financial success from an incredibly young age, being a business man of sorts, even drinking coffee which is something that not many ordinary children would do.

Rocksound Magazine 'Mock- Up'

This magazine has a traditional basic magazine layout, where the masthead is on the top of the cover to keep a very simplistic but effective layout. the colour pallette uses yellow, white, and a variation between different shades of blues and turquoise which does not comply to the rule of three but, the extra colour is for added effect among text to emphasise it's meaning, and also contrasts well with the picture and background to stand out on the page. This is used for simplicity as the picture can contrast well against the background. The colour palette shows a teenage/ adult audience as it doesnt show extremely bright colours that may attract a younger audience, but more toned down and relaxed colours. By doing this 'Mock-Up' of a magazine cover i have learned various things for example the basic rules for a magazine cover, how a basic layout can be very effective, and how contrasting slightly text colours from background images and colours distinguishes and makes text stand out and more appealing on the page.

Eastenders Prelim

The task that we were set was to recreate a scene from Eastenders, the popular soap opera. the scene had a very generic setting as like most soap opera's, it started off with a scene inside a house where the phone rang, giving a midshot whilst answering the phone and led into another technique used in many soap opera's, further on in the scene during a conversation, the shot- reverse- shot technique, which shows the reaction of who is being spoken to, usually from an over the shoulder shot, where the camera switches between the two charecters points of view. many of our shots seemed very rushed and, had we had more time, we could have probably acted better during the shots, however, our shots seemed to flow quite well and our continuety was good, which was one new thing i learnt from this excercise along with the shot-reverse-shot technique which i shall carry on into later filming excercises to enhance my filming skills.