What % of global box office was the British film industry responsible for? 15.3% What was this % in 2009? 6.8% What might this change indicate about British film? This indicates that the percentage almost doubled What films have been responsible for this change? Slumdog millionaire, Dark Knight Rises, James Bond What % of the British film industry makes a profit? 7% What % of Hollywood films make a profit? 17% How does that % differ between £2m and £10m budget British films? 4% What might we infer from this difference? This indicates that film production at box office dropped Which age group makes up the largest % of UK cinema goers? 18-24 year olds are the most likely to go to the cinema and make up the largest percentage. Why do you think this might be? As people at this age will be wanting to go and have a good time with friends or as they have free time they want to socialize with friends Which 'type' of film has seen an 18% drop in attendance? 3D films have made a 18% drop in the media Within that 'type' which genre has seen the biggest fall? The family films that don’t involve a lot of action/horror have also seen a fall What did Charles Grant put this decline down to? Charles Grant say's that 3D films are too expensive Who is Paul Greengrass? An English film director How did he describe the British film industry? Greengrass told the BBC on Sunday night the 17% figure for higher budget films was approximately the same rate of profitability as Hollywood. What did a BFI spokesperson say was the point of less profitable low budget British films? "tiny budget films that, while commercial success is always hoped for, are successful and beneficial to the industry for other reasons like skills and training development and for artistic and cultural importance". What was the budget for Filth and how much money did it take? BUDGET: $5,000,000 (estimated) BOX OFFICE: £247,860 (UK) (29 September 2013) (38 Screens)
What advantage did James McAvoy feel £100m films have over low budget films? "An independent film managed to get people to come and see it without a studio and without hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising money. That's remarkable - it means British film can do it on its own." "He said $100m (£61m) movies that "sometimes aren't very good" had an advantage over smaller films because they had a massive budget to sell the film." What is VOD? Video on Demand What % increase did VOD see last year? 50% Increase What impact might VOD have on distributors and Studios? "Maybe VOD [video-on-demand] is going to change everything because the distributor and the studio might become less important."
What impact has it had on Blockbuster rental stores? It has forced the company to go bust because everybody nowadays uses VOD which means that nobody uses the video shops anymore. What was unique about Ben Wheatleys 'A Field In England'? In July this year, Ben Wheatley's film A Field in England was the first UK film to be released simultaneously in cinemas, on DVD, on TV and through video-on-demand. Wheatley's "psychedelic trip", set during the English Civil War, took more than £21,000 at the box office on the same weekend it was available free of charge on Film 4. It also sold more then 2,000 copies on DVD over the same period. The film was made on a modest budget of £300,000. What does director of The Machine Caradog James think is the toughest part of film making? "The toughest thing is you make a good film but can you get it to reach an audience? It's events like this and individuals who champion independent cinema that give us a profile and any chance of a mass audience."
Why have rules been relaxed on what makes a film 'British'? Anna Mansi (the BFI's head of certification) told the BBC "This puts us on a level playing field with our creative content tests and other European culture tests, the increase in visual effects points will also be very beneficial to the effects industry." How has the use of visual effects in films been encouraged? Alex Hope of visual effects company Double Negative said he was "delighted" with the tax changes, hoping foreign productions filming in the UK would hire British effects companies rather than taking the work back overseas. "Today's measures target productions that would not otherwise qualify for tax relief and incentive them to bring VFX or production business to the UK," he said. Name five of these rules and link them to The Kings Speech, Kill List, The World's End
Film set in the UK - all threes films are set in different parts of the UK
Lead characters British citizens or residents - the main characters are all of British descent (Colin Firth - The King's Speech, Simon Pegg - The World's End, Neil Maskell - Kill List)
Film based on British subject matter or underlying material - The King's Speech is about our English monarchy, The World's End is about traditional English pubs in a traditional English town (with a twist), and Kill List is about two hitmen in the North, traditionally this can be seen as quite an American subject matter however the strong dialect and British twist to the film makes it qualify as this.
Original dialogue recorded mainly in English language - all the films were filmed in English.
Represents/reflects diverse British culture, heritage or creativity - The King's Speech is more upper class society, The World's End is more middle class and Kill List is working class.
What rules has chancellor George Osbourne announced for tax on British films? "George Osborne also announced tax relief would be increased from 20% to 25% on the first £20m of qualifying production expenditure. Productions will also only have to spend 10% of their budgets on UK expenditure to qualify - down from 25% - to help more independent production companies and make the UK a more attractive co-production partner. Mr Osborne will also announced a £5m investment in the National Film and Television School's Digital Village, to create a training centre for the UK's digital and creative industries." What is the highest grossing film in UK box office history? Skyfall (To date, the 23rd Bond adventure has earned £94.3m in the UK, beating the previous record holder, Avatar, which grossed £94m in 11 months.) How much has it taken and how many screens was it available on?
The King's Speech is a film about King George VI who was forced to take the throne after his brother abdicates because of his love for an American, twice-divorcee. However King George suffers with a stammer that takes control of his everyday life, with a job that requires him to speak publicly on a weekly basis it means that he needs to find guidance to help him recover from his stammer. This is where Lionel Logue steps in, an unorthodox speech therapist that tries to challenge George into becoming the best King he can be. George has to find the will to help lead England through an almighty war and the best way he can do that is to be strong himself. Britishness: In 2003, the Government defined a British film as "reference to obvious cultural elements such as: a setting in the UK or a focus on British people abroad; a predominantly British cast; a story line about some aspect of British life — past, present or future." Times have changed since then, the britishness of a film does not necessarily mean that it is a quintessentially british cast and story line sometimes it just means that it is directed by a british director and predominantly made in England. For example We Need To Talk About Kevin is a British film, it is directed by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay and would be classed as a British film even though it is set in America. However in regards to The King's Speech in many cases it would be regarded as a quintessentially British film because of the fact that the majority of the main cast members are of British descent, for example Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter. Also the director, Tom Hooper, is a British director and has many British credentials to his name such as The Damned United and Les Miserables. Many british films however do get help from international production companies and distributors and in The King's Speech case The Weinstein Company helped distribute the film. Exhibition: The King's Speech was a surprising success, it exceeding the expectations of many of the production companies behind it. Momentum Pictures was shocked at the amount that the film generated a "£3.52m opening weekend, including modest previews of £227,000." It beat many of the most popular british films of the recent years such as Slumdog Millionaire (which got £1.83m on the opening weekend), Atonement (which got £1.63m on the opening weekend) and Calender Girls (which generated £1.88m on the opening weekend). The film's general reception was incredibly positive and well received. The American audience was very partial to seeing this film, they were intrigued by the britishness and quintessential life of what they would expect in England. The fact that the royals play such a big part in the American lives because they don't have a monarchy of their own it means that they adopt our history and royalty and embrace just like an true British patriot would. Many critics, especially the British ones, were key to point out the inaccuracies in the story and the melodramatic portrayal of some of our most key players in history. People such as Timothy Spall's portrayal of Winston Churchill was critiscised for being to over the top in his mannerisms. However generally the reception by all the major newspaper companies gave it four or five stars which shows that even though some inaccuracies would be noticeable to some observant eyes that this film still won over the audiences due to it's touching story line and the sentimental value behind it. "At first, The King’s Speech, directed by Tom Hooper, looks awfully familiar, a musty historical drama full of monarchs and period costumes and atmospheric fog. Peer a bit closer though, and it’s a thoroughly modern tale, the true-life story of a king’s efforts to overcome his stammer in order to face his public, constructed like a contemporary makeover narrative." Sukhdev Sandhu at The Telegraph "But overall the film is a major achievement, with Firth presenting us with a great profile in courage, a portrait of that recurrent figure, the stammerer as hero. He finds as many different aspects of stammering as the number of ways of photographing sand explored by Freddie Young in Lawrence of Arabia or John Seale in The English Patient. And as they did, he deserves an Oscar." Phillip French at the Guardian "For all its period trappings and occasionally heavy-handed Freudian psychodrama, ‘The King’s Speech’ always comes back to the unlikely friendship between two superbly sketched, immaculately played characters. By the rousing wartime finale, it’ll be a staunch, hard-hearted republican who doesn’t feel the urge to yell, ‘God save the King!’" Tom Huddleston at TimeOut One of the main criticisms for the film has been the historical inaccuracies that have been noticed by critics. One of the main inaccuracies has been the fact that the political history involved is not exactly correct. "The King's Speech has been criticised by several writers for glossing over Bertie's support for Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler." As said by Alex von Tunzelmann at the Guardian. However in the bigger picture, the film can brush past these errors. This isn't a film about World War Two and the time leading up to that. It is a film showing the very human struggle of a public figure and the way he dealt with that in a very tough part of his life. Production Issues: One of the main production issues with this film was purely for the fact that the script was completely unusual and incredibly different to what was on the film market in today's society, it's not everyday that you get a film about a King with a stammer. The producers struggled to find stars as well to be in the film as they needed that star value to help push box office sales for the film. Gareth Unwin of Bedlam Productions sent Geoffrey Rush, one of the main stars of the film, the script to his personal address in the hope that he would see a spark in the story and sentimentality in it to star in it. His agents and managers were incredibly angry with this, however despite that Rush knew that this was a special script that deserved it's say on film. Unwin says "This flies against every fibre of me knowing how the business works. I ended up with a four-page email from his manager tearing me a new one. But it finished off with Geoffrey saying he liked it and that we should talk. We wouldn't have got to talk to Geoffrey at that stage otherwise. Joan [Lane - theatre producer and agent to David Seidler, who wrote the original script] was audacious in her thinking and it did pay off." The main production companies involved with the film were See-Saw Productions (a British and Australian production company), Bedlam Productions (The King's Speech was the first official film produced by this company, owned by Gareth Unwin) and Momentum Pictures (a key player in the British film industry). There were no real major Hollywood companies behind this film, however with the help of The Weinstein Company, owned by the ruthless Harvey Weinstein, it quickly became a word of mouth hit. One of the major financiers for the film then was The Weinstein Company. Also the UK Film Council was responsible for giving the film the kick start it needed to start filming, it gave the production team £1 million to help in June 2009 and filming began in December lasting 39 days. The film also was intended at the start to be a stage play, David Seidler who suffered with a stammer as a child wrote a script about this story and initially intended it for a London stage. However, in 2005 Joan Lane received a script and she started talking to Simon Egan and Gareth Unwin of Bedlam Productions, now intending it for the silver screen. They organised a reading of the play which is where Tom Hooper's mother saw the script and recommended that Hooper should do this as his next project. Distribution and Marketing:
These posters that would have been released just before the film came out. They are very eye catching and would have generated a lot of curiosity about the film. With the very minimal design and bold quotations it makes people who don't know a lot about the film very intrigued and interested to know more about it. The close up photographs of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush really catch our eyes as a passer by. Also with the graphics used, "God Save The King" on Firth's and positives comments about the film on Rush's, it makes us realise that this film about the monarchy and the fact that it has received many positive reviews already, it gives a positive message that this is a film worth seeing. Also with the muted colours and simple background it means we can focus on what the text is trying to say to us and the simplicity also means that we know that this regal film will be very stylistic and 'art-house'.
These trailers are for different audiences. The top one here is for American audiences and it focuses on Geoffrey Rush's character and his guidance in helping the King, however the UK version focuses more on the 'britishness' of the film and it also uses the famous Shakespearean quote "some men are born great, others have greatness thrust upon them" this adds to the trailer and also adds an air of patriotism to the British people and because it is about our history and that sense of the monarchy being the central base of English attention. Also in the UK trailer Helena Bonham Carter's character calls her husband the 'Duke of York' whereas in the US trailer she says 'the King', when she meets Geoffrey Rush's character. This makes sure that the American audience knows that this is a important person and that this is a real story about a real monarch. It also gives the international audience more of a understanding about King George and his importance to the British history. The use of posters and trailers in the marketing scheme especially behind these kind of films is very important because they grab the audience's attention and make them want to see the film. Posters are made to be very eye catching and noticeable and are placed on billboards and the sides of buses to attract passers by and encourage them to go and see the film. Film trailers are made to show you a few snippets of the film to engage and interest the audience enough to persuade them to see the film. Major Issues Facing British Film Makers: With the rise in technology spreading all over the world it means that the access to this and also the finance side of the cameras and technology is more available to British film makers, however in saying this the British film makers are still facing major issues. This is because of the budgets normally sourced for independent British films is done in the UK and this means that the amount that the film makers get isn't necessarily as much to create a big, big hit than a Hollywood 'Big Six' production. However this also means that the profit that needs to be made is a more reachable goal when the budget itself is lower than expected. Also in 2010, the UK was experiencing a tough time generating the profit that was expected. This is the time around which The King's Speech came out. Although the King's Speech is a very lucky film and it has essentially revived the British Film Industry. "The irony of the situation has been observed, But what we're feeling right now is triumphant. What we have is the most successful independent British film of all time, made as a direct result of public funding. That's a great validation and a great thing to have at the end of a very difficult eight-month period. Yes, it's a bittersweet moment. But it's also an amazing legacy for the UKFC as a whole." Said Tanya Segatchian, head of the UKFC's film fund It shows the UK and US film audience that British films, even if they may be more sentimental and touching in most cases, are still worth investing in and the problems associated with the money side of the issue are very trivial at the end of the day. Even though it is a money associated business if the love of the film and the story behind the film is emotion grabbing enough then the audience will come and the money will start to generate. The fact of the matter is that films such as The King's Speech reach such a wide audience and with the fascination of the monarchy in all parts of the world then it means that British films get more recognition as a whole.
