Love Actually product details

This is Amazons product details for Love, Actually, this shows various details that are important for directors, producers and consumers (audiences.)

So far on Amazons website the film has a 4 and a half star rating and at this time of writing has 179 customer reviews, the majority of which are very good.

It is #21 in Romantic comedy sales, which is a reflection of the good reviews it has recieved.

Avatar

Avatar is a science-fiction film, it is also the best selling film of all time, beating titanic, previously the most successful film of all time.

it was released on the 17th december 2009, this was prime time for people to watch the film in the run-up to christmas.

The movie has taken £71.60 million in British cinemas, beating Mamma Mia's £69.17 million and Cameron's other smash Titanic, with £69.03, and USD 2 Billion worldwide in the first 2 months.

James Cameron is a canadian film director, screen writer, producer, editor and inventor.

Previous films included:

The Terminator (1984)

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

Aliens (1986)

Titanic (1997)

Avatar (2009)

There were actually 5 different production companies involved in the making of Avatar:

Twentieth century-fox

Dune Entertainment

Giant Studios

Ingenious Film Partners

Lightstorm Entertainment

I think Avatar has a wide range of audience as theres various different sub-genres in the film, this is probably why the film is so popular, i think the main age would be young adults, 15-30 as it is modern, and uses never seen before technology which young people are keen to try out.

There is also a "video game" feel to it, as the story involves the main person playing the character, and video games appeal to more younger audiences.

As you can see this poster is very simple, with the background blurred, making the audience focus on the face of the character, the poster gives virtually nothing away, and only shows that the film is about a blue person/animal. Which makes the audience want to find out more, peruading them to watch the film.

Media Convergence

Media convergence is the coming together of various Conglomerates own vast swathes of different types of media.

A small scale version of this would be Channel 4, owning TV, 4od, E4 and working title.

The biggest example being NewsCorp, owning 20th century fox, various newspapers, media magazines, the BBC, and Myspace.

Revenue for the year ended june 2008 was USD32,996 billion.

Working title is two-thirds owned by NBC universal, but is still British run in this country.

Alot of their films are a world of difference to other companies films as they have access to a bigger budget and can tap into conglomerate for giant synergies to market them.

Working title does produce some big budget films such as 'Love, Actually', with a £30,000,000 budget. Though not as much as 20th century fox's Avatar, with an estimated $237,000,000 budget.

Exchange

Definition: The unintended use of an institution's media text (i.e. a film) by OTHER PEOPLE who use the film or parts of it to form new texts, what happens to a film after the public get their hands on it using digital technology.

Many people go online and use sites like Youtube, Facebook and Blogger, where these sites have message boards and comment pages, people can comment on them, and also take parts of a film and put them together with different music and publish it on these sites and various others.

Hot Fuzz: (Colour)

Use of red/oranges (fire) gives a sense of danger/ action/ violence/ fierceness
Use of black highlights the characters and makes them distinctive

Glasses conforms to the typical stereotype of a police officer
Use of tooth-picks gives them an american swag
The use of guns, hyperboles his character (over exaggerated)

Links to their previous film ‘Shaun of the Dead‘ to persuade audiences and give them the gist of this film. Edgar Wright.

The title is metallic/brushed aluminum gives an of action theme. Goes well with the flames surrounding the characters. 
The text draws your attention to the centre of the poster. Also Simon Pegg is shown to be the main character as he is in the fore-front.
The use of intertextuality: Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys.

(done as a group presentation)

Film trailers and their importance for distribution and marketing

This is a theatrical trailer for Burn After Reading. The film was released  on 17th october 2008.

The films Unique Selling point is the actors, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, it makes the audience want to see this film for them as theres a huge following for these 2 a-list actors.

This film, is predominantly a comedy, but what makes this different is that it mixes comedy with action. Also, Brad Pitt and George Clooney very rarely do comedies.

The theatrical trailers primary purpose is tho show clips of scenes in the film, and allows us to know the storyline. The theatrical trailer is just under 2 minutes, which is average for a trailer. It definitely makes the audience want to see more.

The trailers show that is very comedy based, with an action twist, we can see it is quite a "positive" film.

It is a selection of probably the funniest shots and the ones with the most action, or the most noteworthy parts in an abbreviated form without producing spoilers.

The boat that rocked - Exhibition

This link http://business.pearlanddean.com/filmplanner/filmdetail.html?FilmID=4133 shows the information on how the film was distributed, it shows that 64% of people who went to see it were Female and 36% were Male. It was most popular in the 15-24, 25-34 and 45+ all with 28%.
This was sucessful as it appealed to audiences of all ages.

Poster Analysis

This is a poster for Love Actually.

It has a white background, and white is often associated cleanliness and simpleness.

It also has all the main characters across the mid centre, allowing you to focus on the middle of the page, to the main protagonist, Hugh Grant.

Hugh Grant is an advertising technique in itself, as people want to see a film with a big star like Hugh Grant.

The Ribbon running horizontally along brings the theme of Christmas.

The use of red relates both to Love and Christmas, it is used alot in the poster, with red highlighting the "Love" in Love, Actually, to show the significance of it. Red is also used for the caption on the top of the poster to draw attention to it.

There is text and reviews and slogans at the top of the poster which shows you what how the film has been perceived to reviewers.

The film was released around christmas time and the christmas tree in the background reflects this.

Distribution

Love, Actually, was released nationwide in cinemas on the 21st november, 2003.

Its target audience was anyone from the age of 16, which was a friday, which is a good day to release the film as it was the start of the weekend, allowing more people to view the film.

It was released at the end of november as the film was christmas related.

Love, Actually was a mainstream movie, marketed worldwide.

The unique selling proposition was the tag lines, there were various tag lines.

Love actually is all around.

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Coming soon actually.

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The ultimate romantic comedy.

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Very romantic. Very comedy.

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All You Need Is Love

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It's All About Love... Actually.

Production - Patterns and Issues

Case Study: Notting Hill
UK Release: 21st may 1999

Notting Hill was a very succesful film, wih excellent reviews from the media, and was one of the highest grossing British films.
The Romantic Comedy starred Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts alongside other well-known actors such as Emma Chambers and Hugh Bonneville.

Synopsis
An ordinary bloke (Hugh Grant) who works in a book shop in Notting Hill comes face to face with an international film star (Julia Roberts). They fall in love...but the road is a steep and rocky one, coupled with ludicrous flat-mates, dinner parties, and the press on their tails. Can the most famous film star in the world fall for the man in the street?

Production

The main companies involved were Working Title Films, Polygram Film Entertainment, Bookshop productions and Notting Hill Pictures.

The Screenplay was written by Working Title's very own in house screen writer, who had also written the hugely sucessful Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Notting Hill Awards

.Audience award for most popular film at the BAFTAS (2000)
.Best comedy film at the British comedy awards.
.Best sountrack at the Brit awards.
.Best British Film at the Empire awards.
.Best British actor at the Empire awards.
.Roger Mitchell got the best British Director award for the film at the empire awards.

Distribution

Notting Hill was distributed by MCA, Universal and PolyGram film entertainment. The film i think was aimed at women of all ages, as well as young couples and married couples. The genre is a romantic comedy and follows the traditional british rom-com values in which 2 people from different backgrounds meet and fall in love.

The main poster used to distribute the film features Hugh Grant walking past a billboard poster of Julia Roberts. The image of Julia Roberts is much larger than Hugh Grants is used to show Julia Roberts character has a higher status, Aswell as being on a billboard, showing how she is famous. The colour (or lack there of) is very unusual compared to other film posters, with colour only showing on Hugh Grants clothes and the names of the actors on the top of the poster.

Working Title Films

Working Title Films was established in 1984, where a year previous New Zealand born Tim Bevan set up a music video production company.

Eric Fellner also started in music videos, making them for the like of Fleetwood Mac and Duran Duran. He then went to work at British production company Initial Pictures, he left initial to join Bevan in 1992.

Working Titles brakthrough film was released in 1994, Four Weddings And A Funeral, a romantic comedy. There was a long dry period where many of their films were not sucessful internationally. They soon worked through it and produced many sucessful films such as:

.Among them

.French Kiss

.Dead Man Walking

.Fargo

.Elizabeth

In 1999 Working Title signed a reported $600 million deal with film giant Universal Pictures, this gave the pair to commision films with a budget of up to $35 million without even consulting their pay masters. It seems that Romantic comedies are what they are best at.

Their most recent success is the opening of WT2, an offshoot to design smaller budget films.