Working Title and Filmfour

8/2/2019 Working Title and Filmfour

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Issues of the British FilmIndustry and Ownership

L/O: To discover the role of Film Fourand Working Title and to determine theissues/successes of each company withcase studies.


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TodayWe are focusing on two British companies;

Working Title/Universal (how are these companies connected?)Working title movies fall under the umbrella company of Universal Production.

FilmFour

Take a look at the films below, what films do you think eachcompany produced/funded?I will circle green for Working Title andredfor FilmFour

ELIZABETH ABOUT A BOY

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIREATONEMENT

BORAT NOWHERE BOY


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Think back to the list Are there any films in the list that are slightly

more alternative? Why do you think thecompany who produced the films belowreleased more alternative material?

To provide something new for the audience and a change of genre conventions which

allows the audience to stay appealed to the product for example despite SlumdogMillionaire being a FilmFour film has other distribution companies funding into it whichgives the film makers a more liberty to spend on experimenting with the concept.

- ELIZABETH

- ABOUT A BOY

- -SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE- ATONEMENT

- BORAT

- -NOWHERE BOY


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To clarify - notes

FILMFOUR Funds and produces films

WORKING TITLE Produce films

UNIVERSAL PICTURES Distribute films forWorking Title (this is called HorizontalIntergration working with companiesoutside your remit as they need your

expertise this also happens with Pathe20th Century Fox)


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Ownership

FilmFour Productions owned by Channel 4

Working Title is owned by Tim Bevan and Eric

Fellner. Their films are distributed by UNIVERSAL.

Why do you think FilmFour produces morealternative products now?

ANSWER:They have the money as they are ownedby a larger company and have less independentbacking


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ARTICLES Read through themboth In ten minutes, read through the articles and

mindmap in your book what thenegatives/positives of each company are:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.html

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3579876/How-the-life-was-sucked-out-of-FilmFour.html


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Film Four

Positives& Negatives. Channel Four willoccasionally giveattention to moresmall budget filmswhich are often notlooked upon on.

XFilm Four deprived

British film makers ofa significantly fundingsource.

XFilm Fours

fortunes felldrastically.

Film Four allowed thegeneral public to catch

a glimpse of some ofthe well known as wellas the less knownfilms that they mayhave missed.

Film Four managedto launch their ownstars and also madea lot of profit.

XBrings a rich,intriguing to anend.


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Working Title

Positives& Negatives.

Listed to beone of the

most powerfulcompanies inthe BritishIndustry.

XDifficult for less

experienced filmmakers to producea product.

XWithout the fewsuccessfulproducers in therecent year, workingTitle Films wouldhave been poorer.

Independent

Companytherefore they areable to take morerisks and canexperiment morewith the concept.

XMay not appeal tomasses as it doesnt

always conform toconventions.

Allows small budgetdirectors and producersto produce film for thepublic.


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The Demise of FilmFour

After the cut of lottery funding in 2002, FilmFour hadits budget cut by 10m. After funding such films as

Trainspotting and the first ethnically gay film My

Beautiful Laundrette FilmFour changed its slant onfilmmaking.

Taken over in 1999 by Paul Webster, FilmFour was

acquired, in part, by Warner Brothers. The companybegan producing films such as; Charlotte Gray andBirthday Girl (which flopped due to poor marketing)and these films were disasters!


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The Demise of FilmFour (aproduction funding company)

The difficulties were; high production budgetsand poor box office returns.


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FilmFour Theres been a change. Theyve rebranded and you

will be finding information about them later.

Take a look at the website: how have FilmFourmade attempts to revamp their image again? How

do they follow Channel 4s/E4s lead at grittydrama?

Previously they didn't used to broadcast blockbusters however in therecent times, Film4 attempts to broadcast mainstream Hollywood

movies.Theyhave also introduced channels like FilmFourExtremeand FilmFourWorld.


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Working Title

Are a company that did get it right and still continue

to do so.

Working Title have a small budget production arm

called WT2. They have been producers of such filmsas Dead Mans Shoes, the Elizabeth franchise and

many Coen Brothers films.

Take a look at their website, why do you think theyare so successful? http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/

Because they have the guts to take on new challenges and providesomething new for the viewer as they necessarily dont have a particular

target audience that they must attract and therefore most of the movies

often subvert from the typical which audience are appealed to and enjoy.
http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/


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Working Title

After Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Working Titledecided to abandon the rom com movie genre.

In pairs, go on to the working title website and decide:

Do you think this idea is good or bad?

I think its a very good idea because it gives all film makers an equal

opportunity to exhibit their product to the audience regardless of howbig they are as a film i.e. without big budget cast & crew.

Have they kept to their word? What ideas can you see

on the website as evidence of this?


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Using the computers

In groups of four, select a film that has been funded by FilmFouror produced by Working Title. Create a Powerpoint or Prezi onthe following;

www.imdb.com is a good website for this information, along withFilmFour and Working Title websites.

Which company gets it right. Create a case study of each companyon your blog and decide:

Funding, cost and total money grossed

Ownership and control are there any restrictions? Cult status

Select a film from each and discuss the impact it has on thebox office

Work will be checked!
http://www.imdb.com/http://www.imdb.com/


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Examination Criteria

Take a look at your assessment sheets fromlast week.

What have you focused on today?

Issues regarding the ownership of British film industry.

Tick what youve focused on and underlineareas you feel particularly confident indiscussing in the exam.


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HOMEWORK

Create a case study of a mainstreamWorking Title film against a more niche Film

Four film. ON THE BLOG SLUMDOG

MILLIONAIRE. What successes or issues has each film had

in terms of ownership/control and reaching

audiences? Due: Monday on homework blog

EXAMPLES: We looked at some today

Working Title and Filmfour

Documents

Transcript of Working Title and Filmfour