Film Distribution

A film distributor is an independent company, a subsidiary  company or occasionally an individual, which acts as the final agent between a film production company or some intermediary agent, and a film exhibitor, to the end of securing placement of the producer’s film on the exhibitor’s screen. In the film business, the term “distribution” refers to the marketing and circulation of movies in theaters , and for home viewing (DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc).

2000′s – spider-man

Box office revenue – $821,708,551

Review – This is the best comic character since Batman. In fact, I liked this a lot better than Batman. It did not have any slow spots. The acting was well and the characters fitted the comic book characters to a tee. I can not wait for the sequel. I wonder who the villain will be. The special affects were good, but you could tell some was computer graphics. A must see. 10/10

Availability on DVD’s – Easy to find

Can you watch it on the internet? – Not legally

90′s – Titanic

Box office revenue – $1,842,869,955

Review – This movie re-wrote film history in every way. No one cares what anyone thinks about this movie, because it transcends criticism. Every flaw in the movie is easily overcome by the many amazing things the movie has going for it. It is an extremely beautiful movie, and I doubt many of us will see anything like it again. I’ve seen it more times than I care to count, and I still become transfixed every time, with a feeling which is hard to describe. One for the ages.

Availability on DVD – easy to find

Can you watch it on the Internet? – Not Legally

80′s – Die Hard

Box office Revenue -  $1,126,935,581

Review – Bruce Willis gives a amazing performance in perhaps one of the best movies of the 1980s. This is an action/adventure movie for the ages. There are a lot of great scenes, including the scene where Bruce Willis leaps off the rooftop and crashes trough the window. I never thought it would be so good when I first saw it, but I was wrong. Don’t miss one of Willis’ best films of all time.

Availability on DVD – it can be found but not as easily as more recent films

Can you watch it on the internet? – Not legally

70′s – Star Wars

Box office Revenue – $797,900,000

Review – Star Wars is a movie that has had great social impact, a fact that has often gone unnoticed. A harbinger of a changing mood within the United States, Star Wars was one of the few movies rated General that was released in 1977. Where movies had for a decade been depicting ever more dark topics (Taxi Driver, The Exorcist) Star Wars was a lighthearted adventure. While some may decry the move back to swashbuckling from social comment, I for one celebrate the fact that Star Wars made it possible for families to go to movies together once again.

Availability on DVD – it can be found but mainly comes with the others as a trilogy

Can you watch it on the internet? – Not legally

Reflective Analysis Of Teddy Bears Picnic

Reflective Analysis of Teddy Bears Picnic

Over the past few weeks a team of three others and myself have been working on our creative project for AS film studies. We have produced an opening sequence to a film called Teddy Bears Picnic. It is a Horror/Thriller that is based in the woods, the film starts out by a group of children walking through the forest and one of them being attacked by a girl that lives there. We wanted to make the images that the audience see horrific and the audio which they hear a light and playful nursery rhyme, we done this to create a huge juxtaposition throughout. The aspect which I controlled in making this opening scene was editing, I used different skills that I have learnt on Final Cut Pro to edit the scene.

I started out by working with the director we created two initial story lines with the same footage, this meaning we had different shots at different stages of the film. We done this by cutting the film up and playing it in different orders to see which tells the best story, we came down to two in the end which where completely different. The first we had very quick cuts and made the story very tense and the other told more of a story and asked the audience more questions. As a group we decided to use the second story line because it told a fantastic story and worked better with the music, I believe the first piece that we created would have been to confusing for the audience.

Now I had the initial story line I began to try out different effects on parts of the footage, the director told me that he wanted a close up of the eye opening at the start so I zoomed in on one of the shots and changed the speed. I tried various different speeds at different points of the video to find the right shot to drag the audience in and put them on edge. I wanted to this opening shot right so I watched a scene in the film “The Grudge” which had a similar sequence as ours. This scene shocked me a bit and I wanted to give my audience the same response, so by changing the colours, tempos and camera angles in the scene I believe I captured the response of the audience correctly.

I continued to edit the video in various ways, I used various fades in-between different shots to make the film easier on the eye for the audience. But there was one particular shot i wanted to drag the audience into the scene, when storyboarding the director of the film said he wanted a shot that zooms in on the murders face. When given this footage I watched the shot several times and I did not feel the effect that the director explained to me so I began work on making this shot more effective. As a group we wanted this shot to make our audience scared of this girl, because the shot comes to an extreme close up of her face I thought this may make the audience too in touch with the girl and we did not want this because she was meant to be a mysterious character. This was quite difficult to overcome but i knew it would work fantastically due to the juxtaposition of the whole film. I believe i captured this mysteriousness by using a blur on the murder’s face, the audience still get to sill the girl close up but i think by using this you cannot make any contact with her which is the exact reaction i was looking for.

Overall i think the film making process for Teddy Bears Picnic was stressful but worth while, i believe as a group we captured the horror and juxtaposition we was looking for. I think these two elements work well together and gained the right reaction’s from our audiences, i know this because of the several pages of feedback we have received. Another reason why i think i can be proud of this film is because we won the award Film Of The Year at our college, we came up against another four films, our teachers and other film fanatics chose our film as the winner for 2009. I have definitely improved my film making and Final Cut Pro knowledge but still much is to be learnt but for my first film i am extremely proud of Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

films studies essay draft

How does performance, cinematography and editing create tension in the opening scene of ‘Swordfish’?

The blockbuster hit ‘Swordfish’ is a film about a secretive renegade counter terrorist combined with the world greatest hacker (who is trying to stay clean) trying to steal billions of us government dirty money. I am going to take the action packed opening scene of the film and look at three key aspects of it. These aspects will be performance, cinematography and editing i believe the reason why this movie was such a big hit is due to the excellence of these. Also combined with a director that is Dominic Sena and extraordinary actors like Halley Berry, Hugh Jackman and John Travolta the film was destined to be a hit. The film generated millions of dollars and won 3 awards but it also had allot of bad press surrounding the film, many film critics said the film was not good enough for the actors and the amount of money that went into it. But i believe that the controversy surrounding the film makes it a better viewing and that’s why I have decided analyses it.

The film opens with a muffled picture of John Travolta talking about how “Hollywood makes shit” as the picture clears and turns into a point of view shot he starts to explain how its down to bad acting. This highlights juxtaposition in the scene because he is a Hollywood actor and he’s starring in one of the biggest Hollywood films of the year. By doing this you immediately feel drawn into film and you start to ask questions to yourself like who is this man? As he continues to talk he explains that realism makes a good actor and this is something that john Travolta excels at in this film, he makes the character seem a real threat and this put you on edge. The camera cuts to another point of view shot but from another angle this gives away that he is talking to more than one person. The cinematography stays the same throughout the scene and carries on blurring what is behind him and also keeping half his face in shade, this foreshadows that he is a shady character. As he carries on explaining about film making he begins to talk about Al Pacino, as this happens the background starts to unbar and a coffee mug slowly emerges, as soon as it come clear it quickly cuts to the first point of view shot. Another quick cut cuts you to a cigar being cut, i think by this point it has shown us that this man has power because no one has spoke or interrupted the whole time he has been speaking. The camera stays on the first point of view shot but becomes an extreme close up of the cigar being lit, it then cuts out to see the full cigar and blurs and un-blurs as he is lighting it. I believe the size of the cigar represents the money and power that this man has. The camera cuts back to both point of view shot then as he continues to talk it turns into a over the shoulder shot and shows us more of johns body, you now see that he is dressed smartly in a suit, the scene is very formal but it is in quite a relaxed environment due to the silence in the background and the way he has positioned himself on the chair. The camera cuts to a close up as he carries on to explain about the film dog day after noon he talks about what would happen if they done it differently, by now you can tell the man thinks into these situations and this makes the scene a bit more awkward. The camera cuts to further from him and you start to ask your self the question is he capable of this?. The camera cuts to the other listeners face, I think they do this to see if they are thinking the same as what we are but the shot does no stay on them long enough to make any contact with them, by doing this it shows that these characters are not as important and they are the ones you shouldn’t be listening too. The camera quickly pans back round to john Travolta, whose performance is now starting to show its excellence and you really can see in his eyes that he is serious about this. Also I think the body language that he keeps throughout the scene is perfect, he somehow keeps a formal and bold approach but speaks as calm as it can be.

He continues to talk about how people and the media would react to these terrorist attacks, as he talks about this you can see a slight grin on he’s face and i think this is the point when you start to believe that this man is dangerous. I think this was also quite a brave move on the films behalf to make a film about terrorism and portray the terrorist as a enjoyable person only a few months after the terrorist attacks against America, this could of backfired against the film and it could have been hated but the way John Travolta is shown makes the matter light hearted. The camera continues to pan around he’s face, as the background is blurred this creates a tense atmosphere for the environment that the conversation is taking place in. The shot quickly cuts to a over the shoulder shot and then slowly starts to move in as the shot is still slightly blurred due to these you start to believe that someone else could be watching in on this conversation from another place. This is a hint of what is going to happen next, the camera carries on to do this as John Travolta continues to speak. After the becomes a slight pause as he smokes he cigar this is shown through and over the shoulder shot between to other men, i think that this shot represents the power that he has because of the size of his cigar, he is also in the middle and the fact that the other two men who you also believe to be important because of the way they dress have listened to him the whole time without speaking. There is a short moment of silence, in this silence John Travolta performance excels as he face turns more angry. One of the listeners starts to speak and faults what he has been saying, he answers with a calm face but you can tell through his performance that he is not happy.

As he smokes he cigar he turns to the other character to see what his opinion is, the reply is not what he wants to hear you can tell because he puts his cigar down in a clam manor but you can see the anger in his face. The performance of John Trravolta here displays the power and control he has over these people,by doing this he keeps the audience in suspense. Also by the quick and close cut editing, allot of tension is brought to the scene. The camera cuts back to a over the shoulder shot as he finishes he coffee and looks at his watch and sais “guys i have got a jet to catch… thanks for the coffee” he finishes this with a little wink. The camera cuts to the daylight with three officers with guns pointing, the camera tracks back out to a point of view shot, and John Travolta stays calm and does not even look bothered. At this moment you now know that this man is incredibly dangerous, he starts to step forward and the camera quickly cuts to John Travolta’s hand you can see that he is holding some kind of device. He turns round to one of the men sitting and says “Stan its time to go to work”, you immediately no that this man is important because he is the first person that has been called by his name. They both walk towards the men with the guns and says “ move i wont say it agen” as the police move out of his way the camera cuts to him with Stan standing behind him with the sun shining down on him. This shot really shows that this man means business because everyone that is around is focused on him.

In conclusion i believe the three elements that i have highlighted individually bring different effects to the scene. Cinematography creates a huge amount of tension in the scene, the blurring and un-blurring technique which is used disorientates you and makes you aware of your surroundings. The editing techniques which continue throughout the scene and also bring tension, via close ups of objects and the quick cuts that take you to different angles of the villain and his environment. The final aspect is performance, i think this brings all three together and makes them all work. The performance of John Travolta in the opening scene really does show why this film was such a big hit, he brings the scene to life
and makes it believable. He does this through different elements of his body like his posture and the way his facial expressions react to different situations, this creates extreme tension in the scene and makes the film what it is.