Practice Essay
“Is it a fair and level playing field in the area you
have studied?”
“The British film industry has been through some
amazing highs and lows over the last 100 years… but there has always been
(despite some amazing creative talent; like Hitchcock, JK Rowling and Dench) a
struggle with finance”
In terms of contemporary
cinema, as I will explore in more detail through comparing and contrasting my
British and Hollywood case studies (Bend it like Beckham and The Blind Side),
this statement can still be applied because the balance is still tipped in
favour of massive Hollywood conglomerates that dominate the market place.
However, the last decade has seen huge financial growth for British films
thanks to; technological advances, government/Lottery, European funding,
grants, the Hollywood writers strike and amazing British talent like J.K.
Rowling who refused to let Hollywood take over the Harry Potter franchise.
However, as McDougall (2008)
stated Britain cannot compete in a completely level playing field, as Hollywood
because it doesn’t have the millions required for production, distribution and
exhibition. What this means is that high budget British films have to get
funding from other places, meaning though they can be classified as British
films they have outside help and lose some profit, from production or
distribution, from other countries.
According to the categories
outlined By McDougall (2008), My British film case study is a category B film.
This means that this film was co-funded by British and foreign investment, but
with the majority of funding, cultural content and personnel are British.
In terms of production, my
British case study has a production budget of £ while my Hollywood case study
has a budget of $29,000,000. What this shows is that The Blind Side, my
Hollywood case study has a massive advantage over British film in terms of
production because more money was available for; star vehicles, crew,
locations, cinematography equipment, sounds and scripts.
Through comparing the
production information on the two films you can see the difference it made. My
British film starred, Kiera Knightly, Parminder Nagra and Archie Panjabi. While
my Hollywood film starred, Sandra Bullock, Tim McGaw and Quinton Aaron. In terms of crew, the Hollywood film was able
to employ, John Lee Hancock, Alar Kivilo, and Broderick Johnson. While my
British film had, Gurinder Chadha, Jong Lin, Deepak Nayare and Justin Krish. In
terms of locations and settings my British film was filmed in Bara Hall Park,
Middlesex, Hayes. While my Hollywood film was filmed in Agnes Scott College,
Georgia. The advantage this gives to the Hollywood film is that it has greater
audience appeal, thus a higher profit potential because the target audience
will be drawn in my big names and locations.
In terms of content and
target audience, the genre of my Brit film was social realist and the age
rating was PG and the primary target audience was women social grade A-C of
ethnic origins. My Hollywood film was a biography, sport drama, rated PG-13.
Primary target audience was family audiences of all ethnic origins.
The fact that both films were
similar genres meant they were competing for similar target audience, my USA
film attracted this target audience more successfully due to the fact that the
large budget of $29,000,000 because while producing the film they were able to
hire actors with higher credentials which inevitably led to a larger amount of
viewers. The fact that the film was also based around a famous sports star in
the US also helped attract the target audience because so called ‘Rags to
riches’ stories/films are always popular and interesting.
In terms of aged rating (developed
due to hypodermic needle theory proving young people are more likely to be
influenced by film content and therefore need protecting), research shows the
most profitable target group is 15-24 year olds ( because they have disposable
income and time to socialize), My brit film would appeal to my target audience while my USa film wouldn’t/would NOT COMPLETE
