Media: production company and film examples.

Working Title: ‘Paul’ (2010)• Director: Greg Mottola• Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogan.• Distributed by: universal pictures• Released: 14th February (hot fuzz was released 14th February 2007)• 4 whole days of previews, opening weekend box office figures to £5.2mill• Mainly male over 25 audience.• Written by Pegg and Frost, $47million budget.• CGI of Paul was a 1/3 of budget but director thought it was needed.• The alien needed to look human like to connect with the audience. A

human protagonist was used (human acts then CGI is put over them)• Media convergence: media blogs with behind the scene footage and

interviews. Pegg promoted film through twitter.• Lots of inter textuality is used which also connects with audience…idiana

jones factory when interviewed etc.

Working Title: ‘The Boat that Rocked’(2009)

• Director: Richard curtis.• Cast: Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Tom Sturridge.• Distributed by: universal pictures.• Commercial flop at the box office. Making only £6.1million in first 12

weeks of release.(less than ¼ of over £30million)• Mixed reviews. Was criticised over muddled story line and 2 ¼ hour

length.• Name was ‘pirate radio’ when released in usa, American would not

understand context otherwise. • ‘Pirate radio’ was again a flop though in America.• Advertised using inter texuality. Abbey road album cover…• The film eventually made a total of £36 million with dvd and

merchandise sales.

Film4 ‘Four Lions’ (2010)• Director: Chris Morris• Cast: Riz Ahmed, Nigel Lindsay.• Distributed by: Optimum Releasing• “This [the "War on terror"] is something that's commanding so much of

our lives”-Chris Morris• 3 years was spent researching the project, talking to terrorism police and

experts, Muslim leaders, and normal Muslims.• BBC and Channel4 at both rejected the project as it was to controversial.• Former Muslim Guantanamo bay prisoner, was sent the script and found

nothing that offended him within it. • members of the public could donate up to a £100 to fund the film.

Funding was secured in 2008 form film4 and warp productions. • Film premiered at Sundance film festival and was a hit.

Film4 ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ (2011)

• Director: Ben palmer• Cast: Simon bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley, Blake Harrison.• Distributed by:Entertainment Film Distributors• Film concluding a hugely successful TV series.• Filming was in Magaluf and Malia which are big contextual

features for this film.• Record for most successful opening weekend, grossing

£13million,taking over Bridget Jones!• The film was then released on DVD and was just as successful

becoming 3rd fastest selling home media release of 2011.

Hollywood Big 6 ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)

• Director: Christopher Nolan.• Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman.• Distributed by Warner Bros.• This film was good for the economy where it was filmed creating

thousands of jobs.• Nolan wanted to avoid using visual effects so the film is very effective.• Made over £1billion in total. 11th highest grossing film of all time.• A viral marketing campaign began over a year before the films

release. Utilizing the tagline ‘why so serious’ the viral campaign also had a website named whysoserious.com

• The film was a sequel to batman begins and will be the prequel to the next film as the intention was to produce a three film series.

Hollywood Big 6 ‘Avatar’ (2009)

• Director: James Cameron• Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana.• Distributed by: 20th century fox.• Avatar started development in 1994, but Cameron did not

think the right technology was available to create his dream so he waited.

• Even special cameras were used to create the best 3D ever.• The film had a huge budget of estimated £237million but

grossed £2.7billion highest grossing film ever passing Cameron's other epic, Titanic.

• Nearly 60% of the 3D film is visual effects.

Working Title• Working Title Films was co-founded by producers Tim Bevan and Sarah

Radclyffe. In 1983.• Working Title is a British company based in London.• Co chairpersons now-Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner• won6 accademy awards, 26 BAFTA'S, 4 Oscars and more.• 42 full time staff at working title.• Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson have close relationships with working title,

favourites for comedy.• Hugh grant is close as well, favourite for ‘RomCom’• Universal now owns 67% of working title.• Working title are renowned for comedies and romantic comedies.• Working title 2 is smaller branch dedicated to making smaller films and

independent ideas. They made billy elliot. £3million budget…grossed £72million.