Practice Essay 1

Practice Essay:

“Is it a fair and level playing field in the area you have studied?”

In an online article, the BBC detailed ‘The History of British Cinema’ (BBC 2010). They said ‘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, J.K Rowling and Dench) a struggle with finance.’

I will explore, in more detail, contemporary cinema by comparing and contrasting my two case studies, one British, Trance, 2013 and one from Hollywood, No Country for Old Men, 2007. This statement is still applicable as balance is still tipped on the side of Hollywood conglomerates, which are the major companies who dominate the market place. In the last decade thought, British films have found a large economic growth due to technological advances, government, Lottery and European funding and grants, as well as Hollywood’s writers strike. Britain’s talent, people like J.K Rowling who refused to allow Hollywood to have complete control on the Harry Potter franchise, have also contributed to this.

In 2008 McDougall said that Britain is still not able to compete completely on a level playing field as Hollywood because it still does not have the finances required for the production, distribution and exhibition of films. This then means that the high budget British films must get some funding from other countries. This means that even though these films may still be classified as British they will have some outside help and will lose some profit from the production and distribution to other countries.

According to categories, which were outlined by McDougall (2008), Trance, my British case study would be classified as a category A film. This is because the majority of the film was made by British people, in Britain, with all British funding, with no financial help from other countries for the production.

In terms of the production, my British case study had a production budget of $20 million while my Hollywood film had a budget of $25 million dollars, this means that for this particular study there was not much of an advantage financially, though Trance did require a larger amount of companies to get the money needed than my Hollywood case study required.

Through comparing the production information on the two films, it can be seen what difference being British made. My British film primarily starred James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson, who are mostly people that are not as well known in America as they may be here. My Hollywood case study starred Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, who are much better known both here and in America than the stars of Trance. In terms of the crew, No Country for Old men had Joel and Ethan Coen as the directors and producers along with Scott Rudin and Roger Deakins as the cinematographer and had no music within the production itself, but did credit it to Carter Burwell. Most of these people, especially the Coen brothers are well known in America and Britain, which helps this production. However, for Trance the director was Danny Boyle, who is well known also in Britain and America, which will give my British film a slight advantage. In terms of the other crew it had Anthony Dod Mantle as the cinematographer, Rick Smith doing the music and Christian Colson, along with Danny Boyle, as producers. These people are less well known than the American crew, and so shows the problems with a British film. For the locations of the films, Trance was filmed in France, London and Kent while No Country for Old Men was filmed in New Mexico and Texas, USA as well as in Mexico. While London may give Trance a better audience appeal due to its setting, this will not give too much of an advantage as this will not greatly affect the profit potential. Overall however, No Country for Old Men will create a greater audience appeal, and so a higher profit potential as the audience will be drawn in by the big names, but financially they will be on an equal playing field due to the budget.

Both my case studies were rated a 15 in the UK and R in USA. Both of these films are mostly targeted to males aged around 16 to 25. For these age ratings it links into the hypodermic needle theory, which says that young people will be influenced by what they see and may want to follow and so will need to be protected. This means that my films have a rating like these as both films feature graphic murder and violence, as well as following themes of crime, like heists and drugs. This target audience will be the most profitable as these will be people who have more money to spend as well as more time to socialise and so will more often and more likely to go to the cinema and so are better targeted.