Distribution

Film Distribution 

This means getting the film out in to the public eye and getting cinemas to show it. 

Distribution companies are used 

The distributors are then responsible 

5 major distributors 

• Warner Bros
• Walt Disney
• 20th Century Fox 
• Paramount

Paramount Pictures

Adolph Zukor, Jesse L. Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille are credited as Paramount's principal founding fathers. The visionary Zukor laid the foundation for the company by acquiring the U.S. distribution rights to the silent French film Queen Elizabeth, a groundbreaking four-reel feature in a time when two reels was the norm. Its overwhelming success propelled Zukor's Famous Players Film Company to great heights, and in the process, transformed the business of entertainment forever.

Paramount works in a variety of genre’s. They have very high grossing films and high budgets and work a lot with british actors and big cinema’s.

Their big name gives the cinema’s a high likely hood of showing their films as they are high budget and wider audience.

Legendary Pictures

Thomas Tull founded legendary pictures in 2000. by 2005 they released their first film which happened to be the brining back of batman. Their films are almost always aimed at men. their very high action and big guns kind of style. they have been proved to venture around in different styles and genre’s of comedy to high action films.

They have done such films as:

• 300
• Man of Steel
• Wrath of the Titans
• Inception
• The Dark Knight
• Watchmen
• Ninja Assassin
• Jonah Hex 

They do have high budgets in their films but often their films are green screened and they do not make sets that much. This saves them money on props but they do like to experiment with special effects.

We believe that legendary pictures should be used as the distributor for our film ‘raising sands’ as it is aimed at male audiences. The dark settings and hard cold characters work well with the distribution company and believe that people who follow legendary pictures films will be interested in our film.

Our opening will fit legendary’s style with the red tints in the pausing credits. many of their films use this such as watchmen and 300. it will work well with the production company and the legendary’s style.

Credit timeline

6 Seconds - Production Studio

10 Seconds - Production Company 

12 Seconds - Director film

16 Seconds - Lead actor

21 Seconds - Film title

26 - 44 Seconds - Main Supporting cast ( 1 to 2 seconds with 1s pause)

50 - 1.15 Seconds - Supporting cast (longer gap between each)

1.18 Seconds - Costume Designer

1.21 Seconds- Co - Producers

1.25 Seconds - Sound Design

1.27 Seconds - Music by 

1.29 Seconds - Editors 

1.33 Seconds - Production designer

1.37 Seconds - Director of photography 

1.45 Seconds - Executive produces

1.48 Seconds - Produced by

1.52 Seconds - author and publisher

2.07 Seconds - Screenplay

2.20 Seconds - director

Film Theory

Vladimir Propp

Fairy tales in the generic form ‘ the folk wonder tale’

He identified:

-8 character roles

-31 functions that move the story along - examples include punishment of the villain

Characters: 

-The hero

-The villain 

-Donor 

-Helper

-Princess

-Princess’s father (Validates the Hero)

-Dispatcher 

-The false hero

Propp’s theory is a form of structuralism, which is a view that all media is inevitably in the form of certain structures:

These structures are often culturally derived and form expectations

e.g.  Fairy Tales always have happy endings or the princess always marries the handsome prince.

Identifying Propp;s 8 spheres in any films we have seen

8 Sphere	Film	Character
Hero	Django	Django (Jamie Foxx)
Villan	Django	Candy ( Leonardo Dicaprio)
Donor	Django	King Schultz (Christoph Waltz)

Todorov

Developed the theory of disrupted equilibrium 

Typical pattern 

• equilibrium - Things are the way they should be.
• disequilibrium - The peace is disrupted 
• equilibrium - is restored at the end of the story by the actions of the hero.

Developed a 5 stage pattern 

1. State of equilibrium
2. A disruption to the equilibrium
3. A recognition that there has been a disruption 
4. An attempt to repair the disruption 
5. A reinstatement of the equilibrium

Barthes 

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Said there were 5 action codes 

• Hermeneutic ( narrative turning points ) 

We know where the story will go next 

• Proairetic ( basic narrative actions )

e.g. detective interviews suspects or femme fatale seduces hero

- Cultural ( prior social knowledge )

e.g. our attitudes to gender or racial stereotypes

• Semic ( medium-related codes )

intertextuality

• Symbolic ( themes )

Iconography or a theme such as ‘ image verses reality ‘ 

Levi-Strauss

Uses the ‘ Western film’ genre to show his idea of every character has an opposite 

These are called binary opposites 

Developed the concept of bricolage

He saw any text as constructed out of socially recognisable ‘debris’ from other texts.

Construction of texts : Addition, Deletion, Substitution, Transposition 

Narrative 

-Diegetic narrative events take place before the audience, within the field of vision

-Non diegetic narrative events take place off-screen before the movie started, between scenes, simultaneously but in another room.

-Diegesis is Greek for the ‘Narrative Word’.

Victor Shklovsky

Shklovsky attempted to distinguish between the plot, which he defined as the events we actually ‘see’ in the narrative; and the story which contains information of events.

Fabula = The story i.e. the whole world of the story before during and after what see or hear

Syuzhet = Only the events that we see or hear within the field of vision

Gill Branston and Roy Stafford

They applied the relevance of Fabula and Syuzhet theory to the crime genre

Josh Fiske

-Develops Barthes Semic code

Gerard Genette

Developed the therm transtextuality and developed 5 sub-groups, but only 4 apply to film 

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• Intertextuality quotation, plagiarism, allusion 

• Architextuality designation of the text as part of a genre by the writer or by the audience

• Metatextuality explicit or implicit critical commentary of one text on another text 

• Hypotextuality the relation between a text and a preceding hypotext - a text or genre on which it is based but which it transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends  

Our movie would be best suited to Propp’s theory on character and Levi Strauss’ binary opposition theory. This is because we have a lot of stereotypical stock characters and closely follows strauss’ theory.

We have:

-A Hero

-A Villain

Feminist Theory

• Cinema is taken by feminist critics to be a cultural practice representing myths about women and femininity. 
• Negative impose on the female viewer.
• Early feminist criticism was directed at stereotypes in Hollywood films.

The look 

• within the film the male characters direct their look towards the female - the spectator is made to identify with the male as the camera films from the optical view of the male.

3 levels of cinematic gaze  

Mulvey also said that physiologically female characters combine seduction with castration.

Monstrous Babies 

Alien; Ripley is female, the alien is female, the iconography is female, the nest and tunnels reminiscent of a womb and fallopian tubes. 

Rosemary’s Baby 

Carrie; carrie begins to suffer hallucinations and terrifying visions when she reaches puberty and starts her period. The iconography of blood is repeated throughout the film. 

Types of Audience

VALS - Values, attitudes, lifestyles

6 groups

Thinkers                     Achievers                    Experiencers

Believers                    Strivers                        Makers

Website

Strategicbusinessinsights/VALS

ABC Demographic Scale

Social Grade	Social	Occupation
A	Upper middle class
B	middle class
C1	lower middle class
C2	Skilled Working Class
D	Working Class
E	those at the lowest level of subsistence

Psychographics 

Mainstreamers - Seek Security 

Aspirers - Seek Status

Succeeders - Seek Control

Resigned - Seeks Survival 

Explorers - Seeks Discovery 

Strugglers - Seeks escape 

Reformers - Seeks enlightenment   

Tweenie - aged 10 - 13

Dinkie - Double income, no kids

Swell - Single woman earning lots

Grey Panther - retired but with lots of cash 

Sinkie - Single income, no kids

Guppy - green yuppy - young upper class person who is concerned with environment 

Glam - Older lady with money and opinions 

Film Classifications

U and PG

-Small scenes of violence or horror can be shown but will be quickly resolved and not in much detail.

-Weapons can be shown but not heavily emphasised, balanced with humor and reassurance. 

-No dangerous behavior that can be seen as fun.

-Characters can kiss and hug or imply sexual behavior. Sexual references can be said along side with heterosexual and homosexual sex are tarted the same.

-Mild language can be used if justified by context. The way and at the moment they are said.

-Not normally references to drugs or drug use unless there is a clear anti-drugs message that will be understood by the younger audience.  

-Not very likely to find weapons that children could obtain.

12 and 12A

-The 12 certificate is for videos,DVD's and blu rays where as 12A is mainly in the cinemas and needs to have an adult with them.

-Was introduced in 2002

-Can contain mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, infrequent strong language and moderate violence, sex references and nudity.

-Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed.

-There may be occasional gory moments maybe permitted if they can be justified by their context.

-There maybe moderate language.

-Dangerous behavior maybe present but will not dwell on detail which could be copied.

15

• Strong violence - don’t dwell on pain or injury, lots of fighting a blood
• Frequent strong language - No upper limit to number of uses
• Portrayal sexual activity - no graphic detail 
• Strong sex references
• Sexual nudity - no strong detail 
• Brief scenes of sexual violence

18

-18 works are for adults and can contain strong issues such as:

-very strong violence

frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***') and/or very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’)

-strong portrayals of sexual activity

-scenes of sexual violence

-strong horror

-strong blood and gore

-real sex (in some circumstances)

-Discriminatory language and behavior

-Yes, at 18 violence can be strong and be portrayed with strong detail. There may even be dwelling on the infliction of pain or injury, or scenes of strong sadistic or sexual violence.

-The strongest gory images are permitted at this category.

-The strongest horror works are passed at 18, they may contain 

-Strong horror, gore or sustained threat and menace which exceeds the boundaries of 15.

-There is no limit on the number of uses of strong (e.g. 'f***') or even very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’) which can be passed at 18. Uses could be aggressive, directed, frequent or accompanied by strong violence.

-There may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory language at 18, and the work could explore themes relating to this.

-Though a work as a whole must not be in breach of any relevant legislation, it is possible for discriminatory language or themes to be the main focus of the work, and for main characters to engage in discriminatory behavior.

-In line with the consistent findings of the BBFC’s public consultations and The Human Rights Act 1998, the BBFC will not normally override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment.

-However, cuts are occasionally made to 18 rated films and DVDs. Intervention is most likely in the following areas:

-Where the material is in breach of the criminal law, or has been created through the commission of a criminal offense.

-Where material risks harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society – for example, any detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or of illegal drug use, which may cause harm to public health or morals. This may include portrayals of sexual violence which might, for example, make rape look appealing

-Where there are more explicit images of sexual activity which cannot be justified by context. Such images may be appropriate in R18 works and, in ‘sex works’, would normally be confined to that category.

-In the case of video works, which may be more accessible to younger viewers, intervention may be more frequent than for cinema films.

R18

is a legally restricted classification for explicit works of consenting sex or strong fetish material.

What you can include 

• Interest in abusive sexual activity 
• Penetration by any object associated with violence 
• No Consent 

what you cant include

- Adult themes

- Adult activity 

- hard language 

- drug abuse 

• persistent violence

Banned

Examples: 

-Cannibal Holocaust

-Leather face

Very dangerous or criminal behavior will be cut

Sex & Nudity

-Portrayals  of children in sexualised or abusive context or sexual violence

-’The bunny game’ was banned due to high level of sexual violence. The kidnapper takes pleasure from humiliating and making his female victims suffer.

-’A serbian film’ High levels of child rape, incest and murder. 

‘Grotesque’ was banned due to extreme sexual torture and no reason for its content.

Language

-All language can be used

Imitable behavior

-Portrayals of potentially dangerous behavior especially relating to hanging, suicide and self harming.

Themes

• They are banned because they usually take it too far and cross the the line completely, therefore breaking the viewers comfort area.

Editing

Editing

Transitions

Crosscutting – Two lines of action happening at the same time, cutting from one line to the other.

Cut-in, cut away – Moving from a distance away from an object to a closer shot.

Dissolve – When one shot fades out while another fades in.

Iris – A circle that either gets smaller or larger depending on the focus.

Establishing shot – From a distance, makes the location and mood of the movie clear. Setting the scene.

Shot/Reverse Shot – Shots edited together that alternate between characters

Superimposition – Layering one shot in front of another.

Wipe – Transitions – Where a line passes across the screen with another shot.

Matching

Eyeline Match – Show a person and, then what they are looking at.

Graphic Match – The shape of one item becoming the next object.

Match on Action – same piece of action, but from different angles

Mise en Scene

Mise en Scene

The 5 elements of Mise en Scene

Setting

• Setting and locations play a key part of film.
• Settings can manipulate the audience by building audience expectations.
•  Setting can help us to understand when and where the film is set.
• The setting needs to be linked to the correct costumes and props.

Props

Iconography – the distinguishing elements, in terms of props and visual details.

Costume, Hair & Makeup

• Costume, hair and makeup acts as an instant indicator to the audience of the characters personality, status and jobs.

Facial Expression and Body Language 

• Facial expression and body language provide a clear indicator as to how characters are feeling.
• It can also communicate information about relationships.

Lighting

• Can be used to give a sense of place, weather, mood or a characters state of mind.

Key Types of Lighting

• Low key lighting – Created by using a key and back light, produces sharp contrasts. Deep, distinct shadows and silhouettes.
• High key lighting – More fillers used, natural and realistic, creates a bright lit, sunny set.

Filming

Filming

The Dominant

• Where our eye is attracted first.
• Size, colour, lighting and focus is used to do this.

Shot and Camera Proxemic

Shots are defined by the amount of subject matter they include.

• Composition -The objects in the frame can be placed to suggest underlying designs or shape.

Framing 

Do the characters have no room to move around, or can the characters move freely? 

Evaluation of the Preliminary Task

Evaluation of the Preliminary Task

In the task we had to make a short video involving a conversation between two people (using the shot/reverse-shot), someone coming through a door (match-on-action) and use the 180 degree rule, which is when the characters in the scene are connected by an imaginary line which the camera only operates on one side of for every shot in the scene so the characters are always on the same position in each shot.

What went well?

The use of the shots was executed well. We had two instances of the shot/reverse-shot in a conversation. The 180 degree rule was also used in these conversations as for the duration of the conversation the audience never sore anything behind the camera and the characters stayed don the same sides of the scene. Out match-on-action was used when I walked through the door to start the first conversation. The camera shows his hand opening the door then cutting to him coming through it, the door being open the same amount as the first shot.

Our editing skills were also used well for this clip. We used a variety of shots and different angles, editing them together in most instances very well. The most frequently used shot other than the shot/reverse-shot was the match on action which can be very difficult to use as it may cause continuity issues if not edited properly, however we used them very well.

Improvements:

There were three instances were the audience could see the Josh Graham, our camera-man, in the reflection of windows. The first was the shot of me reading the text message, we can see Josh’s hand in the reflection of the screen. The second was the shot of me walking past the water fountain when Josh’s shoulder is visible in the reflection of the door and finally when me and I leave the scene after the first conversation the audience can briefly see one half of Josh as he films.

Another minor problem was ensuring that the video had continuity. For filming we had to ensure we had access to the areas of the school for both days and that all people involved wore the same clothes on both days. This issue was handled well and we prepared very well for any potential continuity issues. However the was an instance of a continuity error. In the scene were me is coming down the stairs, there is a shot of his feet coming down and he leads with right foot but in the next shot (a match-on-action) he plants with his left, this was minor but still noticeable by us and the audience.

Lessons learnt for next time:

Firstly we learnt the importance of location. As we could only film during school time we had a very limited number of locations. We took this into consideration for our final piece, ensuring that our location matched our characters behaviours and our stories narrative.

We also learned the importance of costume. As we were in school we could only were our sixth form suits, however for our final product we spent time assessing what costume our characters would wear and then developed a full costume list so it matched our narrative to give the video a more authentic and genre specific feel.

Between the time we filmed the Preliminary task and our final product we developed our editing skills so we could incorporate more challenging shots.

Shot, Reverse Shot

Shot, Reverse Shot

Two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation situation. In continuity editing, characters in one framing usually look left, in the other framing, right. Over-the-shoulder framings are common in shot/reverse-shot editing. Shot / reverse shots are one of the most firmly established conventions in cinema, and they are usually linked through eyeline matches.

The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal) (Dario Argento, Italy,1996)

180-Degree Rule

180-Degree Rule

The 180-degree rule of shooting and editing keeps the camera on one side of the action. As a matter of convention, the camera stays on one side of the axis of action throughout a scene; this keeps characters grounded compositionally on a particular side of the screen or frame, and keeps them looking at one another when only one character is seen onscreen at a time. The technique allows for an expansion of the frame into the unseen space offscreen. It is referred to as a rule because the camera, when shooting two actors, must not cross over the axis of action; if it does, it risks giving the impression that the actors' positions in the scene have been reversed.

Match on Action Shot Practice

 Match on Action Shot Practice

We did some practice Match on Action shots. These are the results.

 Match on Action Shot 1

 Match on Action Shot 2

Match on Action

Match on Action 

Match on Action is the same piece of action, but from different angles

Here is an example from Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)

A match on action adds variety and dynamics to a scene, since it conveys two movements: the one that actually takes place on screen, and an implied one by the viewer, since her/his position is shifted.

Preliminary Task Video

For our Preliminary task we shot this!

Preliminary Task

We used the Preliminary task to help us practice our us of key rules and shot types;

- Match on Action

- 180-Degree rule 

- Shot, reverse shot

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