A Level MEDIA – Component 2Film Marketing and Media Language

I, Daniel Blake (2016)

Revision Booklet

I, Daniel Blake

Year of release: 2016

Director: Ken Loach

Writer: Paul Laverty

Cast: Dave Johns (Daniel), Hayley Squires (Katie), Kate Rutter (Ann)

Production companies: Sixteen Films, Why Not Productions (in association with the British Film Institute and the BBC)

Budget: approx. £3.5 million

Box Office: $12.5 million

Major awards

BAFTA (British equivalent of the Oscars

Won – Outstanding British Film

British Independent Film Awards

Won – Most Promising British Newcomer (Hayley Squires)

Cannes Film Fextival

Won – Palme D’Or

Synopsis

Widower Daniel Blake, a 59-year-old joiner from Newcastle, has had a heart attack. Though his cardiologist has not allowed him to return to work, Daniel is deemed fit to do so after a work capability assessment and denied employment and support allowance. He is frustrated to learn that his doctor was not contacted about the decision, and applies for an appeal, a process he finds difficult because he must complete forms online and is not computer literate.

Daniel befriends single mother Katie after she is sanctioned for arriving late for a Jobcentre appointment. Katie and her children have just moved to Newcastle from a London homeless shelter, as there is no affordable accommodation in London. Daniel helps the family by repairing objects, teaching them how to heat rooms without electricity, and crafting wooden toys for the children.

During a visit to a food bank, Katie is overcome by hunger and breaks down. After she is caught shoplifting at a supermarket, a security guard offers her work as a prostitute. Daniel surprises her at the brothel, where he begs her to give up the job, but she tearfully insists she has no other way to feed her children.

As a condition for receiving jobseeker’s allowance, Daniel must keep looking for work. He refuses a job at a garden centre because his doctor will not allow him to work yet. When Daniel's work coach tells him he must work harder to find a job or be sanctioned, Daniel spray paints "I, Daniel Blake, demand my appeal date before I starve" on the building. He earns the support of passers-by, including other benefits claimants, but is arrested and cautioned by the police. Daniel sells most of his belongings and becomes withdrawn.

On the day of Daniel's appeal, Katie accompanies him to court. A welfare adviser tells Daniel that his case looks sound. On glimpsing the judge and doctor who will decide his case, Daniel becomes anxious and visits the lavatory, where he suffers a heart attack and dies. At his public health funeral, Katie reads the eulogy, including the speech Daniel had intended to read at his appeal. The speech describes his feelings about how the welfare system failed him by treating him like a dog instead of a man proud to have paid his dues to society.

Production and Release

I, Daniel Blake was filmed in and around Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the North East of England, and was shot over a period of six weeks.

The film is a co-production between Sixteen Productions (Ken Loach’s own production company) and France’s Why Not Productions, and was made with the support of the British Film Institute (the BFI) and BBC Films. The film’s budget was £3.5 million.

After a premier at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016, IDB was released worldwide throughout late 2016 and early 2017. A platform release pattern was used, which means the number of cinemas offering the film increased over its ‘lifetime’ (the period in which it was screened in cinemas).

In its opening weekend in the UK, the film started off in 94 cinemas, before growing to 273 cinemas. However, this was supplemented by screenings in more unusual locations – see the section on Marketing.

The film has taken $12.45 million worldwide, including the following:-

● $4.27m in the UK (£3.3m)● $6.4m in France● $1.4m in Italy● $0.48m in Australia● $0.2m in the USA

ACTIVITY - Why might there be relatively low box office takings, particularly in Australia and the USA?

MARKETING

ACTIVITY - You are part of the marketing team for this film. Due to the limited advertising budget which would you think would be the most audience effective and cost effective ways of promoting I, Daniel Blake?

‘ Above the line ’ marketing techniques

Put the following seven methods of marketing and promotion into order of preference – remember, you need to consider the very limited financial aspect. The overall budget for the film is £3.5 million, so you need to be creative with money, while making the audience aware of the film

Official website

Teaser poster campaign

Theatrical poster campaign

Trailer for the cinema

Trailer for television

Social media

Press kit

Briefly highlight why you have chosen your top two or three methods

NOTE: Examples of theatrical posters and the official trailer for the film can be found on the Moodle page for the film

MARKETING AND USER TARGETTING

Apart from the usual ‘above the line’ marketing techniques, a number of more unconventional marketing strategies were employed.

Rather than London, the film’s UK premiere took place in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the film’s setting, and involved a number of local people and organisations who had contributed to the making of the film. It did, however, receive a London premiere a week later, which was attended by Jeremy Corbyn.

The marketing company, Kommando, was hired to promote the film and came up with an innovative campaign

A ‘guerrilla’ projection campaign saw quotes from the film beamed onto buildings in cities such as Newcastle, as well as the Houses of Parliament, grabbing the attention of the news media & passers-by.

eOne, the film’s UK distributor, organised a ‘grassroots’ marketing campaign.

eOne advertised for regional marketing officers to promote the film across the Midlands, North of England and parts of Scotland. The role of the marketer was to arrange and promote preview screenings and talks about the film in the weeks prior to its official release date, building up word of mouth and visibility in regional communities. Those who attended were a source of marketing content such as vox pops.

eOne also secured the services of the Trinity Mirror group as a marketing partner.

Trinity Mirror was the largest publisher of newspapers, magazines and digital news/features content in the UK. It owned 260 national and regional titles, including ‘red-top’ tabloid The Mirror (national), Western Mail (Wales), Daily Record (Scotland), the Birmingham Mail and the Bristol Post. The Mirror has supported the Labour Party since 1945. It has since been taken over by Reach PLC

Trinity Mirror described the challenge of marketing the film as ‘to get [the audience] to see & pay for a film that isn’t an action packed blockbuster. However, we also know that our audience are socially & culturally conscious & want to change things for the better. 60% believe we should actively strive for equality for all; behind this is the belief that it’s everyone’s responsibility to be well informed & to do the right thing. Therefore, the story of I, Daniel Blake would resonate strongly with our audience’s strong & passionate belief’.

The Trinity Mirror group implemented their campaign in the following ways:-

● Giving away 10,000 free tickets to the regional screenings mentioned previously.

● Prominent appeals from the film’s protagonist used on the mastheads and the front covers of their newspaper titles.

● Banner advertising.● An editorial ‘written by’ Daniel within an October 2016 issue of the Mirror.● Disruptive display advertising across the group’s digital newspapers.● Articles promoting the film, which were retweeted by Ken Loach.

Social and political issues and debates

The issues raised by the film were contentious and drew a range of responses from political figures, organisations and critics, all of which served to increase visibility for the film.

Unite the Union, Britain’s biggest trade union which stands up for ‘equality for all’, promoted the film on its website, using it as a way to promote awareness the impacts of government cuts to the welfare system, and encourage people to get in touch with their MPs. Users of the website were encouraged to share the hashtag #WeAreAllDanielBlake on social media.

REPRESENTATIONREPRESENTATION OF EVENTS and CHARACTERS

ACTIVTY - Who and what is being represented throughout the narrative? Think along broad terms regarding the social and political themes and events, and narrower in terms of individual characters.

REPRESENTATION OF MESSAGES and VALUES

ACTIVTY - What do you think are the main messages and values of the narrative? Think both positive and negative. Consider particular sequences where these occur

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are created as a quick and simple way of categorising groups of people according to their shared, recognisable but exaggerated characteristics

ACTIVITY - Consider how the use of stereotyping in I, Daniel Blake might help an audience connect with a film dealing with sometimes complex issues? Consider how the constructed characters of Daniel and Katie are used alongside the real-life characters in terms of stereotyping.

Heroes and Villains

ACTIVITY - Identify who or what you think might be considered ‘heroes’ and who or what is perhaps being cast as ‘villains’ in order to maintain audience engagement (this can also tie into the concept of ‘binary opposites’ in the ‘Narrative’ section of this booklet)

Realism

A major factor of the film’s apparent success has been its attention to detail and the representation of ‘realism’.

This extends to the times in which the film is set (its mise en scene, in particular), and also the real characters depicted.

NARRATIVE

BINARY OPPOSITES (Claude Levi Strauss)

All films work on the idea of ‘binary opposites’ with their characters, such as ‘hero’ and villain’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’, even ‘men’ and ‘women’

The film, I, Daniel Blake, features particular representations of characters and events in order for the audience to understand and relate to them more.

These might fit to particular stereotypes which might be either a feature of this genre of film or perhaps society, itself.

ACTIVITY - note as many binary opposites in the film as you can. I have given you an example to start you off.

Employment The welfare state

Enigmas

All films contain narrative questions or mysteries which need to be answered or solved throughout the narrative

ACTIVITY - Identify which enigmas present themselves throughout I, Daniel Blake, and how are they resolved?

Cause and Effect

Again, this form of narrative structure is found within all stories – something happens (cause) and something happens because of it (effect).

ACTIVITY - Consider three major instances of cause and effect within the narrative. Some things might happen early in the narrative which do not have an effect until much later in the film.

Todorov’s theory of narrative equilibrium

Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of narrative equilibrium is often used to analyse a film’s narrative structure. It contains the following elements – EQUILIBRIUM (everything is normal), EQUILIBRIUM DISRUPTED (something happens to upset that equilibrium), NEW EQUILIBRIUM ESTABLISHED (a new equilibrium occurs)

ACTIVITY - Consider how this concept might be applied to I, Daniel Blake. It could be argued that there are at least two (if not more) examples where this three part model is played out across the narrative

AUDIENCE

Audience Positioning

ACTIVITY - How might the audience be ‘positioned’ to react/respond to the narrative and characters in the film? You should consider particular scenes or sequences of an emotive nature and the methods used to achieve this (think ‘mise en scene’, ‘sound’, ‘characterisation’, and ‘setting’ (physical and historical/cultural)

Stuart Hall – Encoding and decoding theory

ACTIVITY - How might Hall’s theory be applied to the narrative with regards the preferred reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading model?

Reception Theory

Stuart Hall’s ‘Reception Theory’ can be applied for I, Daniel Blake, in that the audience reaction might depend on some of the following factors – age, gender, social background, political view

ACTIVITY - Identify how these (and any others you think might of) can be applied to the film:

AGE

GENDER

SOCIAL BACKGROUND

POLITICAL VIEW

GENRE

I, Daniel Blake could be placed within two distinct film genres: Social Drama and Social Realism

The conventions of the Social Drama text are:

Integrating larger social conflict into individual conflict

Focusing on the historical context of the time and dealing with the social issues associated with that period

ACTIVITY - identify scenes or sequences in I, Daniel Blake where these conventions could be identified.

British Social Realism

British Social Realism is a cinematic genre which developed throughout the 20 th century, and is typically associated with niche, arthouse audiences rather than mass, multiplex audiences.

British social realist films often seek to offer a ‘window on the world’ and represent contemporary social issues.

In general terms, the genre uses a low-budget, documentary-style aesthetic to create ‘verisimilitude’ (sense of reality).

In the mid-20th century, the social realist movement was mirrored by movements in other European countries, such as neorealism in Italy and ‘actualite’ in France.

British film-making has a strong heritage of social drama and social realism film-making, beginning in the late-1950s, through the social changes of the 1960s and 1970s, the political changes of the 1980s and the social changes of the 1990s to present.

The conventions of the Social Realism text are:

Location shooting (as opposed to being studio-bound)

Humour/Seriousness

Regional identities

Wider social issues presented via emotional/dramatic stories

Triumph over adversity

A lack or complete absence of non-diegetic music (other than the opening or closing credits)

ACTIVITY - identify scenes or sequences in I, Daniel Blake which these conventions could be identified.

Below is a small selection of British films and one TV drama which you might wish to research in order to give yourself a wider knowledge of these two genres

Cathy Come Home (dir. Ken Loach, 1966). TV play filmed in a documentary film style, dealing with the issue of poverty and homelessness (The charities, Shelter and Crisis, would start up a few weeks after the play was first broadcast, having caused huge controversy in the British media for having raised the issue of homelessness

Poor Cow (dir. Ken Loach, 1967) – an 18-year-old girl, Joy, runs away from home with her boyfriend, Tom. When Tom, a thief who mentally and physically abuses Joy, is jailed for attempting a big robbery, she is left on her own with their son and drifts into a world of prostitution to help raise money

Brassed Off (dir. Mark Herman, 1996) – the struggles of colliery brass band after the closure of their Yorkshire coal pit, ten years after the miner’s strike ended

The Full Monty (dir. Paul Cattaneo, 1997) – six unemployed steelworkers from Sheffield start a male striptease act to raise money

Billy Elliot (dir. Stephen Daldry, 2000) – a young boy in the north-east of England, dreams of becoming a ballet dancer, set against the miner’s strike of 1984-85

This is England (dir. Shane Meadows, 2007) – set in 1983, Shaun, an eleven year old boy, is befriended by a skinhead gang after the death of his father in the Falklands War, but the arrival of a racist older gang member, Combo, exposes Shaun to a more violent and unforgiving world

Pride (dir. Matthew Warcus, 2014) – based on the true story of gay activists from London helping a small Welsh mining community when their pit is threatened with closure during the year-long strike

A Street Cat Named Bob (dir. Roger Spottiswoode, 2016) – based on the true story of a homeless busker who is befriended by a stray cat, and follows their adventure from living on the streets to gaining respectability as an author