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Jess Pardoe

Research of Case Studies (Working Title, Warp Films, Hollywood)

As a class we have previously looked at various films produced by each of these institutions,

the funding each company receives plays a large role on how successful and popular the

film will be when released to the public. Each of these institutions has a different target

audience, Working Title and Hollywood use a range of genres and try to appeal to families

as well as couples and different age groups; Working Title have also recently starte dwidening their choice of genres as they created a film from the novel, Atonement , this makes

a change as they usually produce Romantic Comedies . Warp Films are the smallest of the

three companies and therefore have mainly stuck to one genre of social rea lism, this is

because their funding is lower so they need to create films that the audience can relate to

rather than get lost in an unknown world such as Hollywoods Avatar.

Looking at the different case studies we produced in groups, we studied further i nto why

Hollywood production companies are so much more successful than Warp Films. The first

film researched was The Boat That Rocked (2009), the film was rated a 15 because of

nudity, sexual references and adult humour. The main genre of this film is c omedy, but it

would mainly appeal to a British audience as the humour can be dry and the cast are British.

There are also suggestions of other genres w ithin the film such as, Romance, Drama and

Music. Working Title have tried to appeal to an audience of pe ople who were alive in the

1960s as the film is all set around this era including the music, costume and content; the

film features music from artists such as, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Beach Boys, The Kinks

and many others.

This is comparison to This is England (2006), produced by Warp Films, and shows that by

having a higher budget for The Boat That Rocked meant that they could include a

reasonably well known cast compared to This is England. Working Title films are now

known for using stock ac tors/actresses, for example Bill Nighy, Emma Thompson and Nick

Frost have all been in more than one Working Title film. Warp Films rated This is England

as an 18, this is because the genre is Social Realism, so there are scenes showing violence,

bad language and sexual references.

The group also compared this film to Avatar (2009), a hugely successful Hollywood

produced film; it is extraordinary and James Cameron (director of Titanic & Avatar) definitely

showed this as with help from editors he managed to create a new world through digital

technology. There were over 20 editing software programmes used to produce the film and

as the director was James Cameron, the budget was enormous, an estimated $237,000,000.

The three films mentioned are all extremely different, it is clear that the success of a film is

often down to the budget as shown with the relationship between Hollywood production

companies and Warp Films.

The following group looked at Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010), this is a family film

produced by Working Title and was very successful as their budget was approximately $35million, and the gross revenue was $93,233,750. It was the first 3D film that Working Title

have ever produced meaning they had a higher budget to try out new technologies which

would cause their name to become more well known. The film was aimed at the 4 -quadrant

audience; this includes old, young, male and female. It was rated 4/5 stars by The News of

the World newspaper, the advertisement and knowledge of the production of the film was

mainly distributed by word of mouth including reviews on social networking websites.

The group who were given this film to research compared it with Hollywoods Avatar, as

previously mentioned, they chose this to relate the f ilm to as it was also produced in 3D but

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Jess Pardoe

this didnt take up much of the budget as theirs was over $200 million. Working Title again

used stock actress, Emma Thompson as she had previously done a lot of acting for their

institution. Hollywood had freedom o f choice for Avatar as there were no limitations within

the price of their budget and with an experienced director like James Cameron he would

make the best decisions for his film.

Another group chose to look at Wild Child, this film had a budget of 2 0 million and thegross revenue added 2 million on top of that, the film wasnt as successful as previously

mentioned Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, this could be because Nanny McPhee had

the advantage of 3D. Wild Child is a Working Title produced film so they compared it to two

other films produced by the same company, Green Zone and Atonement.

Green Zone was not very successful, it cost too much to make so they didnt receive very

high gross revenue, and in fact it was 6 million lower than the ir budget. Atonement

however escalated with the revenue, as the budget was 30 million and they received an

astonishing 129,266,061.

The group I was a part of chose to look at Johnny English and in comparison, Avatar. This

was to show the step up f rom Working Title to Hollywood production company films. Johnny

English was adapted from a TV advertisement commercial . Rowan Atkinson is the star of the

film and as he previously played the famous role, Mr Bean, he includes humour in his acting

and facial expressions well; this is an example of intertextuality as the audience may

recognise his body language or behaviour and link it to Mr Bean. This film became well

known by word of mouth, people didnt have to choose to go and research what the new film

that Rowan Atkinsons in is called, they would see if wherever they went. On sides of buses,

billboards on the outskirts of towns, trailers in the cinema, YouTube clips and trailers and

even iPhone apps that can be downloaded/purchased such as games of the f ilm or movie

listings. Working Title also use appearances on television programmes as part of their

advertisement, for example actors have been on Top Gear previously and images of

premieres will be aired on breakfast shows and other talk shows. There are different

categories of films, this one being listed under category D as its a British conglomerate

production team, Working Title, but funded by the owner, the American company Universal.

This is in comparison to This is England which is classed in categ ory E as the production

company, Warp Films, is British and so is the company their funding comes from as they are

currently an independent film company.

From the research we have done as a class we can see major differences between Warp

Films, Working Tit le and Hollywood film production companies. We have looked at new

technologies in detail and from looking at the films listed in this essay we have seen that

Hollywood mainly use 3D and Working Title have started becoming familiar with it in the past

year. Hollywood films receive better feedback from reviewers and the general public as they

are well publicised and become well -known extremely fast; this is another advantage tohaving a large budget for film for the advertisement process.