Production Company.

Film4 Productions is a British film company owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. It has been responsible for backing a large number of films made in the UK and around the world.

Key Dates.

1982

The company produced it's first film 'Walter' by Stephen Frears.

1988

The production company was re-branded to Film4 as previously identified as Channel Four Films or Film Four International.

2002

It became part of the drama department on Channel 4 due to losses.

2006

The name Film Four Productions was introduced to tie in with the relaunch of Film4 the broadcasting channel.

2010

Partnered with FlimFlex to produce 4oD.

Film4 originally didn't broadcast blockbuster films but now broadcasts many mainstream Hollywood films. However, the channel now has themed nights or seasons in which films centred on one genre or actor are shown.

Film4 do not generally produce family friendly films, but you can submit your own ideas to them. Although, as you are able to do this, Film4 receive multiple proposals and now require them to come form either an agent or production company.

Film4 has many genres that they produce:

• Arts
• Comedy
• Creative Diversity
• Daytime
• Documentaries
• Drama
• Education
• Factual Entertainment
• In 2013, this genre of Film4 attracted mostly 16-34 year olds, this is important because although it reaches it a young audience it also attracts a mass audience.
• My Social Realist film would be a part of this genre as it focuses on the struggles that most teenagers overcome although it is not a documentary as the characters are not based on real people.
• Feature Films

Genre.

Social Realism.

Social realism is based on real-life where the characters, dialogue and settings are all made-up but are inspired by the real world. A social realism film can also be seen as an auto-biography however they are not portrayed in the same way as they show what they deal with in life and how it affects themselves and the people around them.
Due to social realism being such a diverse genre, it is a difficult genre to detect. Social realism films are popular and the most viewed as most people often mistake it for a different genre.
Social realism focuses on topical issues in modern society represented through different means and ideologies.
The main convention of a social realist film is that the actors are not famously known which is a supporting factor as the audience don't know the actors so they could be anybody and possibly relate to either themselves or any of their friends. Social realism also has a unified age boundary of 13-20 for their actors as most teenagers and young adults are the most likely audience.

Melodrama.

The definition of a melodrama is a dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exiting events which is intended to appeal to the emotions of the audience. In a melodrama there are 3 types of storylines.

• Catharsis: When the viewer goes through the same emotions as the character. This means that the viewer has built a relationship with the characters.
• Escapism: When the viewer needs to escape from their daily problems to something that wouldn't happen in real-life.
• Realism: When the characters are dressed expensively so that the viewer aspires to be like them as they have glamorous belongings.

My film is a social realist film as it is based on a real-life problem such as suicide, however the characters are fictional. My film idea is also more suited to a social realist film because the main character is a young adult who has committed suicide and goes back through the years which suit the correct age limit of 13-20. My film doesn't suit a melodrama because it doesn't follow any of the proposed storylines, however it does involve an event which could appeal to the emotions of the audience.

Target Audience.

First of all, due to my film idea I had to add a restriction of the youngest class of people allowed to watch. My initial thought was that I would set the age restriction to 12 as there is the implication that she has committed suicide although you don't see what happens to her after the screen fades to black. However, when I was researching the difference between what elements contribute to the age differences I found that '12' no longer exists and has been replaced in 2002 with '12A'.

This category applies to cinema releases from August 1989 to 2002. It is suitable only for persons aged 12 and over, not to be supplied to anyone below that age.

This category applies to cinema only releases since 2002. Films under this category are considered unsuitable for young children. Cinemas are only permitted to supply tickets to see a 12A-rated film to children under the age of 12 years if they are accompanied by an adult, aged at least 18 years.





I found that the restriction of 12A was given to films which contained 'mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, infrequent strong language and moderate violence, sex references and nudity'.
I agreed with my initial thought that my film would be classified as a 12A as within the rest of my film it would include moderate violence and infrequent strong language.

Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, regular use of foul language and limited use of very strong language, strong violence and strong sexual references, and nudity without graphic detail. Sexual activity may be portrayed but without any strong detail.




I had a glance at the restriction for 15 and found that overall my film would not suit this and would be better suited to a 12A. However, I debated whether a suicide would be classed as a mature theme or adult theme.

I looked at a few films I knew that contained a suicide to help me gain a better idea:

• Kidulthood = 18
• Dead Poet's Society = PG

In Kidulthood, there is no limitation on foul language, there is a large reference to both drugs and sex, and the use of sadistic violence, which means that it is not a reliable source of information as to whether suicide counts towards a mature theme or adult theme.
However, Dead Poet's Society, the film is light-hearted apart from the unexpected event of the suicide.

Due to the rest of my film being in reference to moderate violence and infrequent strong language, I have realised that the restriction on my film would be a 12A.

My Film Idea.

Rewind?

My idea is to create the opening to a film which starts with the build-up to a suicide and flashes back to a sequence of 'home movies' which shows why she had committed suicide at what finally lead her to the top of the bridge. During this, there will be a voiceover which reads out the suicide note she has written previously and left to her family. This is a mixture of lovingness towards her little sister, the good memories with her father and spitefulness towards her mother, which will be explained why during the continuation of the film.

I will be creating my own production company which will be a horse running and turns into an animation. I got this idea from a film that I had watched that did this with a lion and I thought that this would be rarely easy to recreate a variation of this.

The start of the film is going to be a close-up shot of a girls hand writing a 'letter' to her family. As she writes, the voiceover reads what she has written. As the scene changes, the voiceover stays which creates a sound bridge between the first two minutes.

The start of the ending is when the film cuts back to the letter where she signs it off and leaves it for her family to read. It would then cut back to show that the girl is getting ready to jump of the bridge and then it fades to black. The reason that I am unable to show the girl jumping off the bridge is because that would be dangerous and due to where the body would land it would be difficult to stage.

The title is 'Rewind?' which is why I thought it would look best to put the title at the end as the rest of the film includes the girl that just jumped of the bridge. The title of 'Rewind?' works as both a title and as an explanation as to what is going to happen in the rest of the film.

Preliminary Task.

Refer to the video on: http://kimberleydalton.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/preliminary-task.html

Whilst editing our preliminary task we noticed errors and slight problems whilst we were recording. These errors can be seen when watching the preliminary task as we hadn't spotted them before we had edited the clips together and finalised the project.

The first problem that we had was because we filmed outside there was a lawn mower which distorted our voices in some scenes and you can barely hear what they are saying. We recorded the scenes more than once so that we had a variety of shots that we were able to chose from. Due to this the lawn mower seems to appear and disappear in the space of a minutes.

The second problem that we came across was you could see the camera persons reflection in the window next to the door whilst we were trying to do the match on action.


If we would do this task again then we would either film it inside so that there is no outside sound to interrupt our filming. Failing this, if we were to film outside again, then we would wait until the lawn mower had finished the work or film in a different place so that you can’t hear the lawn mower that much or at all. We would also make sure that the positioning of the people working on the camera’s cannot see themselves within the scene which would eliminate the problem of being able to see the reflections.



Before filming we had to make sure we followed three rules:
1- The 180 degree rule
            Meaning that we had to decide on an imaginary line that neither the camera people or the actors could cross and it wouldn’t be consistent with the match on action.
2- Shot reverse shot
           This was when the actors were talking and the camera had to keep changing between person and person. We had to do this so that the audience would know who was speaking and what they were saying.
3- Match on action
         This is the same as continuity and within the preliminary task this is when the door is being opened. We had to make sure that the door wouldn’t jump from one place to another whilst in the middle of a scene.


The 180 degree rule in our preliminary task worked well whilst the actors are talking to each other because the camera people were still because they were only filming the actors who were also sat still. However there was a different 180 degree rule whilst we were working on the match on action because if it were the same 180 degree rule then it would have been harder to film either the door or the conversation.

The shot reverse shot worked very well because as we were talking and cutting the scene together, we were able to make sure that the correct person was talking whilst they were on the screen and it changed every time the other actor spoke.

The match on action worked brilliantly as we were able to get the door in the same place on both sides so it didn't jump from one place to another and mess up the continuity.

Institutions.

Everything that we do is controlled by an institution of some sort, you cannot escape it, and we follow the rules with questioning it. School and home are institutions which contain rules and regulations that we just follow them without releasing that they are constricting and controlling our lives.

To understand the concept of an institution is knowing 3 important keys terms which are listed below:

1. Who produces the media texts.
2. Their set of values and codes.
3. And the relationship between them and us as individuals

The press and TV give us a general awareness of values on the basics of what it is producing and the producers. For example if a journalists were to post something in a newspaper 'The Sun' we automatically think that they share the same values of that newspaper. However 'The Sun' and 'Daily Mail' are both owned by the same company but have different values and tell different stories.

A key word within institutions is conglomerate this means a company owns and produces different types of the media, but we don't associate them with it.

The 'Big 5' are the worlds five biggest media corporations, one person may just think that they deal with only one type of media because that is what they are taught to believe. Just think that they own so much more and this is where their income builds up, an example of what they own is the film companies.

• Walt Disney > Walt Disney Pictures
• Sony > Columbia
• Time Warner > Warner Bros
• News Corporation > 20th Century Fox
• Viacom > Paramount Pictures

Due to this, it is virtually impossible to escape these 5 companies. For example, I had never before heard of Viacom but I am always watching Paramount Pictures films and that is because Viacom don't want to tarnish their image by producing children's film so they created or bought shares in Paramount Pictures to gain more money.


Walt Disney

Touchstone Pictures - The walt Disney company is known for their pretty in pink princesses but wanted to produce films with many different variety’s to gain a wider audience and make more money from then. They produced over 200 films through Touchstone Pictures, including Good Morning Vietnam, Sister Act, Pretty Woman and Armageddon.

Marvel Comics - In 2009 Disney wanted to become the biggest media institution so they bought shares in Marvel who were independent until then. This deal was expected to strengthen Disney's position as the leading global provider of high-quality branded entertainment and build long-term shareholder value.

Why Media Studies?

I chose Media Studies because I had done it for my GCSE and found that it was really interesting.

I found that GCSE work was rather laid back in my own opinion however I left most things until the last minute before completing. This meant that when I thought I had finished my GCSE work, I had to redo it to gain a higher grade which I was happy to achieve. After a lot of last minute work I was able to gain a B.

I thought that it would be a nice contrast to my academic subjects and that I would excel. It will be a challenge to do some of the work as it all new to me, for example editing but it shall be interesting to work out.

I have a creative side to my knowledge but I can barely draw unless spending hours and hours concentrating. This year we had to analyse the conventions and notice the small things that happened so we were able to comment on them.

I have thought about the range of knowledge that I would gain from this A-Level and found that I would be able to understand the different elements of a film and understand them more.

I am now in Year 13 and completing the work for this year however due to lack of focus last year I was unable to achieve a respectable grade in my coursework which is the reason I am redoing and will be even more focused.