Notes

UK Film Council-money receives came from Government, and Lottery, and money is distrubuted to production company to aid in funding UK based films.

NO LONGER EXISTS

BFI
35,00 jobs, 4 million, largest market share in a decade, exceeded 1 billion pound in box Office, entertained over 2000 million people, grossed over 800 million pound. Backed film Festivals across the UK. Stimulated Film Culture across country.
All in 10 years

Raising Awareness: Prints and advertising fund provides £1 million every year to help British distributors promote mainstream films.


How are films are funded?
Scriptwriter to write the film, and have possibly some budget to develop that film (eg story board, which could take time), quite often then Production teams will get involved and sign it onto a director, as directors tend to use the same production company.

With Monsters it was different due to new technology people are able to construct films on a smaller budget. With Hunger Games, Lionsgate bought rights to the  book and advertised it to actually raise the hype of the film, and ensure that then they would have a fan base when they produced the actual Film. Different production companies appeal to different audiences ( Niche audiences and mass audiences).

Improvement in home cinema is  getting common (due to sites like netflix, and lovefilm, and the fact people will be able to actually stay at home, in their comfort zone), and ensures that less people go to the actual Cinema. This means that Production companies will have to think about other avenues in making money.  Cinema's need to advertise the whole experience of going to the actual cinema, to actually avoid that people will not stay at home, and watch the movies. This means they will have to actually advertise the whole night out, and the whole experience of going out. This has lead to Cinema's being made more comfortable, and almost, an substitution from going to the pub.

Audience
-People all watch the same media, but can interpret it differently.

The Effects/Hypothermic Model
When the media is injected like a syringe, it injects all the ideas into the audience, and they absorb that. In other words, if you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent. Films like the Exocist (1973), and the Clockwork Orange (1971) were both banned on the belief that they might encourage people to copy the crimes within them. There are examples, such as he Jamie Bulger murder, who was murdered by 2 kids that were affected by Chucky, a serial-killing doll.

Who owns a film?
The production companies have the legal rights, and ownership of the film, but once the audience have viewed it, they own their interpretation of it, memories, and emotion.



Identification: violence in the media releases tension and desires through identification with fictional characters and events (catharsis).

Sensititation: violence in the media can sensitise people to the effects of violence.


Criticsms of mass audience theory
Thinks of everyone as one person, and does not recognize that people are individuals.

Uses and Gratifications

Information- We want to find our about socety and the world- We want to satisfy our curiosity.
Personal Identity- We may watch the television in order to look for models for our behavior. So for eample we may identify with characters that we see in a soap. The characters help us to decie what feel about ourselves and if we agree with their actions and they succeed we feel better about ourselves- think of the warm feeling you get when you favourite chasracter triumphs at the end of a programme.
Integration and Social Interaction-  We use the media in order to find out more about the circumstances of other people. Watching a show helps us to empathise and sympathise with the lives so that we may even end up thinking of the characters in programme as friends even though we might feel bit sad admitting it! At the same time television may help us to get on with our real friends as we are able to talk about the media with them.

Hunger for Escapism and Entertainment has lead to people going to the Cinema. Furthermore, this can be linked to why people take drugs and consume a lot of alcohol.

Oil Rigs, and airlines are huge secondary consumer's of films, as people in Oil Rigs struggle to find other ways to entertain themselves. Furthermore, with Airlines, in order to entertain their passengers, films are efficient.

Digital Technology

PRODUCTION
 The importance of Production for Institutions?
Mass (e.g Avatar)
- 3D to rope in the audiences they are targeting, so that they can ''wow'' them.

Independant (e.g Monsters)
-Cheap for digital cameras
-Cheap for digital production studios.
-Crew smaller-cheap
-Locations are more diverse.


The importance of Production for Audiences?
- 3D,HD (e.g Avatar)
- Bigger Sceens
- Home cinema.

MARKETING
Institutions

-Net
-Social website, costs and saturation
-Blogs
-Trends (Hunger Games)
Synergy
Fandom
-Audiences follow, react, interact, communicate

DISTRIBUTION
-Digital Prints Vs 35mm
-Satalite Streaming
-Home Market -VHS-DVD-BluRay- Netflix/Lovefilm
                         -TV- Satelite-Ondemand

-Internet - Piracy issues.

How Disablity is represented

Disability has been represented through the way the character acts, as he speaks like a child, and his vocabulary used does seems to be basic. The fact that the detective Frost speaks with him with respective shows that he was aware that he was taking this on board. Most of the evidence pointed against the disabled guy, and the fact that Frost was not harsh in actually getting proper answers from him shows that he was aware that he needed to be gentle with him, which is why he sort of spoke down to him, as if he was a kid.
The actuality that the person in question had his father behind him, in a position that made it look as if he was above him, shows that his Father was watching over him, as if he was a kid, helping with that kid-like image.

Billy, the disabled character's father kneels down at the side of Billy combined with a high angle shot of the Father and Billy, further reinforces the representation of Disability being child-like. This is because high angle shots are typically used to suggest that those being ''looked down'' on are easily intemidated.
The use of a low angle POV is combined with a close up of billy's face invites the audiences to intrepret Billy's facial expressions as being overly suspicious of those in authority.  The actuality that Billy's head is tilt to the side adds to the perception that those who are disabled are easily confused.
Such an insinuation might intrepret the reasoning behind why Billy's father had to explain the reason of the police visit in such simple terms. and why he chose to sit so closely to him, acting as a much needed assistant.

In contrast the combined techniques of reverse editing, low angle framing of shot, and close up of the inspectors facial expression and use of high key lighting lends to the representation that of the abled bodied being more trustworthy and genuine.

Avatar- Disassembled

Production
It is reported that in 1994 James Cameron prepared for the film by writing an 80 page treatment for the film which expresses that he had planned for this film long time before it was actually produced. This meant he could apply successes of films that would be released, and could plan for his ''ultimate'' film. The actuality he had planned for this film more than 10 years prior to actually creating it expresses he was still taking inspiration from other films, and had 16 years to actually plan every aspect of the film, meaning its end result would be record-breaking.
The content of the film involved creating another world, expressing that he needed as much inspiration as he could get. he had help from renowned artists Jordu Schell and Wayne barlowe to help him create this new world and the creatures within it, which took the duration of 2 years, expressing the fact that he was taking time with this film, and ensuring that everything was to a high standard. The fact he took time expresses his patient and his careful planning to the utmost detail, which actually backs up the fact that he was able to actually produce a film that needed such money (237 million)

To ensure that a director pulls of a film like Avatar they would need to rely on inspiration as it would actually be time consuming, and with inspiration would come determination. Cameron was quoted saying that his inspiration came from every single science fiction book he read as a kid. Furthermore the actuality that it took him 15 years to actually construct this film shows that he had obviously taken inspiration from other film ideas, or other new technological inventions that would come out in the 15 years gap between the initial planning and the actual production.
The whole star-crossed love theme of 2 beings that did not mix, (similar to that of Romeo and Juliet) reverberated through the film, and Cameron stated that he got this inspiration from his successful film Titanic with Jack and Rose, 2 people from social classes, falling in love. this was similar with Avatar, as it became obvious that Cameron had done the same with this film, to ensure that he got the same success as he did with Avatar.
This is not the only time James Cameron has applied the whole star-corssed lovers theme, as he did the same with film-hit Terminator, with a person time travelling to save a lady whose child would then become a leader of a human revolution against robots in the future, in order to save her from a terminator which has also been sent back to kill her. The 2 also fall in love even though they are both from different time zones.

The film also had a implicit political meaning behind it, which could also have been one of the reasons why it took him so long to actually create this film. James Cameron was quoting saying "We know what it feels like to launch the missiles. We don't know what it feels like for them to land on our home soil, not in America'', which similar to Shakespeare expresses how he makes his point through his production without actually making anything explicit, which also conveys the genii this man really is.

The main reason why the film took such a long time was most likely due to the fact he had planned for this film in the 90's and had thought to wait for the visual effects techniques research to reach a necessary level of advancement in order for the film to be adequately portrayed. In my opinion, logically it makes sense that he would wait for this, as he was attempting to actually create a whole new world, and needed the right visual effects, and in order to do so, he needed to actually invest time into waiting for everything to advance.
Innovations include a new system for lighting massive areas like Pandora's jungle, a motion capture stage or "volume" six times larger than any previously used, and an improved method of capturing facial expressions, enabling full performance capture. To achieve the face capturing, actors wore individually made caps fitted with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors' faces; the information collected about their facial expressions and eyes is then transmitted to computers. According to Cameron, the method allows the filmmakers to transfer 100% of the actors' physical performances to their digital counterparts.Besides the performance capture data which were transferred directly to the computers, numerous reference cameras gave the digital artists multiple angles of each performance. A technically challenging scene was near the end of the film when the computer-generated Neytiri held the live action Jake in human form, and attention was given to the details of the shadows and reflected light between them.



Marketing
The first photo of the film was released on August 14, 2009,and Empire magazine released exclusive images from the film in its October issue. Cameron, producer Jon Landau, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, and Signourney Weaver appeared at a panel, moderated by Tom Rothman, at the 2009 San Diego Comic-con on July 23. Twenty-five minutes of footage was screened in Weaver and Cameron appeared at additional panels to promote the film, speaking on the 23rd and 24th respectively. James Cameron announced at the Comic-Con Avatar Panel that August 21 will be 'Avatar Day'. On this day the trailer for the film was released in all theatrical formats. The official game trailer and toy line of the film were also unveiled on this day.

The 129-second trailer was released online on August 20, 2009.The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres on October 23, 2009, then soon after premiered online on Yahoo! on October 29, 2009, to positive reviews. An extended version in IMAX 3D received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The Hollywood Reporter said that audience expectations were coloured by "the [same] establishment skepticism that preceded Titanic" and suggested the showing reflected the desire for original storytelling. The teaser has been among the most viewed trailers in the history of film marketing, reaching the first place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views. On October 30, to celebrate the opening of the first 3-D cinema in Vietnam, Fox allowed Megastar Cinema to screen exclusive 16 minutes of Avatar to a number of press. The three-and-a-half-minute trailer of the film premiered live on November 1, 2009, during a Dallas Cowboys football game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on the Diamond Vision screen, one of the world's largest video displays, and to TV audiences viewing the game on Fox. It is said to be the largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history.
The Coca-Cola Company collaborated with Twentieth Century Fox to launch a worldwide marketing campaign to promote the film. The highlight of the campaign was the website AVTR.com. Specially marked bottles and cans of Coca-Cola zero when held in front of a webcam, enabled users to interact with the website's 3-D features using augmented reality (AR) technology. The film was heavily promoted in an episode of the Fox Network series Bones in the episode "The Gamer In The Grease" (Season 5, Episode 9). Avatar star Joel David-Moore has a recurring role on the program, and is seen in the episode anxiously awaiting the release of the film. A week prior to the American release, Zoe Saldana promoted the film on Adult Swim when she was interviewed by an animated Space Ghost.


McDonald's had a promotion mentioned in television commercials in Europe called “Avatarize yourself”, which encouraged people to go to the website set up by Oddcast, and use a photograph of themselves to change into a Na'vi.

The synergy of the film involved the actual making of the Avatar game, with Cameron choosing Ubisoft, respectively, to make his game. The 2 collaborated extensively, which was then released later in 2009.

The Hunger Games-Disassembled

Production
Production Company: Lionsgate (is recognized as the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America.
Locations: The actuality that the film production company is in north America, it is probably why most of the filming locations are set in Northern sides of states, in this instance, North Carolina. Another reason would be due to the fact that there is more forests in the North, which would then aid in actually helping with the setting the scene of the film.
Insurance Company: The film was insured by Fireman's Fund's Insurance company, and due to the fact they were filming in Forests, they insisted in actually taking various risk health hazards, to ensure that there were no casualties from the likes of Bears, insects, or even venomous plants. Also the actuality that there were to be arrow's fired in the film, meant that there was also the risk of wayward arrows, ands also, a scene which resulted in a chase alongside a fast flowing river. the film was a risky one, and therefore it was a big job for the Insurance Company top actually ensure that there were not to be any injuries due to the wilderness of a setting.

Marketing
Lionsgate saw that Suzanne Collin's books had potential and therefore ensured that they were to be the film production company to produce this film, and took legal rights in 2009. The books were in early stages at this point, and so they ensured that they would advertise the book to ensure that once they made into a film, more people would be aware of it, which would ensure that it could be a successful film. This was the first move of Marketing Lionsgate did for the film, even though the marketing was indirect, it was still hyping up[ the Hunger Game name, and ensuring that in future, they would do well.

To ensure that the film engaged wit various different types of audiences they took the book's focus of romance of the story, and put the film's focus more on the character of Katniss Everdeen, who played a reluctant revolutionary hero, which can be seen through films like Harry Potter, which had also reached out to a various different audiences. the book's focused more on the romance of the characters Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Melark, and this would by and large lead to the exclusion of good audiences, so to ensure that they actually reached out to a different audiences, they ensured that the focus of the story shifted slightly. This would also ensure that the end result would result in ensuring that the film would appeal to a huge audience, and ensure they get loads of people to watch it.
This expresses that Lionsgate looked to the success of Harry Potter and somehwat analysed what they did good and picked out the fact that Harry Potter's role in the story could have been the key to the success of the actual story.

Furthermore, the actuality that there is a Female lead would engage with more girls, and ensrue that it does appeal to female's also. this can be seen with Twilight, since the lead character was a female, and they were successful. this also proves evidential to the fact that Lionsgate saw potential in the story in it searly stages, and also proves evidential that Lionsgate did research on other successful films such as Harry Potter and Twilight. The fact that there is a lead character would not act as a deterent to male audiences, as this can be seen through films like Lara Croft, Resident Evil and Salt and that male's would tend to look at the action side of the film (sterotypically), and hunger Games has a fair-share of action, which would ensure that they would appeal to a larger audience. So the content of the story itself would be the marketing of the film, and all Lionsgate would then need to focus on would to actually ensure that they bring out this content and ensure that they attract as big as an audience as they can possible get.

However, a major advertising hit was the actuality that the Lionsgate film industry chose to actually release the film in March, a period which is not known  for blockbusters, as it is after the Oscars and respective film award ceremonies. So the fact that Lionsgate targeted this time shows that they were aiming to actually take over most of the billboards, bus-sides and other advertising schemes, as they were no other major films coming out. They could dominate the advertising world of film, which is a good. They were dominating platforms, online ads, television advertisements, and billboards, and had a wide range of different advertising schemes to actually advertise the Film. This was only because they chose the date of March, and targeted this isolated period which would then, by and large ensure that they were reaching out to the wide range of audience they had targeted.

Distribution
With £4.9m, including Thursday night previews of £431,000, The Hunger Games has posted the biggest UK box-office opening of the year. But with a concurrent mammoth US opening of $153m, the third-biggest ever for that territory, Lionsgate has acted quickly to put the UK result in an appropriate context. "The Hunger Games was always destined to be this phenomenon in the US," says the distributor's UK boss, Zygi Kamasa. "Book sales have been strong in the UK, but it's not on the same scale. We hoped to be better than Twilight's UK opening, and in fact we are very nearly double that." Indeed, such is the monster the Twilight franchise subsequently became, it's easy to forget that the original film's UK debut was a relatively modest £2.51m, significantly behind the pace of its US opening of $69.6m.

Later episodes saw the gap between the two territories narrow, as UK audiences caught up. The first Twilight film went on to reach £11.21m, nearly 4.5 times its opening, and Lionsgate will be looking for a similar decent multiple with The Hunger Games. Analysis shows that schools break up for Easter on Friday, and the film's 12A certificate makes it available to younger teens. The only question is how it will be impacted by the strong competition that is imminent.

There is a great example of synergy with the Hunger Games as now the Books ensured that the film would sell and now that the film is successful it will lead to the Books sales rising, and there's always been confirmation of the Hunger game's video-game, which will also add to cause of the overall sales on this Household. Other confirmations include toys of the character Katniss Everdeen, and possible other main characters of the films. The book is a triology, and therefore it will be obvious that there will be a sequel to this success. For example, Anthony Horowitz Alex Rider books sold extremely well as books, and when the first installment of the books, Stormbreaker, was being turned into a film, people expected that there would be a system created and that eventually all the films would be created, which would then lead to a synergy of the Story, with toys being created, and game's being created, and ensure that the books sales increased again. However, the fact the book flopped lead to the whole cause dieing, ruining a great story, and a great idea. This expresses that it was somewhat important that The Hunger Games did well, meaning that the fact they actuality introduced the film in March was a good idea, since Lionsgate, who had legal rights to the story since 2009, wouldnt want to risk the publicity, which is why they probably chose such an isolated period so that they could advertise their film to the maximum.

Consumption
The film's estimated budget was around a a reasonably high 78million  dollars, but however, it created a staggering 155 dollars in first 2 days in the US alone, breaking various different records, and listing it amongst big name films such as the Dark Knight Rises, and the Harry Potter series.

Exam Question practice (OCR G322 Monarch of the Glen)

How is Age represented?

Camera

Camera Angles have been used to show authority, for example when  the teenage girl, and the man  were arguing, it was clearly he was the more dominant one, as the camera angle illuminated I'm by recording from a lower angle pointing upwards. The low angle shot would make her seem smaller and would highlight the aim of the scene, that he has the power, probably due to the age difference and the fact that shes actually a girl who is in the hands of this man as she is living in his household.

In the scene when they are all working together at the Farmland, the camera angle is in such a way that it makes all the characters in that scene seem equal. This also links to the fact that they are all working together as a team, and are all, seemingly, around the same age.

Sound

Different sounds have been used to help set the mood of different scenes. A prime example of this would be when the director shows the contrast in the different scenes of when they are working together in the Farmland, and the teenage girl planning on leaving due to the argument she had with the Man of the house. in the farm-working scene, a jolly tune has been used to actually express the jolliness of their work, and to give that sort of nice team-working atmosphere where everyone is happily working together.

However a switch to the teenager quickly expresses a sad atmosphere, with a more slow tune that helps set the tone of the scene due to her leaving. the difference in the music expresses the difference in the scenes, and therefore helps set the tone of the scenes. A clever contrast and switch between these two scenes will create more of an impact as one scene presents a more fast paced, jolly-style instrumental whereas the other scene presents a more slow-paced tune that then helps make the scene more saddening, and also helps the audience realize what is actually happening.

The Sound here shows the difference in Age through their moods, as shes a teenager, they are, in these scenes, representing her as a girl who is going through mood swings, and is sad, whereas, the elders are more jolly, due to their age, and are happily working together.

The fact she crashes gives her that amateur look, and obviously highlights the fact she is young, which is why she probably cannot drive that well. This is a major part of how her age ius represented as it is the first actions she does that represents her age. The fact that someone runs to her to ask her how she is also expresses that she is young, and needs protecting.

Mise-en-scene

The elders are presenting in a more dull, typical style clothes, with majority of them wearing similar clothes, which are a shirt and a jacket to cover it, both of which do not have eye-catching colors. This has cleverly been done to actually ensure that they are looked at a more serious light, and are presented in a more mature, elderly way. The teenager, however, wears a yellow top, which arguably, is the most eye-catching color, this paints her in a more young way, and belittles her. Her hairstyle is in a ponytail, with a hair band that is shaped like a flower, which also, makes her seem more young, and little.

The rooms thy both have represents their age in a significant way, as her room consists of bright colors, and small puffy pillows giving her that child-like look. furthermore, to aid this representations, her room consists of several teddy bears, which also make her look young, and represents her in a more child-like way. In her last scenes, we are shown her handwriting, which is written in pink, and is curly, and written in a fancy, fairy-tale story type way, which also helps represent her in a child-like way, and aids in belittling her. Her top eyelid has a form of blue makeup on, which also gives her that teen-look the directors were going for. On her bed there are also magazines which ensure that she is given that teenage look, and since it is expected of a teenage girl to have some interest in  some girly magazines, even though it is an obvious generalization.

The man however, is presented in a more sophisticated manner by placing him in a gentlemen's club, where he hosts a visitor. This shows his authority over the household due to him, which, by and large, represents his age. He greets the visitor with brandy, and even has the right Brandy vase, expressing his financial sophistication, and therefore hinting at his mo0re mature, age, and his responsible manner, as he is running the household. The room is made of wooden walls, giving it a dull-like atmosphere, however the fact that its different to the rest of the Household gives it an interesting touch.

In the scene where the Man is telling of the teenage girl, his acting helps show the age difference as he is illuminated, and he points and shakes his finger at her, giving it that typical telling-off gesture, which by large shows his superiority. There is also the scene where the girl is in the blue Car, and through ther camera angle it gives a more analysing way, as if we are analysing the girl as it semi-rotates around her.  She is repeating procedures she has been told presumably by the Man of the house who taught her how to drive. The fact she does this gives her a young look, and exposes her youthness.

The fact she crashes gives her that amateur look, and obviously highlights the fact she is young, which is why she probably cannot drive that well. This is a major part of how her age ius represented as it is the first actions she does that represents her age. The fact that someone runs to her to ask her how she is also expresses that she is young, and needs protecting

Editing

Through editing the teenage girl is represented in a fast way, showing hat her youth makes her more fast-paced person. For example when she leaves the household, right after the old lady walks in to look for her, even though they are trying to convey it in a way that she did not run away straight away, and that she had left a while ago. They make this clear through how they camera angle moves up from the wall, showing time has passed.

There is also a gap in the time when  the old lady goes to tell the Man of the house, who is busy working on the farm-lands, that the young teenager had ran away, since she arrives at the place right st the next scene.

The part when the girl is driving the car, the Camera's are focused on the other members of the scene, who are loading items on another Car, and then the loud crash is heard, showing there is no continuity error, and it gives that atmosphere that the Camera was left to roll.

Monsters Film Commentary

Despite having a budget of £5000, Gareth Edwards managed to steer Monsters to success, with a Box office of 4,118,738. Where once the point of CGI in cinema might have been to produce images of crystalline, almost architecturally detailed clarity, now its future seems to lie in smudging, smearing and making indistinct. This terrifically exciting sci-fi movie from smart young British film-maker Gareth Edwards is a case in point. His digitally created beasts, and the exotically wrecked landscape they inhabit, seem to have been created from a kind of social-realist grime. It's strictly 2D: Edwards is the anti-James-Cameron. The effects don't draw attention to themselves: tentacle-waving aliens are all part of the general, grubby absence of law and order.

The film was devised, story boarded and directed by Gareth Edwards, who also worked as the visual effects artist. Allan Niblo and James Richardson of Vertigo Films work as producers on the production. The filming equipment cost approximately $15,000, with the budget coming in at under $500,000^.The film was able to be made on such a low budget due to the use of prosumer cameras to capture digital video rather than the more expensive 35mm film. Any settings featured in the film were real locations often used without permission asked in advance, and the extras were just people who happened to be there at the time.
 Edwards had the idea for the film while watching some fishermen struggling to haul in their net and imagining a monster. He had the idea to make a monster movie set "years after most other monster movies end, when people aren't running and screaming, but life is going on" and "where a giant, dead sea monster is considered completely normal." He pitched the idea to Vertigo Films, and they asked Edwards to watch a film called In Search of a Midnight Kiss which starred Scoot McNairy and had been made for $15,000. As the chemistry between Edwards's two characters was so important, he wanted a real couple, and luckily McNairy's then-girlfriend (and now wife) Whitney Able is an actress, and joined the project.


The film was shot in Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Texas in the United States, over three weeks. For about 90% of the filming the crew comprised seven people transported in one van: Ian Maclagan (sound operator), Jim Spencer (line producer), Verity Oswin the Mexican 'fixer', Edwards, a driver, and Able and McNairy, the stars. As the low-budget production didn't run to a camera dolly, Edwards made do by sticking the camera out of the van window, cushioned on some bundled-up clothing.
As most of the extras were non-actors who were persuaded to be in the film, their action was improvised. "As a result of all this random behavior, the idea of scripting the film went out of the window. Instead I had a loose paragraph describing the scene with just the main points that had to be hit; how the actors carried this out was left up to them." Each night during the shooting period, the editor Colin Goudie and his assistant Justin Hall would download the day's footage so the memory sticks could be cleared and ready for the next day's filming. While new footage was being captured, the previously captured footage was being edited back at the hotel in which the production team was staying.

Back in the UK, Edwards had over 100 hours of unique, ad-libbed footage (rather than repeated takes of scripted scenes) to edit into a coherent film. Edwards did all the special effects himself using off-the-shelf Adobe software, Zbrush and Autodesk 3D Mask. The first assembly was over four hours long, but this was trimmed to 94 minutes after eight months of editing. Once the film was locked, Edwards had five months to create all 250 visual effects shots, a process he undertook in his bedroom. "[I was] churning out about two shots a day, which was fine until I got to the first creature shot. Then suddenly two months went by and I still hadn't finished a single creature shot; it turned out to be the hardest part of the whole process." Due to time constraints, the sound effects had to be produced before the special effects were undertaken. Edwards claimed that the advances in computer technology in recent years made it possible for him to create the films visual effects on such a low budget; "You can go in the shop now and you can buy a laptop that's faster than the computers they made Jurrasic Park on".

Monsters has been widely, and with good reason, compared to Neill Blomkamp's apartheid satire District 9, which also imagined extra-terrestrials in a post-awe spirit. These dirty, ramshackle creatures were just another species of the dispossessed, to be feared and hated by the white overclass. Edwards's movie imagines that Nasa received news of alien life out in the galaxy, sent up a space probe to recover some of its seeds and spores, but that the returning craft crashed in Mexico, where the aliens came to grow and roam, turning that entire nation into a bio-hazard zone. Could the panicky US authorities have deliberately allowed the alien-bearing spacecraft to crash down Mexico way, thus keeping the yucky immigrant aliens well out of American territory? Either way, the situation is now a Swiftian cartoon: the rich nation fearing its poorer neighbour. It is here that photojournalist Kaulder, played by Scoot McNairy, finds himself on assignment, snapping the aliens and their human victims. He is furious to be ordered to "babysit" his boss's beautiful, vulnerable daughter Samantha (Whitney Able), accompanying her through the ultra-dangerous alien zone to the US border. Inevitably, their relationship begins to change. The chemistry between these two characters, as expressed by Edwards himself was purely based on the actuality that they are a married couple in real.

Edwards went for the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize to tell his tale of two Americans crossing through an infected zone, six years after tentacled aliens, with a fondness for wrapping themselves around fighter planes, took up residence.

Photographer Andrew (Scoot McNairy), who admits he can get $50,000 for a picture of a dead child and nothing for a live, smiling one, is charged with escorting his boss’s shellshocked daughter (Whitney Able) safely across the US border. There’s a will-they-or-won’t-they romantic element that Edwards keeps dangling. Neither is particularly sympathetic.

What’s waiting for them at home isn’t security but further doubt, making the movie a rejoinder to the consoling structure of a War of the Worlds, whereby aliens appear, wreak havoc and leave us hugging our families. Here, they linger, and despite skirmishes in the mist, their main function is to tell us something about ourselves.

Although calling Monsters a sci-fi film isn't quite right, it's more a romantic road movie that just happens to have aliens in it. Think a cross between Cloverfield and Before Sunset and you're somewhere close.

A few years in the future, much of Mexico is under quarantine after a NASA probe crash-landed and released giant octopus-like lifeforms. With a huge wall separating the country from the US, a photojournalist is instructed by his boss to get his daughter back across the border and to safety.

However,  what you’ll remember most about the movie when it’s over, though, are the performances of Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, a real-life couple playing two people who have never met before the story begins. McNairy is Andrew Kaulder, a photojournalist for a major news publisher (called New World, wink wink) who gets a call while finishing up a job in Mexico: He is to escort his boss’ daughter Samantha (Able), who’s been vacationing in the region, back to the U.S., where she is soon to be married. That’s easier said than done, since a large part of the country has been walled off for the past six years, ever since a NASA probe crashed there bearing extraterrestrial stowaways. Now, enormous, tentacled creatures roam the quarantined area, requiring travelers south of the “infected zone” to take ferries to America. It wouldn’t be a movie if things were that simple for Andrew and Sam, who eventually find themselves forced to make the trip directly through that zone, traveling by boat, car and on foot through jungles and up rivers with the help of assorted strangers.

While it’s in the nature of a movie like this that its central duo will inevitably face problems and obstacles from the start of their journey, Monsters doesn’t succumb to predictability. The complications are never quite what we think they’ll be, and Edwards keeps the tension humming by subverting expectations at numerous turns. Also by keeping the monsters largely offscreen—which is not really a tease, since we get a pretty good look at one in the opening sequence, which helps us imagine that they’re lurking just out of sight in any number of moments later in the story. Eventually, one of the giants does take center stage, in a scene that’s chilling and awe-inspiring—and, once again, doesn’t pay off the way you might anticipate it will.

Throughout, McNairy and Able are wholly believable as two people navigating their way through a perilous situation, and in the midst of the suspense, Edwards finds time for plenty of quiet moments allowing the audience to get to know them better as they get to know each other. The spectre of potential romance raises its head, of course, and it’s handled gracefully by both the characters and the filmmaker. Despite Sam being engaged, we wind up wanting these two to wind up together in the end—in part because that means that both will have survived.

Monsters has a few concerns in common with District 9 (set as it is in a region from which “aliens” frequently trek into the U.S.), but it’s not nearly as overtly political. Mostly, Edwards utilizes the Mexican settings (actually shot largely in Guatemala, Belize and Costa Rica) for their unfamiliarity, and the same goes for those locals pressed into service as performers, who add much to the overall authenticity, as well as moments of humanity and humor. The jungle locations are both beautiful and foreboding, and the final reels play out amidst a landscape of startling, evocative desolation. Monsters  may not be a consistent scarefest, but it engages the emotions so well that its frightening moments, when they do arrive, are all the more potent.

Exam setup

 Section A
-Textual analysis and representation

Analysis of 4 areas
1)Camera angles, shots, movements, and composition.
2)Mis-en-scene
3)Editing
4)Sound

The Mis-en-scene includes everything on camera, which includes actors, scenery, props. Editing is when parts are cut, and altered to make the scenes better. Editing can aid in making a film better, as it can make it more relevant. Good editing can ensure that scenes come across how they are wanted. Sound is an important aspect, as it aids the film, and helps set the tone of the scenes. However, a film without sound can also do just as well, for example the Artist which has recently won an award in the recent Golden Globes. A film without sound can also set a tone, and deliver a message, however, sound is a really important part in a film. All these aspects merged together can be combined to make a film top class.

Representation is extremely important, as the way a character proposes themselves can help portray them in the way they are wanted to be portrayed. This can also help set the scene, so a characters clothing is extremely important. For example someone in a businesses suit can set a different tone to someone that is wearing rags. Representation is important as it aids in ensuring how people judge others. actions can also help how someone represents their character, for example the way they walk can give an insight to how they are. The personality of someone is also a key aspect in how someone represents themselves. This can give an insight to the persons attitude, and the way someone behaves, or give an insight to their background. The movements of a person can also tell you how they are, for example if someone constantly looks back, it will give the impression that they are paranoid. Facial expressions also give an insight to how a person is, for example if someone also has a sad face, they could be seen as being a depressed person. The walk of a character can make you assume something, for example if someone is walking very forcefully towards you, it will give you the impression of what they are about to do. Representation give an insight to how a person is, and is very helpful in a character as it sets a tone, and helps the audience connect to the character, and by large the film better. The way someone represent themselves through cosmetics also gives an insight to what type of person there are, and what kind of social class they have, or they think they have. A clearer representation can mean that the audience will more connected to the film, and ore connected to the character, so it is important for a film to do well in representing there characters really well.

People are categorized through many different groups, for example someone can be categorized due to their ethnicity, and how their skin complexion, as for example if someone if someone is black, a stereotype could be that they are associated to crime. The sexuality of someone can mean that they get judged differently, and the class status and who someone hangs around with determines what kind of class you are in, what your social demographic is, and ultimately what type of person you are. If you are working class, you will hang with people that work, and do different things to those who are probably employed. A big one is religion, as what someone believes is a huge one, as it shows what type of person they are. The gender of a character is also very important, as some people believe that a male is more dominant than a female. Disabilities is a big one, as people are very judgemental about this, a person with a disability will tend to get more sympathy, helping viewers to get attached to the character more. There is also a divide in a country, for example people that are nothern english have this rivalry with everyone else, accent can distinguish this.