"The Matrix is a 1999 American-Australian science fictionaction film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishbourne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. It depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix", created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Computer programmer "Neo" learns this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the "dream world"."
The Matrix (1999 film) n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 11th November 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix
Producers: Village Roadshow Pictures
"Village Roadshow Pictures is a leading Australian co-producer and co-financier of major Hollywood motion pictures, having released over 85 films since its establishment in 1986 including, as co-productions with Warner Bros., The Great Gatsby, The Matrix Trilogy, The Sherlock Holmes franchise, I Am Legend, the Cats & Dogs film series, the Ocean’s series, The Happy Feet franchise, Mystic River, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Get Smart, Sex and the City 2, Gran Torino, The Lego Movie and American Sniper. The films in the Village Roadshow library have achieved 24 number one U.S. box office openings and received 37 Academy Award nominations, 17 Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards."
Village Roadshow Pictures n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 11th November 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Roadshow_Pictures
Productions of note include:
•The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002) - $100 million budget - $7.1 million box office
•Sherlock Holmes (2009) - $90 million budget - $254 million box office
•Catwoman (2004) - $100 million budget - $82.1 million box office
•The Invasion (2007) - $65 million budget - $40.2 million box office
•Edge of Tomorrow (2014) - $178 million budget - $370.5 million box office
•San Andreas (2015) - $110 million budget - $474 million box office
•Ghostbusters (2016) - $145 million budget - $229 million box office
•The Phantom (1996) - $45 million budget - $17.3 million box office
Distributors: Warner Bros. & Roadshow Entertainment
"Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (often referred to as Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. and also shortened to WB) is an American entertainment company owned by Time Warner, headquartered in Burbank, California. Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America."
Warner Bros. n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 11th November 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros.
Roadshow Entertainment (formerly Roadshow Home Video) is a division of the Australian media company Village Roadshow (formerly Roadshow Home Video and Roadshow Entertainment). Notable releases include First Blood, Mad Max, Gallipoli, and The Terminator. Their first release was Scanners. Like Rigby-CIC Video (defunct), RCA/Columbia Pictures/Hoyts Video and CEL Home Video (half of population replaced), Roadshow Entertainment is an independent video distributor in Australia and New Zealand.
Roadshow Entertainment. n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 11th November 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadshow_Entertainment
"The story sees Bond pitted against the global criminal organisation Spectre and against their leader; Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who is revealed to be Bond's stepbrother as he attempts to thwart his plan to launch a global surveillance network, and discovers Spectre and Blofeld were behind the events of the previous three films.
It was directed by Sam Mendes as his second James Bond film following Skyfall, with a screenplay written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth. It is distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures. With a budget around $245 million, it is the most expensive Bond film and one of the most expensive films ever made."
Spectre (2010 film) n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 7th November 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(2015_film)
Producers: Eon Productions
Eon Productions an abbreviation of (Everything or Nothing) is an American-owned British film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Danjaq LLC, the holding company responsible for the copyright and trademarks to the Bond characters and elements on screen.
Eon Productions n.d. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 7th November 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon_Productions
Productions of note include:
•Dr. No (1962) - $1.1 billion budget - $59.5 million box office
•Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - $7.2 billion budget - $116 million box office
•The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - $14 billion budget - $185.4 million box office
•Moonraker (1979) - $34 million budget - $210.3 million box office
•For Your Eyes Only (1981) - $28 million budget - $194.9 million box office
•The Living Daylights (1987) - $40 million budget - $191.2 million box office
•The World Is Not Enough (1999) - $135 million budget - $361,832400 box office
•Casino Royale (2006) - $150 million budget - $599 million box office
Distributors: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer & Columbia Pictures
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Once the largest, most glamorous, and most revered film studio, MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California. It is one of the world's oldest film studios.
Columbia Pictures is an American production and distribution studio of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the JapaneseconglomerateSony. It is one of the leading film studios in the world, a member of the so-called Big Six. It was one of the so-called Little Three among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.
The studio released its first feature film in August 1922. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name in 1924 and went public two years later. The name is derived from "Columbia", a national personification of the United States, which is used as the studio's logo.
In its early years a minor player in Hollywood, Columbia began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra. It's the world's fifth largest major film studio.
Timeline:
0:00 - 0:06 - Black screen. Words 'The dead' written in Courier font in white fade into middle of screen. Words 'are alive' fade onto screen afterwards in same for and colour. There is a sting as each phrase appears, and cheering noises fade in, before the source of the sound is revealed in the next shot.
0:06 - 0:16 - Visual starts on a beat of music, shows giant skull in the centre of the shot. Camera immediately starts to pan round the skull and shows the setting. Loud music and people cheering, as well as bright, high-key lit scene make the skull seem more comical than previously implied.
0:16 - 0:27 - Pan follows behind skeleton showing busy street. The words ‘Mexico City’ fade into the middle of the shot, in the same Courier white font and size and before. After 4 seconds the words fade out. The shot begins to drop to street levels as the words ‘Day of the Dead’ fade into the same place, and then out again after 4 seconds.
0:27 - 0:43 - Shot moves slowly forward following the crowd as it reaches eye level. A man wearing white becomes obvious to the viewer as he is walking towards the camera, opposite to everyone else.
0:43 - 0:50 - The shot follows the man, who walks past a couple standing on the side of the road. They look at the man in white, who starts to walk out of frame.
0:50 - 1:24 - The tracking shot follows the couple walking through the crowd. It is mainly a mid shot but the camera moves in for a close up at 1:02 allowing the viewer to see his eyes underneath the mask.
1:24 - 1:27 - The couple walk out of shot briefly as the camera centres on a poster outside a hotel. There is a cymbal roll sound as the poster is shown before it continues to track the couple up some stairs. Despite the opening of this film supposedly being a one-take there were a few hidden transitions as they filmed in a number of locations. This moment when there is no one in shot for a couple of seconds is most likely a ‘smart transition’, used to hide the fact that there is one.
1:27 - 1:49 - The tracking shot follows the couple up stairs and through a hotel to the lift. This location is still as crowded as the street but is darker and has more low-key lighting.
1:49 - 2:14 - The couple stand still in the lift as it goes up. The lift is quite dark in comparison to the street. Sound effects that you would usually hear in a lift are heard in this, such as a ‘ding’ as they reach the top and the doors moving. The music changes from the bright trumpet sounds to more soulful vocals as they are in the lift, however the upbeat drums still continue. The couple seem to briefly dance to this new music before the leaving the lift, suggesting the music is non-diagetic.
2:14 - 2:23 This shot follows them leaving the lift and walking towards a room in the hotel. It is still busy with people and a large group walk past, in between the couple and the camera. At 2:22 a man crosses, his shoulder almost entirely obscuring the shot. This could be another transition as there are no people in shot.
2:23 - 2:58 - The shot follows the couple into the room and the man goes out of shot as it follows the woman lying on the bed. She then says the first line of the film ‘Where are you going?’ as she looks out of shot.
2:58 - 3:03 - The camera quickly pans round to show the man in a different suit and about to climb out the window. There is another moment with no people in shot as it pans across the room and this could be another transition, as the male actor then has had a complete costume change.
3:03 - 3:53 - This continues the tracking shot as the male actor climbs out the window and walks along the sides of buildings. The camera tracks him from in front, then moves above to give a high-angle shot as he jumps over the gap between two buildings and the moves behind him to follow him walking. The upbeat drum rhythm heard thought the scene continues, but as he climbs out the window the iconic James Bond theme begins playing over this. The two tracks fit together, raising the question of whether the sound is diagetic or non-diagetic.
3:53 - 4:03 - The male actor speeds up his walking and ducks behind a wall. The camera continues to move forward as he raises his gun and shows his point of view; men in the window of the next building. There is then a cut to inside the building, signalling the start of the main action.
In order to amass quantitative data on the Action genre, we have referred to the BFI’s 2016 Statistical Yearbook as it is far beyond the scope of any survey that we could ever hope to conduct. In the BFI’s own words, ‘The Statistical Yearbook presents in one place all the available statistics on UK film and the UK film industry.’
Analysis
As is clear from the survey, the Action genre (our genre) was one of the most successful genres in 2016:
•The Action genre grossed more money than any other genre (£393.9 million), which amounts to 30.3% of all money grossed at the box office.
•It was the fourth most common genre of film to be made in 2016, amounting to 9.5% of all releases.
•SPECTRE was the top performing Action film of 2016.
•Five of the ten highest grossing ‘12A’ classified films were Actions.
Significance
Action films are undoubtedly very popular with the British public; there is clearly a lot of demand for them. However, we need to bear in mind that the majority of the most successful Action films of 2016 were a lot more ‘mainstream’ than the film we intend to produce. SPECTRE was the most successful Action of 2016; however we will not be able to make a film of the same budget and production value as this, so we will have to really consider how we are going to cater for our target audience.
The fact that the most successful Action of 2016 was given a ‘12A’ certificate, and that five of the top ten ‘12A’ classified films were Actions, is potentially useful information; it serves to support our provisional decision to target our film at people aged 12-24 years old.
The Registrar General's Social Scale
The Registrar General’s Social Scale is the way the British Government defines the population through their occupation:
A benefit of the Registrar General’s Social Scale is that it can help companies to target audiences. However, the scale has been criticised for being both crude and rigid.
Significance
Out of all the films that feature in this portion of the survey, the production we have in mind has most in common with Avengers: Age of Ultron, which was the most popular film amongst members of the audience from the C1 category. With this in mind, broadly speaking, we believe our film would be targeted at Bs and C1s.
