2. Pre-production issues for the production
company?
• Estimated budget was $6,500,000.
• Despite the movie's $6.5 million budget, Fox
Searchlight Pictures only paid around
$400,000 to acquire its United States
distribution rights.
• Shot in 25 days.
• Steve McQueen changed the location to New
York because he couldn't get the money to
make the movie in the UK.
3. Production Companies
• See-Saw Films
• Film4 (presents)
• UK Film Council (presents)
• Lipsync Productions (in association with)
• Alliance Films (in association with)
• HanWay Films (in association with)
• Momentum Pictures (uncredited)
4. Distributors
• Alliance Films (2011) (Canada) (theatrical)
• Fox Searchlight Pictures (2011) (USA)
(theatrical)
• Momentum Pictures (2011) (UK) (theatrical)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2012)
(USA) (DVD) and Blu-ray
• Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment
(2012) (UK) (DVD) and Blu-ray
5. • Momentum's most successful theatrical releases include the
Oscar, BAFTA and BIFA-winning The King's Speech, Amélie,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lost in Translation,
Milk, Let the Right One In, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Law
Abiding Citizen and P.S. I Love You.
6. • Alliance Films was a major Canadian motion picture distribution/production
company, which had served Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain.
• Alliance Films also operates the following international subsidiaries:
• Momentum Pictures in the UK
• Aurum Producciones in Spain
• Though they began to sell of their smaller companies and on May 28, 2012,
Entertainment confirmed their bid to purchase Alliance Films from Goldman Sachs
Group, similar to the purchase of Maple Pictures a year prior.
• On January 9, 2013, Entertainment One (eOne) completed transaction of Alliance
Films for $225 million and will merge Alliance Films and all of their subsidiaries
under the Entertainment One brand.
• Alliance Films also produced ‘Insidious’ the horror film made in 2012 where
Momentum Pictures were the distributor.
7. Casting
• Michael Fassbender as Brandon Sullivan
• Carey Mulligan as Sissy Sullivan
• James Badge Dale as David
• Nicole Beharie as Marianne
• Lucy Walters as Woman on Subway
• Alex Manette as Steven
• Actors Carey Mulligan and James Badge Dale joined the
cast in December 2010 to play the little sister and boss.
• The producer was Iain Canning who previously worked
on the film ‘The Kings Speech’ as well as ‘Hunger’. He
also co-founded See-saw Films with Emile Sherman.
• Abi Morgan who previously wrote ‘The Iron Lady’ co-
wrote the script with Steve McQueen for the film.
8. Michael Fassbender
• Michael Fassbender was in Steve McQueen’s ‘Hunger’ in 2008 and he was
the first and only choice for the lead role.
• Fassbender is half German and half Irish and played Bobby Sands a RIA
activist/ terrorist in ‘Hunger’, the film itself caused some mixed reviews
due to the horrific nature of the film, nether the less McQueen chose him
again for the lead role of ‘Shame’.
• Fassbender was a serious contender for an Academy Award for Best Actor
in a Leading Role, but he was not nominated, and according to various
sources his full-frontal nudity and depiction of sexual encounters inspired
voters “to fantasize, and not actually vote.”
9. Steve McQueen
• McQueen is a British artist and film director raised in west London. He did an A level art at
Hammersmith and West London College, then studied art and design at Chelsea College
of Art and Design and then fine art at Goldsmiths College where he first became interested
in film.
• His takes on a Neo-noir, Experimental and Social realism style in his films.
• His 2008 feature film ‘Hunger’, about the 1981 Irish hunger strike, premiered at
the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and was his first successful film, his second being
‘Shame’.
• His third film is being released in 2013 called ‘12 Years a Slave’ and starring
Fassbender, Brad Pitt and Benedict Cumberbatch based on the 1853
autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped in
Washington D.C in 1841 and sold into slavery. He worked on plantations in the
state of Louisiana for 12 years before his release.
10. Issues for the production company
during production phase?
• Production was scheduled to begin on location in New York in January though Fassbender
later commented in an interview that he just began shooting his scenes in early March.
• Avy Kaufman the casting director had a unique assignment from director Steve McQueen,
who wanted top-quality actors even for tiny parts -- like Brandon's fly-by-night sex partners.
The actresses, of course, also had to meet certain “physical requirements.”
• A majority of the film was shot in and around Chelsea. The office scenes were filmed in the
Citigroup Center and the hotel scenes and nightclub scene were shot at the Standard Hotel in
Greenwich Village.
• The sex scene with Michael Fassbender and Amy Hargreaves pressed against the glass of a
room window in Manhattan's The Standard hotel was actually filmed above a busy street
during the day. Spectators watched while the two actors, in the nude, smiled and waved at
them from the hotel room above between takes. Since the Standard Hotel opened in New
York in 2009, it has become notorious for its guests engaging in public sexual activity in front
of their rooms' windows, sometimes for the entertainment of audiences on the street or in
the High Line park below the building. This phenomenon has been documented in articles in
New York Magazine, The New York Post, and The Observer, among other publications.
11. Camera work
• Certain scenes would have proven to be especially difficult, for example in one
scene the camera follows Brandon jogging through the streets of New York at
actual rush hour continuously without break for about 3 minutes.
• You need a permit to film in any major city and have to pay £100-£300 everyday,
judging by the lack of cuts in the three minutes and the fact that it was filmed at
rush hour means that they would have to repeat the shot quite a lot, adding to the
cost of the filming altogether. Which in effect can cause aggravation for the crew
though no complaints were made.
• McQueen believes in realism in his films, to such an extent that most of the scenes
in ‘Shame’ and his earlier film ‘Hunger’ were improvised or shot in real time. This
can cause problems for the actors involved as they may have to retake a lot or is
very difficult to replicate one scene
12. Convergence and new
technologies
• The film used Dolby Digital for the digital
technology but it wasn’t important or very
significant to the story or the audience as the
story does not need special effects to impress
the audience.
13. Impact for marketing an
consumptions of distribution
• Release dates:
• Italy 4 September 2011 (Venice Film Festival) – Premiere
• Canada 11 September 2011 (Toronto International Film Festival)
• USA 7 October 2011 (New York Film Festival)
• UK 14 October 2011 (BFI London Film Festival)
• USA 22 October 2011 (Austin Film Festival)
• UK 13 January 2012
• The first releases where in famous film festivals, then at a later date in normal
cinemas mainly in Europe and America.
• The film was distributed to only digital cinemas.
• It also went onto DVD and Blu-ray.
• Average cost for the DVD was around $20 or £18.
• The highest gorss was $4,000,304 in America on the 22nd April 2012
• The official website has no information at all about the film, which effected the
advertisement of the film
