2. PRODUCTION COMPANY: WARP FILMS
• Warp Films are renowned for their prolific and well acclaimed directors in the social realism genre,
such as Shane Meadows, the director of ‘This Is England’ and Paddy Considine who wrote the
award winning short film ‘Dog Altogether.’ Shane Meadows also worked with Film 4 in ‘This Is
England’, which proved a great success. This success will hopefully be mirrored throughout our
production, as Film 4 will be the co-producers of our production.
• Practicality-wise they would also be a suitable company to use, due to the fact that they are based
in England. Furthermore, the fact that they are independent suggests production of our product
may be fairly cheap and as 4 independent producers, we do not have a high budget in terms of
production. This low budget is also a convention of the genre in terms of producing a social
realism film.
• Warp Films are also horizontally integrated. Therefore, they will be able to provide a verity of
content for the production, such as the soundtrack through the sister record label. Again, this will
benefit our production financially as a completely different company will not have to be paid for to
produce the soundtrack.
• Warp Films also pride themselves on the fact that, when making a film, “its about not worrying
about commercial influences.” This would attract our audience to a great extent due to the fact that
they are a niche market and do not necessarily get attracted by mass market, Hollywood
production. It also allows us to add our own auteur-like approach to the production, without the
constraints of mainstream and commercial influences.
3. CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY: FILM 4
PRODUCTIONS
• To maintain the British independence of our production, we thought Film 4 would be an
appropriate and high quality company to work in conjunction with Warp Films. Like Warp
Films, they have impressive experience in the social realism/drama genre and have
proved successful at it in the past.
• Another feature of Film 4 Productions that encouraged us to use them is the fact that they
have in fact previously worked alongside Warp Films. This synergy has proved
successful in multiple films such as ‘Berbian Sound Studio’, ‘Bunny and the Bull’,
‘Donkey Punch’, ‘Four Lions’ and many more, all films proving a success, particularly
‘Four Lions’, on its opening weekend generating the highest site average of all the new
releases, £5,292, making a total of £609,000.
• Having tow co-production companies working in conjunction with each other also provides
extra finance regarding the economic-side of our production. This will assist us to a great
extent due to the low-budget of our production. Another feature that could assist our
production regarding finance is the help of regional funding
• This reinforced our assurance that the two companies would work well co-producing the
production together.
4. DISTRIBUTORS: PATHE
• We chose Pathe to be the distributors for our production. As a distributing company, they
are well known throughout the genre, renowned for distributing successful social realism
films such as ‘Adulthood.’
• Furthermore, Pathe and Film 4 Productions have previously worked successfully together
on a number of successful films, such as ‘127 Hours’, ‘Touching the Void’, ‘Suffragette’
and ‘The Scouting Book for Boys.’ This reinforces the confidence I have in the two
companies working in conjunction with each other. Also, in all these films, Pathe were the
distributor and Film 4 Productions were the co-producers, emphasizing their strengths in
both areas of producing and distributing films.
5. “CANDY STRIPPED” RELEASE PATTERN
• Similarly to many independently made social realism films, as a result of our low budget, we will rely
heavily on the impact of the below-the-line marketing technique of social media to help market our
production. The Facebook page for our production will hopefully attract a number of members of our
audience. On this Facebook page, we will blog information regarding the time and location of
screenings around the UK. However, the production will not be shown in the majority of the cinemas
throughout the UK, thus we are dependant, again, on word of mouth. This is due to the fact that the
more people who hear about it will go and see it, meaning sales from the cinema will increase,
therefore more cinemas will want to screen the production due to its increasing popularity.
• Another way in which our audience will be targeted through the use of social media is through the
use of Web2.0. Due to the A-B income bracket of the target audience, they will have a fairly large
amount of disposable income. Therefore, they will be able to afford any new technical products on
the market, making it easier for them to be attracted to the production through digital distribution. This
would work alongside Gauntlett’s theory of audiences of a higher income bracket being more active
and therefore participating in the marketing/promotion of our product. This could lead to our niche
product having as much success as some of the mass media productions, as seen in ‘Adulthood’,
distributed by Pathe. Furthermore, this would highlight the way in which the distributor, Pathe, adapt
power over the audience. This idea was emphasised by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in their
award winning book Wikinomics, which focuses on the idea that “businesses can collaborate
creatively with their customers to succeed in the age of Wikipedia.”
6. “CANDY STRIPPED” RELEASE PATTERN
• Our target market of A-B income bracket would not be attracted by marketing techniques
such as the creation of a hyper-diegetic world, due to their age and high level of
sophistication. This bodes well for us as a production team, as it allows us to focus on
marketing and promotion such as promotion posters and creating trailers, highlighting the
ideologies and conventions (both met and not met), which will attract our audience to a
much greater effect.
• As a group, we are aware that the release pattern for our production will be limited due to
the releasing of our products in arthouse cinemas, as a result of pour low budget.
Therefore, we will rely heavily on critical success, as well as audience responses. Both
these are key features in any British and independently produced film.
• On both our Twitter and Facebook page, Q and A’s will be conducted, communicating with
the target audience and answering questions regarding the production. This will hopefully
act as a great marketing tool, as it will stimulate the intellect of our target audience, as
well as giving then social interaction and information. This should gain great publicity for
the film.
7. COMPARISON TO THE PRODUCTION OF SHANE
MEADOWS’ “THIS IS ENGLAND”
• One of the key aspects Shane Meadows features in all of his productions is the fact that he
uses nonprofessional and local actors to feature in him films. A great example of this was
Thomas Turgoose. He also employs close family and friends to help create the film, for
example, his partner, Louise Meadows, was the Casting Director and Co-Producer of the film.
We mirrored this aspect in the sense that we chose a close friend and non-professional actor to
star in our production. This not only added to the realism and stripped-back nature of our
production, as Charles Pickering is not famous, thus our audience are able to relate to the
character without having any pre-conceived ideas/opinions of the actor. Another one of the
reasons of the great success of Warp Films, including ‘This Is England’, is the strong
relationship Shane meadows has with Mark Herbert, another producer of Warp Films. This is
similar to the relationship our production group has, as we are all close friends, making the
production process a lot easier. The same applies to those who were involved in the
soundtrack, with Joey Higham, Jake Bird and Omar Kahn all being good friends.
• ‘This Is England’ also bases the narrative of the films around the great social issue of
gang/skinhead culture, something that dominated a large majority of Midlands during the
1980’s. In our production, we base the narrative on social issues such as alcoholism,
depression and fatherless children. Although these issues are different, we portray them in a
way that our sophisticated A-B income bracket audience would appreciate.
8. FITTING THE “AIDA” SCALE
• Awareness:
• As a group, we believe that through both below and above the line
marketing, we would have made our target audience well aware of the
production. Facebook and Twitter have over 1284000000 users between
them worldwide, with 15 million Twitter users in the UK alone. Due to the fact
that our target audience have an income bracket of A-B, their disposable
income will allow them o purchase devices such as computers, iPads and
Tablets, allowing them to become aware of “Candy Stripped.” Furthermore,
due to the fact that we also advertised our product in local newspapers
around the midlands areas, they would also have been made aware by this.
9. • Interest:
• Interest amongst our target audience would have been generated through
the Q and A’s with us, the creators, directors and producers of the
production. Our active audience are able to communicate with people
involved in the creation of the film, giving them information (Uses and
Gratification Theory) about the production. This would have caused a great
amount of interest amongst the target audience. Furthermore, they would
have also conversed about the information with their friends (social
interaction), thus promotion the production via word of mouth, another below-
the-line marketing technique.
10. • Desire:
• Our target audience will begin to desire the product when/if the product has reviews published
in broadsheet newspapers. This would encourage them to desire the product due to the fact
that the production has been written about in a broadsheet article, which will reinforce the fact
that the production is in fact generating interest amongst journalists and in a broadsheet
newspaper, which is targeted at a sophisticated and active target audience. They will also be
attracted by the fact that it is an independently made production. However, the target audience
will not be heavily influenced by the fact that the journalist is an opinion leader. The fact that
they are an active audience will allow them to make the judgement on whether they negatively
or positively. For example, the review may imply that the production promotes particular
ideologies, and our active audience will therefore desire viewing the film, to assess whether it is
in fact promoting these ideologies, or whether it challenges them in such a way only an active
audience would recognise. This is an example of negative reading by the target audience. On
the other hand, in a positive reading, the article would highlight how the production challenges
certain stereotypes, and from the previous internet conversations with the creators, they will
agree that the production seems to challenge these stereotypes, thus desire to see the film.
11. • Action:
• Our audience will take action in going and viewing the product due to the influence of
techniques such as YouTube videos, with clips such as different aspects of the production
process, such as behind the scenes footage and discussions between the producers and
directors. From this they will gain not only entertainment, but information behind the
creation of the film. Due to the fact that they are active they will be well attracted by these
features and therefore desire the product. Videos such as our group discussion regarding
the production will be posted both on Facebook and YouTube, both below the line
marketing techniques.
