USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY

Uses and gratification theory suggests that an audience will actively seek out media they wish to consume, based on certain criteria – the audience is active, not passive​

What they wish to consume is based on 4 specific gratifications:​

• Escapism​
• Personal Identity​
• Personal relationships​
• Information​

Conglomerates aim for 4 quadrant audiences, so aim to fulfil as many of these as possible in their productions​

Indie productions on the other hand, do not always aim to gratify the audience as much, so only some of these will be fulfilled​

This isn't to say that the audience is not viewed as active, only that smaller audience will find appeal in indie productions​

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Uses and Gratifications Applied - Jurassic World from harriet Barlow

Uses and Gratifications Applied - Tyrannosaur from harriet Barlow

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GENRE EG2: This Is England

(SAM'S WORK)

Production: Big Arty Productions, EM Media, Film Four, Optimum Releasing, Screen Yorkshire, UK Film Council, Warp Films
Distribution (US): IFC Films, Netflix, Red Envelope Entertainment, IFC First Take
Distribution (UK): Optimum Releasing
Lighting: attempts to reproduce naturalistic lighting for example at the beginning in Sean's house, in the school and in the cafe are lit to make them look as naturalistic as possible.
Setting: often on location in urban areas somewhere in the north of England to add a strong sense of realism.
Hand held shots: making the audience feel they are part of the action

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BoxOffice: $329k(US) /  £3,1m(UK) / $8,2m(Worldwide)
This Is England made around 10 more in the UK than in the US. It didn't perform well in the US is because the choice of the central protagonist (young boy, ginger) which doesn't make it glomerate and something Working Title [WT] would never do. Also the choice of cast (no A-list stars) and their accent makes it hard to understand for a lot of viewers and the social realist genre doesn't appeal to the US film market.


This Is England are rarely funded by the studio's system since they don't make much in Box Office, so they are often funded independently or through organisations such as the Film Council, National Lottery, Channel4. 

In addition, the film was a critical success winning many awards, and also a commercial success making over $8m on a cost of $1.5m

This is England is an Indie, low financed and social realist film. Being a social realism, the film tackles various issues within society, and looks at the points of view of different generations and social classes from the same time the movie was set. However, the movie was made around 2006, because certain political parties such as BNP and UKIP started to form in the early 2000's and there was a lot of controversy around them due to their racial policies and views. Because the movie is set in the 1980's it connotes how culturally diverse England was at that time, it therefore makes the viewer aware of the issues surrounding immigrants and certain people extreme view on them.

The movie addresses the culture and attitudes of the 'skinheads' and the English Nationalists and the consequent effects that this has on the various characters throughout the film. 

Narrative

Shane uses Todorov's narrative theory to make the movie even more realistic.
Equilibrium: Sean lives with his mother and his father was killed in the war which makes him very upset and in addition he gets bullied at school.
Disruption: Sean meets Woody and his gang, they befriend him and enrolled him into the gang and giving him a 'skinhead' uniform.
Recognition: Sean joins the gang around Combo and gets drawn in to the racist national front and their cirminal activities
Repair: Sean witnesses the violent attack on Milky and realises that Combo is a vicious racist bully
Restoration of a new equilibrium: The new equilibrium is that Sean rejects the racial ideology of Combo, symbolically throwing the flag into the sea.

Representation

The opening sequence is important is representing the social, historical and cultural context of the film. The montage of archive footage from 1980's TV series is shown in low and grainy quality which signifies the historical context. Also the music, typical late 70's SKA reflects the skinhead culture who adopted this genre of music.


Denotation
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The ripped wallpaper, old furniture and the fact that he is using a chair as a nightstand denote that this boy is not very rich.

Connotes/Connotation
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The font is worn off and gritty so we connote that it is a film about war.

Signifier
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The font is worn down so it indicates the environment is rough.

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Because the bicycle in front of the house wasn't locked and untouched it signifies that it is a safe area.

Binary Opposition/Opposite
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When Shawn(kid) meets Wally(adult)

Polysemy
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This is a picture of Shawn's father. It tells us that his father died during the war or just simply that he misses him.

Anchors/Anchorage
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The damaged wallpaper and old furniture shows that he is poor.

Commutation Test
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This first shot of Margaret Thatcher is confusing, we don't know if the movie is about her or what impact she exerted in the '80s.

Preferred Reading
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Nowadays people aged 60 could relate to this scene a lot more than teenagers.

Negotiated Reading
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The director is making fun of her but some people could interpret this in a different way but still get the same message.

Oppositional Reading
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This shot is quite odd. Probably the only reason why it's in the film opening is that it was made during the same time period as the film.

Narrative Enigma
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It only shows very little of the subject which makes the viewer want to know more.

Intertextuality
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Mise-en-scene links into the Boy George Culture Club which was a very famous culture followed by numerous teenagers at that time.

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(MY WORK)
Representation 
whether it is social realist or a rom-com, representation is always something artificially constructed by those creating the media text - lighting, costume, props, dialogue etc.

This is England poster

Demographics
Ways in which audiences are categorised (gender, socio-economic status, race, urban, rural, educated, uneducated, age etc.)

This Is England

• Large portion of the budget was a grant
• Warp production
• Had no IP or franchising initially (did become a tv show)
• Social realist
• Set in the North of England
• Not a huge amount of selling potential 

Opening montage
All footage shown on the television of the Falkland wars painted the English in a positive light, showing men with lost limbs, all footage showing them in a negative light would have been censored.
Shane meadows selects footage which does not paint the English in positive light (a criticism of Margaret Thatcher).

opening montage screenshot

• Denotation: 4 white men in a tank
• normative idea that military is a male/masculine territory
• exclusively Caucasian
• all aged 25-30
• younger ones are only soldiers, higher ranking officials would likely be older
• representation of tie with age and authoritative power
• appears heteronormative (although sexuality is not really made reference to)

Some reasons for success

• Protagonist:
• did not have a Northern Irish accent despite the film being set in Ireland
• McCarthyist ideology of Us and Them, with the local northern Irish population being the violent, wild, backwards and uncivil Other
• reinforces negative northern Irish stereotypes
• is more accessible to more audiences 
• BUT: at the end of the film throws the medal he earned for killing a bunch of Northern Irish people into the ocean
• creates a parallel
• symbolic of rejection of these values
• Reviews:
• was reviewed by the guardian (ABC1) on release date

Protagonist 

• Northern accent (not southern)
• unglamorous 
• In mainstream studio films this character would likely be the Other, butt of a joke, a negative stereotype, a 2 dimensional character
• e.g. Grimsby (a Working Title production): the father of a lot of bastard children, bad hygiene, lazy, extended joke at expense of the working class

The Skinheads

• All swear, drink underage, smoke, act aggressively, 

  

  having just shown up with beer he
  had to wait an hour for he then bullies Sean 

• is part of the social realist aspect:
• is not a 2 dimensional stereotype as this is not all there is to the characters
• a "warts and all" representation - complex characters

Industry
More niche representations have less chance of being successful as fewer demographics are able to identify with the characters

• Studio films have less varied representation of minority demographics as less people go to see them
• Indie films are more able to
• Britain used to set legal minimum if films screened in cinemas that must be British productions
• was a safeguard for British film cinemas
• without such protection American film would dominate
• when this law was dropped British cinemas nose-dived, and American cinema practically monopolised it
• This similar to laws in France and China
• a yearly quota of national films met be shown in cinemas, otherwise American products would dominate and national business would collapse
• Free market ideology is not successful for domestic market
• Without grants from BFI indie films with diverse representation would not exist 
• they are not commercial and unlikely to make profit
• would not be made without subsidy
• e.g. Tyrannosaur would not have been made due to the representation of the protagonist (a racist, violent, unemployed middle aged working class man)
• large audiences not able to identify
• Southern English accents are more normalised for international appeal due to companies like Working Title
• The control of the media industry by mostly American companies assures a certain degree of positive representation for them
• allows for some level of global power 
• idea of world police can be perpetuated
• e.g. the majority of sci-fi films are set in America or have America as the 'hero' of the world (Independence Day, Evolution)

Mickybo and Me vs. Son of Rambo

Mickybo and Me poster

A good example of how representation can limit a film is Mickybo and Me vs. Son of Rambo (blog post on it here).

in Mickybo and Me:

• 2 boys from northern Ireland are obsessed with a film
• did not get any screenings outside of Northern Ireland (only in cinemas for 4 weeks)
• WT2 production (indie style subsidiary of Working Title)
• accents were problematic, lack of identification
• budget was 5m pounds
• would not get a red carpet release, no stars so would not be on chat shows
• too difficult to market
• Most of the cast was English in an attempt to make it more marketable

in Son of Rambo:

Son of Rambo poster

• normative representation
• Caucasian boys, non-problematic accents
• Studio production

Universal/Studio Canal stopped funding Mickybo and Me distribution as they did not think it would be successful for wider release - were not prepared to take the risk with prints and marketing. The audience did not make the decision

Exceptions

Billy Eliot

• is a social realist
• set in County Durham (problematic accent)
• abut an effeminate boy who wants to do ballet (transgressive)
• BUT: had a fairytale American Dream ending
• made large international and domestic profit 
• Shows that less mainstream representation can be successful

Tyrannosaur

Olivia Coleman's fail to get a Bafta trended globally on twitter

• really only has star value in England
• Is not glamorous so even then her star status is limited more
• Obscure indie social realist film 

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GANT RULE

(SAM'S WORK)

This Gant Rule was made up  by someone called Charles Gant a box office analyst. He believed that the box office of a film will be successful when it makes ten times as much in the US as in the UK. One good example is Maze Runner (2014). It made  £4m in the UK and $40m in the US.

However, this is not always the case, some movies can do incredibly well in the UK but flop in the US. This was the case for Bridget Jones's Baby because that made $60m in the UK but only $24m in the US. Why might this be? Well Bridget Jones does not have a wide American appeal and has a lot of jokes or references that only people from the UK will understand. This was a crucial reason as to this was a flop in the US. 
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(MY WORK)

Our film would likely be an exception to the Gant rule, as an international, American audience would be unlikely to be able to pick up on the preferred reading, accessible mostly to a uk audience, similar to Bridget Jones Diary. Furthermore, achieving distribution internationally is difficult for indie films, as they have to make individual deals with distribution companies (e.g. tyrannosaur)

Genre Conventions: more films for analysis

Tennis Films

Wimbledon (Richard Loncraine, 2004) 
Synopsis: rom-com about 2 upcoming tennis players.
I'm going to look specifically at how tennis scenes are shot for influence in shooting a tennis scene in our film opening (specifically: framing, sound, and editing)


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Match Point (Woody Allen, 2005) 
Involves a retired tennis player, also looking into this one for inspiration for the tennis scene

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Main Films for Influence

Journeyman (Paddy Considine, 2018) 
Synopsis: social realist about an accomplished boxer suffers brain damage after defending his title at a tournament and has to work to recover and rebuild his life

Journeyman poster

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Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011) 
Synopsis: a social realist which follows the life of working class, racist, violent man, Johnny.


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This is England (Shane Meadows, 2007)

Synopsis: social realist drama following the life of young Saun as he becomes a skinhead in 1983 England


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Dead Man's Shoes (Shane Meadows, 2004)
synopsis: British psychological thriller, Richard returns to his home town in the Peak District after serving in the British Army. He and his younger, mentally-impaired brother Anthony, camp at an abandoned farm near the town. Flashbacks reveal Anthony's abuse by a group of drug dealers in the town; Richard vows to take revenge.


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Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)

Naked poster

Synopsis: British black tragicomedy written and directed by Mike Leigh and starring David Thewlis as Johnny, a motor-mouthed intellectual and conspiracy theorist steals a car and visits his ex living with two housemates in London.
Mike Leigh is a famous kitchen sink realism writer so we'll probably take a lot of influence from his style.



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Sweet Sixteen (Ken Loach, 2002)
Synopsis: the story of a teenage boy from a troubled background, Liam, who dreams of starting afresh with his mother as soon as she has completed her prison term.


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Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)

Withnail and I poster

Synopsis: British black comedy, loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" who share a flat in Camden Town in 1969. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to a country cottage in the Lake District belonging to Withnail's eccentric uncle Monty and drive there. The weekend holiday proves less recuperative than they expected.


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My Left Foot (Jim Sheridan, 1989) 
Synopsis: biographical comedy-drama about a working class Irishman born with cerebral palsy who could only move his left foot.
Focus on disability/rehabilitation aspect (in narrative, dialogue and filming/editing techniques) on how to realistically/effectively represent characters with disabilities (like our protagonist who is recovering form brain damage after being in an accident).

INITIAL AUDIENCE RESEARCH: Survey

Question sheet

This week we did a survey to see if out target audience (primarily male aged 15-24) would be interested in our film idea:

• We showed them clips form 7 social realist films
• Cathy Come Home, Tyrannosaur, This is England, '71, Billy Elliot, Submarine, Slumdog Millionaire
• We gave them a question sheet about the clips
• Asked them to fill in their age/gender (almost all of them were a part of our target demographic)
  

  

  The questions were presented to ppts in a table
  format, but these were the questions

WHAT WE FOUND

• Name the film: 
• they couldn't name most of the films
• most recognised Billy Elliot and Slumdog Millionaire, which makes sense as these were the 2 most commercially successful.
• Genre:
• we suspected a teenage audience would use the word 'drama' to describe most of the films, with hybrid exceptions '71 and Submarine probably being labelled as action/romcom. 
• This was true for the most part, though 2 recognised the social realist theme. 
• Slumdog Millionaire was thought to be a Bollywood production by a few of the participants (which makes sense as the majority of Indian films are Bollywood films), but the majority labelled it as rom-com/drama.
• Would they want to see more of the films: 
• almost no one said they wanted to continue watching Cathy Come Home or Tyrannosaur, 
• more girls than Boys said they would want to continue Billy Elliot (probably because the ballet plot line is too 'girly'). 
• '71 was the most popular among participants that they said they would want to continue because of the genre, but Slumdog Millionaire was also a popular choice.
• Had they seen any other films/tv shows that seemed similar:
• Only a few participants named similar films/tv shows they had seen
• This is England, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Book Thief and Inglorious Bastards were some that were mentioned 
• But most said they had watched similar things
• this is positive feedback as it shows that though our target audience may not have been familiar with the clips we showed, they do have some interest in the genre
• Had they been to the cinema to see any films like these:
• only 1 participant had been to the cinema to see a social realist film (Slumdog Millionaire)
• This makes sense, as discussed in other posts low-budget indie films which tend to be more likely to explore heavy social realist themes are less commercially successful than studio/comedy films and therefore have a more difficult time with theatrical distribution
• Even The Journeyman, which we are taking lots of influence from, was screened at an indie film festival (The British and Irish Film festival)

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GENRE EG1: Tyrannosaur

(SAM'S WORK) - input by me in green
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Budget: £750k
Box Office: $299k (Worldwide) / $22k (US)
Ratings: 84% (RottenTomatoes) / 7.6/10 (IMDb) / 3.5/4 (Roger Ebert)
Production Companies: Film4, UK Film Council, Screen Yorkshire, EM Media, Warp X, Inflammable Films
Director: Paddy Considine

IDENTS:

No Idents.

TITLES:

• serif font
• white font on black background connotes seriousness and drama
• different sizing between the titles and names to distinguish the different roles 
• the main title is centered and all capitals
• animated titles, fade in and out
• different positioning of titles
• for aesthetic purposes
• duration of title sequence: 00:00:03 - 00:02:04
• numbers of titles: 12
• In the other Paddy Considine film we looked at (Journeyman) there were also no titles before names (other examples had "with" "starring" "introducing" etc.)

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Tyrannosaur credits from harriet Barlow

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SOUND:

• soft guitar sound with notes that are a few seconds apart has an impact on our mood
• it connotes drama / seriousness
• get the serious feel
• makes us calm
• ambients sound of radio to add verisimilitude
• the incidental acoustic music is very conventional of social realist films
• it kicks in just after he has kicked his dog - this encourages the audience to empathise with the protagonist, rather than see him as a villain

1st SHOT:

• establishing shot
• starts with a close up of a male character
• narrative enigma because it's not very clear how the male character looks like due to shadows 
• using natural lights
• lowkey lighting

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CENTRAL PROTAGONIST + NARRATIVE:

• the male character is in every shot
• tracking shot when he is walking back home while having his dog in his arms
• shot variety of him
• he is always in focus
• it cuts back to him
• anchors he is going to be the central protagonist
• he is coming from the working class ( track pants, white and dirty shirt, drunk, is desperate for money)
• The music allows the audience to empathise with him, rather than see him as the villain who just kicked his dog to death in a drunken rampage
• This is quite a controversial and dark theme, something more commonly found in social realists
• the protagonist is an anti-hero: complex an din shades of grey, not a 2 dimensional stereotype
• this is similar to what was found in the New Wave movements

MISE-EN-SCENE FOR EXPOSITION:

•  small room 
•  squeaky floor
• bland colours
• anchors poverty
• The beer cans are used to confirm that he is drunk

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TRANSITION TO MAIN FILM:

• The equilibrium is disrupted when the central protagonist kills his dog
• Todorov's 5 point narrative theory:
• establish equilibrium
• the protagonist is a violent, alcohol drinking, swearing unemployed man
• disrupt equilibrium
• when accidentally injures his dog and realises he has to kill it so that it won't be in pain anymore, he later has a breakdown, and realises he must change something in his life, but has little power to change much
• the rest of the theory is not seen in the opening, but is present throughout the film

Fail or Success?

From the ratings I can tell that the movie was quite a success. Paddy Considine even got an award for the best film and best debut director award. Olivia Colman who plays Hannah in the movie got an award for the best actress.

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However, the movie didn't do well in Box Office. One reason is because it only got a limited screening in America in just 5 theatre. Also, Warp managed to get Tyrannosaur quite widely distributed on DVD and not so much in cinema which the Box Office doesn't count the sales of DVD's.
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It only grossed £299k (only the Box Office worldwide), whereas, the budget is £750k. The movie received a positive reviews and currently has a score of 83% on RottenTomatoes. Stuart McGurk of GQ magazine even called Tyrannosaur  "The best British film of the year". This is very rare for Indie movies to win awards and get good reviews from companies such as GQ or RottenTomatoes. This also indicates that the movie was a success. But still in the UK the movie doesn't sell well due to it's genre "a brutal, frank, and ultimately rewarding story of violent men seeking far-off redemption". 

For our film opening I took influence of the background music. It's a guitar with notes that are several seconds apart. For the font I like the serif font, it connotes seriousness. However, I am definitely including the white font on black background that anchors seriousness and drama.