INDIE Case Study - Warp

Warp Films was born as a film subsidiary of the independent record company Warp Records.

2002 - Short Film My Wrongs (by Chris Morris)

2004 - First full feature-length film,

           Dead Man's Shoes directed by Shane 

           Meadows, 

2006 - This Is England, Shane Meadows

2007 - Grow Your Own, comedy about racial 

            issues

2008 - Hush, Horror road trip 

2009 - Le Donk + Scor-Say-Zee, mockumentary, 

           took five days to film, shows how 

           convergence and digitisation have made

           filming easier

2010 - Four Lions, surprise small hit, Warp took

           a gamble and increased the number of 

           screens 

2011 - Tyrannosaur, critics raved about the film

           It was given to a US distributor who 

           specialize mainly in LGBT+ films.

2013 - For Those In Peril, final film produced by 

           Warp X, looks like the grant has dried up.

2014 - '71, an historical action thriller, set in NI.

           But unlike other indie films about The 

           Troubles it was from the POV of an 

           English soldier, not the Northern Irish, 

           which goes against the representation of

           minorities. The action genre chosen is 

           quite commercial. However, the lead is 

           unknown to international audiences, is not

           RP and working class. Not glamorized like

           a typical action hero, has less control/

           agency within the narrative unlike Matt

           Damon's lead character in Working Title's

           Green Zone. It flopped, but slowly

           achieved $1.2m in the US.

2016 - Ghost Stories announced. Demonstrates

           Warp's ineffective online presence.

           Yardie announced. Directorial debut of 

           Idris Elba, 

           

Opening EG2 - Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee

Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee

Shane Meadows, 2009

LEAD ACTORS Paddy Considine, 

                          Olivia Coleman, 

                          Dean Palinczuk, 

                          Shane Meadows

GENRE: Mockumentary

Camera zooms out. This isn't a glamorous location. The 

...

Opening EG9/Teen EG1 Submarine

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

• The voice-over which I saw in most teen films
• Signifiers of the Other with a similar coat, multiple photos of non-mainstream cultural figures, etc.
• Panning shots across the room
• Audio bridge before the opening shot of sounds from nearby, however with my coursework I did it already with the ident
• In retrospect I wish I had also included landscape shots

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

• The voice-overs

Submarine 

Richard Ayoede, 2010

GENRE: Teen romantic comedy, social realism

LEAD ACTORS: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige

PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Warp, Film 4 

DISTRIBUTORS: Optimum Releasing, The Weinstein Company 

BOX OFFICE:

BUDGET: (worldwide)

BBFC: 15     MPPA: R

ROTTEN TOMATOES: 87%         IDMb: 7.6 out of 10

REVIEW QUOTES

TRAILER: 

traifeaturing a song by Belgian singer Jacques Brel, appropriately about the issue of (young) love, but not the kind of song a contemporary teenager will listen to, just like Toots & the Mayals with This Is England, unlike Jess Glynn's Hold My Hand used in the Bridget Jones's Baby trailer, which now has nearly 100m views, and debuted on No.1 on the UK charts and peaked at No.86 at the Billboard 100)



This features the incidental music from the Jordana section

The full film has been uploaded onto YouTube

SYPNOSIS:

A very quirky and unusual teen film with elements of romantic comedy, social realism, fantasy, with debut director having been influenced by French New Wave among other film styles.

Having the coming-of-age side of the teen film  the relationship, as well as his anxiety expressed in the very experimental film style.

IDENTS:

We only get a Film 4 ident, with their signature sound intact. 

TITLES:

They are cross-cut with white on blue and then the final title, the film, following the Rule of Thirds

NARRATIVE/EXPOSITION:
Oliver Tate is clearly anchored as the protagonist, we are introduced to him first and will follow, this also follows the  and hi status as The Other is also set up, 

GENRE:

Not your typical romantic comedy or teen film, which is reflected in the box office.

SOUND:

Their is an audio bridge of what appears to be diegetic sound, however that is debatable as he is not directly next to the sea, and due to the experimental and fantasy-like style it might be in his imagination, so in a way it is part of the world, the world he has created. That starts off a potential massive debate on if soundtrack is an expression of their thoughts and personality, which leads us on to the non-diegetic sound, it starts off by sounds to signify the very quit takes as we zoom in on the protagonist.

Then we have the first track by Alex Turner from his original soundtrack (OST) for the film. How far are the lyrics expressing/representing the protagonist's thoughts?

Only the first 30 seconds or so are used, the rest are cut off, the length limit of my coursework will also mean I will have to cut down music based on an existing track if I want to use that.

(Source: azlyircs)

SYNERGY

This is an example of synergy, just like with Le Donk. However, the audience gained by this is limited, as Warp don't have access to big names in the music industry like Ellie Goulding and Duffy (ironically Welsh, however she doesn't show her religional accent in her music like the Monkeys do. with their Yorkshire dialects "Sommit, settee").

The cameo of the Arctic Monkeys in Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee is a binary to the cameo of Ed Sheeran in Bridget Jones's Baby.

Alex Turner at the UK premiere, this has less views than videos featuring his songs:



Domino Recordings even did a trailer for the film:

*Include screenshots from Spotify and potentially other sites of the OST, might have been created by fans in the case of Spotify, would show it's an indie film*

Some UGC videos with the songs by Alex Turner, some viewing figures are in the millions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0YEVNacmtw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHDGYZvvwtc

DISTRIBUTION - Summary of Consequences of Indie

Unlike subsidiaries of Big Six film studios, like Working Title, I do not have access to huge budgets, so I cannot afford an A-List star. I do not get a big budget because I have no films that have been a success, so the producing values and thereby the verisimilitude is extremely inferior to the likes 

However, indie directors can rise to that level, like the director of Monsters who went on to do Godzilla and Rogue One (shows how the film industry works, when starting out as a low-budget, indie director he had an original idea, to make it big he worked on remakes and franchises.

SOURCES:

https://www.screendaily.com/features/why-the-uks-indie-distributors-face-a-growing-challenge/5123146.article

ADVERTISING:

• Billboards all over the word
• Electronic Posters in train stations, airports (like Blade Runner in Trier Hbf)
• Advertising Online, on websites, including when it's been released on DVD

HOW MY FILM MIGHT GET FUNDED:

• Government funding, like Warp have done especially from the BFI, also from Screen Yorkshire, Creative Scotland.
• BFI Funding, read about recent changes in this article.
• Kickstarter Compain; All Tomorrow's Parties, Veronica Mars, Warp's Mark Herbert has said that he sees the future in this technology 
• https://www.thebalance.com/film-video-crowdfunding-985225

OTHER POSITIVE FACTORS FOR INDIE

• Convergence brings down the price of filming equipment, and the complexity of production, this is shown in how it took Shane Meadows only 5 days to shoot Le Donk + Scor-Zay-Zee. If we could completely focus on our Media coursework on, due to this prosumer trend it wouldn't take us that long either

The Opening Shot - Shaun Of The Dead

Shaun Of The Dead

Edgar Wright, 2004

LEAD ACTORS: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield

GENRE: Zombie romantic comedy

PRODUCTION COMPANIES: WT2 (Working Title)

DISTRIBUTORS: Universal Pictures 
BBFC: 15             MPAA: R

BUDGET: $6.1m 

BOX OFFICE: $30m (worldwide)

REVIEWS, wiki:

Shaun of the Dead received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 92%, based on 201 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Shaun of the Dead cleverly balances scares and witty satire, making for a bloody good zombie movie with loads of wit".^[14] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 76 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[15] Nev Pierce, reviewing the film for the BBC, called it a "side-splitting, head-smashing, gloriously gory horror comedy" that will "amuse casual viewers and delight genre fans."^[16] Peter Bradshaw gave it four stars out of five, saying it "boasts a script crammed with real gags" and is "pacily directed [and] nicely acted."^[17] The film was placed sixth in Empire's top one hundred British films list.^[18]

TRAILER:



International trailer, with the classic booming American narrator



Minus the Universal ident, the opening sequence

THE SHOT

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS 

There is no Working Title ident, only the Universal ident. There is an audio bridge transition between the ident and the opening Shot.

The camera zooms out. So already in the first Shot there is camera movement, the camera isn't static. 

The unsettling sound on the indents, and suddenly the soft, upbeat sound signifies the hybridity of the horror comedy. His serious look can also be seen as a juxtaposition with the positive music.

This character is signified as important, protagonist, we are meant to sympathy with him.

• Background is in shallow focus and he is deep focus
• Rule Of Thirds applied
• Looking at the camera
• Alienated, the "Other"

Alcohol and cigarettes, negative connotations, signifies his precarious situation throughout the film.

Regional Identity: UK stereotype, "Last orders"

I myself know how non-British people perceive this as a stereotype, my German father once joked how I should say "Last orders" when we soon going to leave a restaurant.

Narrative enigma, female protagonist the conflict of romance set up. Common trope of issues in relationships, one doesn't listen to one's partner, often a female complaint? 

REPRESENTATION

Countertypical representation of the male gender, confused, bewildered, not the strong macho male protagonist leading the story, not the typical Proppian hero?

DISTRIBUTION - Studio Subsidiary Vs Indie

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING:

• I created a fictional record company, Cosmic Heat Records, making the origin of my film company just like the origin of Warp, and creating a fictional indepedent artist who was contracted that record having created the OST 

In order to understand how the my film would achieve distribution, I have to understand the consequences of being an independent film company in contrast to a studio-subsidiary.

I am going to focus on two main case studies, Warp and Working Title, both British, one an independent company formed out of Warp Records, an indie  record company; and the other starting out as an indie but in the 90s merged with PolyGram and is now owned by one of the Big Six, Universal Studios (which is owned by multimedia conglemerate NBC-Universal).

I will create a timeline for both companies, then summarize what implication this has for my film opening.