SWEDE1/Opening EG10 - Tyrannosaur

This is the final film opening I am looking at for my general research but also to prepare for my Tyrannosaur swede, the final practice exercise. 

Tyrannosaur

Paddy Considine (2011)

BBFC 18, MPAA unrated

Running time of the opening sequence: 2:57 mins 

Lead actors: Peter Mullan, 

                           Olivia Coleman, 

                           Eddie Marsan
Genre: Social realism

Budget: £750k
UK/US/World Box Office: £243k, $22k, £400k.

Production co's:  Warp X, Inflammable Films
Production financing:   Film4;UK Film Council; Screen Yorkshire; EM Media; Optimum Releasing.
UK, US theatrical distributors: StudioCanal, Strand.
 
LINKS: IMDB; RottenTomatoes (Users 83%, Critics 85%); BoxOfficeMojo; The-Numbers; Wiki; Official site/page; Facebook.

TRAILER 

CRITICAL KUDOS: (wiki)

Tyrannosaur received positive reviews and currently has a "certified Fresh" score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10. The critical consensus states: "Tyrannosaur is a brutal, frank, and ultimately rewarding story of violent men seeking far-off redemption."^[6] The film also has a score of 65 out of 100 based on 18 critics on Metacritic, indicating "Generally favourable reviews".^[7]Stuart McGurk of GQ magazine called Tyrannosaur "The best British film of the year", whilst Empire said it was "Riveting, uncompromising, brilliant" and gave it 4/5 stars, as did Total Film, The Guardian, Sunday Mirror, and Evening Standard. The Daily Star Sunday and LoveFilm gave the film 5/5 stars and The Sunday Telegraph dubbed it "One of the most powerful films of 2011."
The American film critic and blogger Jeffrey Wells was so taken by Tyrannosaur after seeing it at the Los Angeles Film Festival that he started 'Hollywood Elsewhere's Tyrannosaur fundraising campaign' with the idea of raising $2,000 to cover the rental of a screening room so that the film could be shown in Hollywood with the hope of gaining recognition. Wells claimed this was the first screening financed by a critic.^[8]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, calling Peter Mullan's performance muscular and unrelenting. He also remarked: "This isn't the kind of movie that even has hope enough to contain a message. There is no message, only the reality of these wounded personalities."^[9]Mark Kermode of BBC Radio 5 Live, hailed the film as one of the 11 Best Films of 2011.^[10] Kermode went on to award Olivia Colman Best Actress in his own Annual Kermode Awards. She tied with Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin.
By 18 December 2011, the film had won 21 awards from 28 nominations worldwide.
When the BAFTA Award nominations were announced on 17 January 2012, the omission of Olivia Colman in the Best Actress category led to global trending of both Olivia Colman and Tyrannosaur on Twitter.^[11]

IDENTS:

N/A, no idents, just like with Le Donk & This Is England.

TITLES:

Are non-serif and white, lower-case apart from capital letters like names are usually spelt.

The roles are smaller and, unconventionally, upper-case in contrast to names in lower-case.

1. Film4 AND The UK Film Council IN ASSOCIATION WITH Screen Yorkshire,                              EM MEDIA AND OPTIMUM RELEASING PRESENT
2. A Warp X/Inflammable Films PRODUCTION
3. A FILM BY Paddy Considine

On action, as the music begins, switching between left and right near the screen edge.

1. Peter Mullan
2. Olivia Colman
3. Ned Dennehy
4. Samuel Bottomley
5. Paul Popplewell
6. Sally Carman
7. Sian Breckin

MISE-EN-SCÈNE:

Urban location, not glamorised, 

NARRATIVE, GENRE, EXPOSITION:

We are introduced to the main character, and we already have the binary opposition within his own character/personality shown.

The other protagonist of the story, is still to be introduced.

THE PROTAGONIST:

My teacher asked me as the vulgar swearing started whether we were going to feel sympathy for the protagonist. I said definitely not in the opening sequence. I as an audience member was proven wrong.

The music and close-ups of the dog's paws are used to create sympathy for the protagonist.

AUDIENCE THEORY #1 - Stuart Hall's Reception Theory

Stuart Hall developed three readings when talking about how meaning is encoded in a media text by the producers and decoded by an audience.

1. Preferred Reading
2. Negotiated Reading
3. Oppositional Reading

EXAMPLES:

In a scene from Repo Man, a character says the word: "Gringo"

I don't speak Spanish, but I do know that gringo is a Spanish slang (insult) term for Caucasians (due to a Mexican character using it in an audio series I listened to as a child). 

So while I can't follow the preferred reading like someone who can speak Spanish fluently, and might detect signifiers of regional identity, I still understand some of what is being said here. Someone who does not know this term or any Spanish at all will have an oppositional reading towards this line, where as I have a form of negotiated reading.

These two YouTubers show the two alternatives, different readings on the content, in this case verisimilitude of the text, on the other moral issues



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My favourite film

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

• I learned that this is an example of convergence, with TV and film going off into spin-offs, sequels and TV series, and it also showed a trend in audience behaviour that my favourite film is the spin-off of  a TV series, I prefer TV a lot to film
• In the distribution I said there was a minor chance that my film could spin-off a TV series, like had happened with 10 Things I Hate About You
• The fact that BBC Films, a subsidiary of a broadcasting corporation, is behind this film, further shows the convergence, and I speculated that Film4, the equivalent film subsidiary of Channel 4, might distribute my film, like they have done for my indie film company case study, Warp.
• What the ScreenDaily review says about the lack of demand for satire due to Obama's presidency being a negative factor to the film can also be reflected in my genre, is the demand/audience appeal for rom-com/teen films as high as it used to be? I concluded that while there is still some interest, it has wained, and teens, my primary audience, are more interested in big blockbuster, fantasy and futuristic teen fiction franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner etc.

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

• Maybe it would be possible to do a film spin-off of a TV series for my coursework
• Political satire also as a possible genre. It will most likely either be a drama or a comedy.

IN THE LOOP

Armando Iannucci, 2009

PRODUCTION COMPANIES: BBC Films, 
                                                 Aramid Entertainment

DISTRIBUTOR: IFC Films (US)
                          Optimum Releasing (UK)

GENRE: Political satire 
               (subgenre of comedy)

LEAD ACTORS: Peter Capaldi

                            Tom Hollander

                            Chris Addison

                            Gina McKee

                            James Gandolfini

BBFC:  15                 MPAA: Not Rated

BUDGET: £612k       
BOX OFFICE: $3.5m (UK) $2.4m (US) $7.8m (worldwide)


CRITICAL KUDOS

ROTTING TOMATOES: 94%                     IDMb: 7.5/10

REVIEWS (from wiki)

The film was released to critical acclaim. Reception to the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival was particularly positive.^[2] Damon Wise, writing in The Times was particularly complimentary, giving the film five stars, stating "It's hard to settle on a standout element because it's all so outstanding, from the performances to the one-liners to the plot."^[19] Screen International's David D'Arcy was complimentary, but noted that the release of the film may be poorly timed, given the new presidency of Barack Obama, stating "its exuberant, boundless cynicism will test the demand for political satire in an Obama-infatuated America."^[20] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune put the film as #9 on his top ten list of 2009.
The film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 94% of the reviews they tallied for the film were positive, based on 166 reviews.^[21]In The Loop was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2010.^[22]

A full list of reviews listed on IDMb here.

TRAILERS:

From the StudioCanal UK YouTube Channel, however then it was still called Optimum Releasing.

Longer trailer, however provides less exposition due to more non-linear and shorter takes.



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WHY THIS IS MY FAVOURITE FILM

• I am a huge admirer of Armando Iannuci's work
• I have always find his comedic writing superb 
• It takes quite a controversial issue and turns it into dark humour

Last 5 Films I Watched

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING:

• The knowledge/interest in Shakespeare ended up being useful for the signifiers of high art in a pop culture film, as well as the origins of the romantic comedy with Twelfth Night mentioned below, but also As You Like It, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

• Representation of LGBT+ like in The Imitation Game
• Some of these films narratives I aspire to create one day, but most of them are too complicated for a two-minute film opening

I had not watched any of the trailers before watching the film.

The Imitation Game

I had been wanting to watch this film for a while, primarily because of the lead actor, Benedict Cumberbatch. This demonstrates how the star system dominates the film industry. While I don't just watch films and other media in general, recognisable faces always give me a good feeling about the film, especially when I first heard of it two years, it excited me that Benedict Cumberbatch was in a leading role after seeing him in several TV roles leading up to internationally successful Sherlock and his role as a villain in Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Twelfth Night 

I have had an interest in Shakespeare for a while, and have been watching more and more screen adaptations.

The Tempest

The Reader

Watched it because I read the book, intellectual property.

The Age Of Stupid

A very relevant issue for our planet today, and the DVD had been lying around for a while.