Thursday 5 November 2009

How do the institution's budgets affect the production practices that they used to make a film appeal to the target audience?


An institution's budget has a massive effect on every production practice a production team use. The aim is to find more creative ways to make a film so as to compensate for the low budget and increase the 'bullseye' - the target audience. Warp Films have a low budget, and they created the films Dead Man's Shoes and This Is England. This is apparent in the actors used: Dead Man's shoes uses little-known actors such as Paddy Considine and Gary Stretch, because they are cheaper to recruit than actors such as Jude Law etc that are used in high-budget films.
The editing is also very different: effects used are simple - black-and-white crackly films are used, which could be reproduced more or less anywhere. Slow cuts are used, which makes it seem realistic - the genre is social realism which is more or less the only genre that suits really low budget films as they cannot afford to produce the effects required to make a higher calibre film such as a fantasy or action thriller. This means exploring realistic issues explored in the real world, such as disability, war, and drugs. The locations used are prefabricated - they cannot afford to create a set and so use locations such as dilapidated houses etc. The target audience appears to be adult males, who are capable to deal with and can relate to the issues and themes raised within the movie.

Compare this, then, to a movie such as Hot Fuzz, made by Working Title films, a company with a higher budget to dispense. It uses established comedic actors such as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, along with an extensive cast and uncredited cameos. Editing is done by a team of ten artists to add explosions, gore etc. The genre is a hybrid between action and comedy - this widens the bullseye, as it covers a wider range of movies and therefore movie fans, too. Therefore the editing follow suit - fast, sweeping shots are used in parts, giving the film a sense of non-realism. This allows us to laugh at the film - the issues are obviously not intended to be taken seriously and so we can laugh at things we otherwise may not have. Traditional british landmarks such as the houses of parliament and the british flag are used to appeal to a british audience.

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