'Avatar' was directed by James Cameron and 'The Hurtlocker' was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. This is newsworthy as they were both previously married to one another and so made the competition between the two films more fierce. 'Avatar' had a budget of $237,000,000 whilst 'The Hurtlocker' came in at an estimated $11,000,000. The two films were of a completely different nature and genre - 'Avatar' being a futuristic, fictional adventure and 'The Hurtlocker', a war thriller very much set within the real world. 'Avatar' was nominated for nine awards in total at the 2009 Oscars, these being 'Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Directing, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Picture, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing' and 'Best Visual Effects' though only won three. 'The Hurtlocker was equally nominated for nine oscars awards - 'Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, Best Actor, Best Original Score' and 'Best Cinematography' - and managed to pick up six of them on the night. Science Fiction films have never been particuarly big winners at the Oscars and so this could provide one reason why 'The Hurtlocker' triumphed over 'Avatar'. The voting board may have also viewed the success of 'The Hurtlocker' as a much bigger achievement than 'Avatar's' based on how little funding was put into it as opposed to the $237,000,000 that was put into making 'Avatar'. 'The Hurtlocker' was also distributed by Summit Entertainment, which at the time was a relativley new, small company which had never won an Oscar before. At the box office 'Avatar' gained a total gross of $749,766,139 whilst 'The Hurtlocker' managed to gain $12,647,089 from audiences.
Monday 5 March 2012
Monday 20 February 2012
Half Term Homework
The film I have chosen is called 'Bad Teacher' (2011) directed by Jake Casdan and starring Cameron Diaz as the lead female with Justin Timberlake and Jason Segel. 'Bad Teacher' is a comedy about an american high school teacher who detests her job. She has no passion for teaching and instead prefers to let her classes watch films in lesson whilst she sits and dreams about the boob job she desperatley longs for. All until she discovers about the end of year bonus for the teacher who delivers the best results from their students. From then on, she makes it her ultimate mission to become the best at all costs to claim the prize so she can finally get the surgery she has been so longing for:
This trailer works to entice the audience by featuring comedic scenes which attract their attention and make them laugh. This immediately expresses the genre of the film and is therefore a majour enticement to those who are particular fans of the comedy genre. The editing of the trailer also plays a majr part in enticing the viewer and conforms further the comedy genre as there are many fast cuts between a shot of action and the character's response to further play on the humour. The trailer also reveals quite a significant amount of information about the plot which is useful to entice the audience as people are much more likely to see a movie which they have a lot of knowledge about and the story.
The film poster also conforms to the comedy genre by featuring a humourous image of a drunken teacher with her feet on the desk enticing an audience of comedy lovers. The poster carries a strong semantic field of 'schools' with the use of the graphalogical devices of text and image. The text has the appearance of chalk on a blackboard which is perhaps a stereotypical idea of what can be found in school as is the apple on the desk with an 'eat me' sticker as it is commonly thought that students give their teachers apples. The poster further entices the audience by featuring the comedic tag-line 'she doesn't give an F' as it plays on the idea of how a teacher is expected to behave as well as including a clever pun.http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/badteacher/ - the website which accompanies the film was not particularly exciting and did not provide much of interest, however it did have important information about the DVD release and the multiple versions available and therefore still stood an important purpose. This however suggests that the website was not used as a major use of marketing for the film and perhaps the distributers relied more heavily on the use of the trailers and poster.
'Bad Teacher' was produced by Sony and Columbia Pictures and was originally based in the USA. It had a budget of $20,000,000 and was sent to 3049 screens all within the USA. At the US box office it had a income of $6,000,000 and peaked at #2 on the box office chart in its opening week. To the right is a comparative profile, comparing the audience ratings of 'Bad Teacher' with those of another comedy film, 'The 40 year old virgin'. The target audience of 'Bad Teacher' is mainly older teenagers (from around 15 and above) and young adults in their early 20s. This is because the film is very humourous and playful and in many parts features crude humour which would probably most appeal to a younger adult audience than a more mature one.
On Rotten Tomatoes, 'Bad Teacher' scored 44/100 from audience reviews meaning there was quite a lot of split opinions:
Friday 13 January 2012
Introduction: New Hollywood
New Hollywood refers to the time from around the late 1960s to the early 1980s when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, influencing the types of films produced and their production and marketing. They also impacted the way major studios approached filmmaking.
When the amount of cinema-goers dramatically dropped during the mid-60s and Hollywood began to lose substantial amounts of money, the studios hired a host of young filmmakers in an attempt to recover their audiences. This meant that, because the New Hollywood films were being produced by young directors, they mostly appealed to youthful audiences and students.
This new generation of Hollywood filmmaker was film school-educated, counterculture-bred, and, most importantly from the point of view of the studios, young, and therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. During the New Hollywood era, the young filmmakers produced fresh and exciting films with a sense of energy, sexuality and a passion for the artistic value of film itself such as 'Taxi Driver', a film produced in 1976 about a depressed young man who becomes a night time taxi driver and becomes dangerously involved with fighting street crime.
Key directors involved with New Hollywood included George Lucas - creator of the Star Wars franchise - and Stanley Kubrick who both directed films that have grown to become world famous blockbusters. Key actors included Al Pacino who is best known for his roles in 'Scar Face' and 'The Godfather' trilogy.
The New Hollywood era began to fall in the mid-70s due to films such as 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars'. These were both unprecedented box office smash hits and opened the eyes of many major corporations to the amount of money that could be earned with the right films. They quickly bought up the Hollywood studios, pushing out New Hollywood of whom's films were now beginning to majorly flop at the box office losing them a lot of money.
When the amount of cinema-goers dramatically dropped during the mid-60s and Hollywood began to lose substantial amounts of money, the studios hired a host of young filmmakers in an attempt to recover their audiences. This meant that, because the New Hollywood films were being produced by young directors, they mostly appealed to youthful audiences and students.
This new generation of Hollywood filmmaker was film school-educated, counterculture-bred, and, most importantly from the point of view of the studios, young, and therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. During the New Hollywood era, the young filmmakers produced fresh and exciting films with a sense of energy, sexuality and a passion for the artistic value of film itself such as 'Taxi Driver', a film produced in 1976 about a depressed young man who becomes a night time taxi driver and becomes dangerously involved with fighting street crime.
Key directors involved with New Hollywood included George Lucas - creator of the Star Wars franchise - and Stanley Kubrick who both directed films that have grown to become world famous blockbusters. Key actors included Al Pacino who is best known for his roles in 'Scar Face' and 'The Godfather' trilogy.
The New Hollywood era began to fall in the mid-70s due to films such as 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars'. These were both unprecedented box office smash hits and opened the eyes of many major corporations to the amount of money that could be earned with the right films. They quickly bought up the Hollywood studios, pushing out New Hollywood of whom's films were now beginning to majorly flop at the box office losing them a lot of money.
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