THE FILM INDUSTRY

A Woman's Place is in...the Director's Chair?

To further my understanding I looked at the feminist frequency explanation of the Bechdel test

It was created by Allison Bechdel in her comic strip D*kes to Watch Out For in 1985. Original comic strip The Rule here.

This test is relatively straightforward than anyone would ever think. It aims to check how active and present women characters are in different movies using a checklist with three main requirements. First, a film has to have women characters in active speaking roles. Secondly, they must have names well brought out in different scenes. Lastly, they must be speaking about something else other than a man in their conversations.

I looked at this Backstage article  and this Culture trip article Iwas shocked how many films don't pass the Bechdel test and the flaws of this test. Some films pass the test but still feature questionable—or downright sexist—portrayals of women. Like American Pie 2 (2001) where the two main female characters only talk about clothes or Scary Movie (2000). 

I looked at this article: Sexism stands at the door: 11 female film-makers written out of mainstream Hollywood history

This Guardian article talks about how "everything we're told about cinema is that it's shaped by men" It talks about the 11 women whose ill-treatment and silencing are clear examples of the Hollywood alternate history. 

Alice Guy-Blache: When she became Gaumont's head of production and made hundreds of successful films, but faced many attempts of being replaced. Like many of her female peers at Gaumont, she was erased from their official history.

Mabel Normand: A rising star who worked closely with Charlie Chaplin, whose career was destroyed after a scandal related to her male friend. 

Lillian Gish: A female director who was brought down by the media, that commented on her being "not a strong enough director".

Gloria Swanson: An actress whose tragic, botched abortion and near death experience was used for profit by her studio.

Lena Horne: Was a successful singer who faced with racism and was unable to find major roles.

April Ashley: a transgender actress. Landed a role in the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope film The Road to Hong Kong, however, after she was outed as trans her credit was dropped from the film.

Jean Seberg: An actress who who was humiliated on and of screen by Hitchcock when starring in his film Saint Joan.

Maya Angelou: A director who was unable to direct her own script Georgia, Georgia because of her race and sex. The script went to a male director. 

Selby Kelly: Was an animator who was denied a job at Disney and was told women had ''no sense of timing''.

Dawn Steel: The second woman in Hollywood to become president of production at Paramount since the sil

ent era. She was fired by her male bosses while she was in labour with her daughter.

Catherine Hardwicke: Her adaptation of the novel Twilight made $4oom on a $37m budget. She was described as '''difficult'' and ''irrational'' by her studio executives.

Warp films financing and BFI:

Warp based in Sheffield UK typically prioritise the creative over commercial concerns in their productions. They set their films across the UK, in different communities typically with under privileged protagonists and often with accents that are considered commercially problematic. E.g. Submarine (2010) was set in Wales, Four lions (2010) set in Yorkshire, This is England (2006) set in an unidentified location in the Midlands and shot in Nottingham, For Those in Peril (2013) set in Scotland, and She a Chinese (2009) is a mostly subtitled film. 

Most of their films are under 2 million budget. This explains why they often get financial support from the government funded BFI (British Film Institute), in the form of non repayable grants. Typically they get financing from either ABC films or Film 4. Despite 0 or low theatrical revenue the commercial pressures are greatly reduced. If they didn’t get BFI financing the sort of movies they make would not exist. There are no IMAX or 3D Warp movies since it costs a lot and slows down the production. It would b higher than the production cost of any Warp Film. 

The digital only film studio, indie Warp X has typically around 0.5m budget. One of their films Le Donk & Scor-zay-zi (2009), had a 5 day shoot was only 48k. With Ghost Stories (2017) and 71 (2014) their went closer to 10 million. 

The Working Title film Billy Elliot (2000) set in new castle was about working class character, social realist, low budget but made over 100 million due to Oscar bounce, had upbeat feel good ending.

We can make a comparison with the ABC films and Chanel 4 (Public service broadcasters) In both cases neglected underprivileged areas of the UK gain representation. 

We can see in Working Title films like Grimsby (2014) and Notting Hill (1999 )how a more commercial company tends to exclude or crudely stereotype such characters and places. 

Grimsby has the highly stereotyped characters which allowed it to reach international release.  The American name is 'brothers Grimsby' rather than just 'Grimsby' as they wouldn't know where that is.

In Notting hill we see the whales character also a stereotyped: stupid and working class. Notting hill is a historic Afro-Caribbean area in London, but Richard Curtis likes to whitewash communities for commercial appeal.

The BFI replaced the Uk film council but the regional wings (e.g. screen Yorkshire and em media) still exist. This is why we should be careful to not us UK film council in our titles sequence. 

Studio Canal owns the distribution company Optimum releasing. It acquired it in 2006 and rebranded it as Studio Canal UK in 2011. Even and Indie like Warp can end up being like dot the Big 5. Optimum was an indie company but ended up being owned by, vertically integrated, subsidiary of Universal.

Production budget affects: the cast, genre, franchise, if the movie will have IP, IMAX and 3D, Age rating (higher age rating makes it harder to bargain), setting etc.

Counter Programming: movies that don’t seem to have what the box office needs, but go against all the PG 12 films, doesn’t have stars or have low production quality.

Star power: a movie star is able to guarantee box-office success

A higher budget enables A-list stars. Richard Dire would recognise the technique of using Matt Damon to lead the marketing of the $100m blockbuster Green Zone (lberts), a star vehicle film. 

Star vehicle is when a film is centred around a star.

Working title often have a billing block. Like in Les Miserables (2019) where there is an ensemble a-list star cast.

Richard Dire star theory argues that the success of a movie directly depends on the stars. This is what distributors are looking for: stars, IP, and genre. The marketing is gonna be based around the star.

Cats also used star power and a list stars like Judy Dench and Rebel Whilston. Also used worldwide known IP.

Yardie (2018) used IP but didn’t make as much money as it was set out to make because of: the setting (Jamaica: accent), The marketing was around the director, Idris Elba but he didn’t star in the film. It was distributed in only 3 countries. 

One of WT's most well known IP used is in the film Yesterday (2019). Deeper look at the film:

Film ownership:

Peacock tv network is owned by Universal and is a video streaming service. 

Streaming platforms are disruptors which challenge distribution models (existing practises) of the industry. 

The films that WT make with the disruptors are very low budget by their standards, since the scale of new content the disruptors have to create is slightly larger. WT produce between 3 and 6 films each year while Amazon produced 48 films just in 2021, 55 if including 7 doc films, 2 specials.

Mainstream vs mass: This is England (2006): movie about teens that got 18. Normally an 18 film won't do as well commercially (exception: 50 Shades of Grey (2015) was an18 but was a commercial record breaker)

Genre and hybridity: social realism (box office death). The realist aspect doesn’t do well in theatre. The BFFC uses the fantasy genre  as a means to justify the age rating for Working Title films. 

The Swimmers (2022):

One of the two highest age rated working title film in the last 3 years (the other one being Last Night in Soho (2021)). It was rated a 15.

Was at TIF to help it be accepted for the award nominations, very rare for Warp to get high profile awards, specifically Bafta best film since they focus on the commercial aspect more. Ultimately, the film still has the American commercial mode, a feel good ending and aspects of the American dream. 

WT production strategy is around making the US their primary market, but they are also geared to Global appeal: ie China.

We can see this through the number of territories they are distributed in. 

Wide release for the uk would be 300 screen and 3000 screens in America. 

Warp have a niche and arthouse strategy, lacking mainstream box-office appeal/potential

USA appeal

Following the Gant rule (observation that a film in the US will make 10 times more in the UK)  I looked at international appeal in both Warp and Working Title.Warp are very unlikely to have international appeal. Working Title has to rely on the American audience. Two companies with very different approaches. 

Tyrannosaur got theatrical release while being a British, social realist, indie film. It got a lot of attention at TIFF (Toronto international film festival) and thats how it got American release. It got a specialist distributor and didn't even make a trailer to not risk further money. 

Warp films are missing big name stars. They are missing IP and franchise. Contrasting to Working Title which uses IP in movies like: Cats (2019), Les Miserables (2012), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), The Theory of Everything (2014). Yardie (2018 Warp film) was IP but it's not well known and is still quite obscure. 

Another thing that won't get warp into the American market is the accent and setting. If you wanted a film to reach global success you would want the actors to have recognisable accent eg, Submarine (2010) set in Whales, For Those in Peril (2013) set in Scotland. The Warp characters are working class and under privileged demographics. WT title always go for middle class or upper class characters. 

She a Chinese, revolving around an immigrant. working class, is a ludicrous idea commercially. It was also mostly subtitled. The representation for Working class is very narrow, white and upper middle class. 

Working Title also have many films set in America like Frost/Nixon (2008). Paul (2011 Sci-fi Comedy) is set in America but used english actors highlighting the stars they are able to get. 

The Danish Girl (2015) is a good counter example, it was an academy award, Oscar winner, which is very unusual since they focus on the commercial aspect of filmmaking. The Danish Girl also unusually showcases under privileged characters, in this case trans. However, WT's first film, My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), was a controversial movie about a gay couple crossing the race barrier.