Visual effects are main attractions for the audience

I think that the visual effects are very important for the film but aren't the main attractions but without the visual effects of films the audience won't have a clear understanding of the narrative of the film. This makes films more exciting and less boring for the audience to watch and they will be able to watch the film, and understand the narrative at the same time. For example, in my case studies, 'Skyfall' the James Bond franchise has a lot of different visual effects including explosions, this makes the audience attracted to this because without those effects, the narrative will be too boring and they won't enjoy the film. The film had a total gross of £200 million in March 2013, this is a good example to show that the film was successful because the film had a lot of visual effects and became popular because of it as well. Some people will say it was so popular because it was a franchise and a lot of fans of James Bond would of seen it and thats why it got a lot of money, but if the film also very high ratings from various rating websites and papers including Rotten Tomatoes, Daily Mail and The Telegraph. This means even if the film made a lot of money from the franchises' fans, it also had very good ratings as well, this would've been because of its visual effects backing up the narrative.

Another example for visual effects is the foreign film 'Troll Hunter', this film had a lot of CGI and different visual effects. Without the visual effects this film wouldn't even make sense and needed the effects to make the narrative. It has massive CGI monsters that only the audience would be able to see and not the actors, and this was defiantly the main attraction for the audience. This film made very little money compared to 'Skyfall' and other films that used a lot of visual effects so a lot of people would argue that the visual effects are not the main attraction because they weren't as successful as other films that had less visual effects. The film made a gross of £160 thousand in September 2011, it lost a lot of money as well because its budget is £1.5 million. This proves that the visual effects in this film wasn't the main attraction for the film and a lot of people didn't like this film even though it had a lot of money put into to it to make the film have good visual effects. Maybe if the film had stars or better story line, it would've been more successful but instead it lost a lot of money and was very unsuccessful in the end.

But my final opinion is that I think the visual effects of the film are very important for the film and helps it become successful but there are more important factors such as actors and the narrative. This is because they do make films more exciting but it also can run films if there is too much visual effects and it isn't as needed as other sections of the film.

The Inbetweeners Movie- British low budget

Box Office
Budget: £3,500,000 (estimated)
Gross: £60,000,000 (Worldwide)

Release Date: 17th August 2011 (UK)

Country:

UK


This film had a small budget but it made a lot of profit, and was very popular for a low budget film, the reason why it might of been very popular was because before it was a movie, it was a very popular TV comedy series in the UK and everyone enjoyed watching the show, and when it was a movie it would have a lot of fans and this is what made it very popular.

The first weekend it was out it went over the budget by £10 million and already made a £10 million profit which is quick for a low budget film as well. But that was only in the UK and wasn't as popular in the US, only making £23,000. It also was shown in 470 different screenings in the UK and was only shown in 10 in the US. It has a wider UK audience than a US one, because it is a British film and more British people would understand it. Also, people tend to think that the UK have a different sense of humour so USA people might not understand the humour and not find it funny when British people will.

Fast and Furious 7- American box office

Box Office

Country:

  USA and Japan

Budget:

£125,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$95,123,026 (USA) (5 April 2015)

Gross:

$1,008,854,000 (Worldwide) (19 April 2015)


Release date: 3 April 2015 (USA) 

This film is the 7th film of the franchise, 'Fast and Furious' and is the first and quickest to reach $1 million, with fast and furious 6 reaching up to $800,000,000 which was the closest film out of the franchise no including the latest film to reach $1 million. It reached it in a short space of less than 15 days, this is outstanding for most films.

This filmed reached it because of a lot of reasons but one of the main reasons would be the actors in it, specifically one. Paul Walker died halfway through making this film and the audience and fans of Paul Walker would want to watch him in one of his last films he is in, and this meant more people went to see it as well. but other people might disagree to this as well, because another star died recently, Robin Williams, and one of his last films was 'Night of the Museum' which wasn't as popular and got a grossing of $300,000,000 worldwide which is a lot less than 'Furious 7'.

Skyfall- British franchise

Box Office

Budget: £130,000,000 (estimated)      

Opening Weekend: £85,364,714 (USA) (9 November 2012)    

Gross: £750,000,000 (Worldwide) (27 April 2013)

Release date:  26 October 2012 (UK)

Country: UK | USA

Skyfall is part of the James Bond franchise and there are 23 other movies, the first ever movie was shown in cinemas in 1962, Dr No. And the latest movie released in 2012 is skyfall. they are also making another movie which will come out in 2015 called SPECTRE starring Daniel Craig again. All James Bond films they have made are all successful so they know that if they make another movie it will defiantly make a profit because of its successful past. they have been making James Bond films for over 50 years.

They made around £60 million in the first weekend in the USA and made half that the next weekend, so they were almost halfway making a profit on the first weekend so they knew that they will defiantly make a profit, they made around £65 million profit from the film and that is successful for film makers.

'Skyfall' was released at a good time as well and not many big box office films was released around it and the next biggest film was released 20 days later where 'Skyfall' has already made £15 million profit.

troll hunter- foreign film

Box Office

Budget:

 £1,600,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

 £3,677 (USA) (10 June 2011)

Gross:

 £166,360(USA) (18 September 2011)

Country:

 Norway
Jun 10-12 : £3,677

Jun 17-19 : £8,758

Jun 24-26 : £13,251

July 1-3 : £26,888

July 8-10 : £12,656

Release date June 10th 2011- other films released around the same time were : X-men first class, Super 8 and green lantern. This will be hard for troll hunter to make any money around that time, these popular films will prevent them from making a big box office. More customers will go and see these films because they are more popular, and won't go to see troll hunter because they will see those other films.

Amanda Award
Best visual affects
public choice award

Newport beach film festival
Outstanding achievement in film making

Film Noir Clips

Clip 1- The Big Combo

At the beginning of the sequence, there is lots of different people going in to watch a boxing match, in a street that looks like it isn't looked after that much. Then there is a woman running through some dark corridors getting chased by two men. This is used in a lot of different film noir films, because it brings up the tension in the audience and there is only one way to go in a corridor and one way out, it is also helpful for the creators of the film as well because it makes it easier to make the corridor dark, using low-key lighting to keep the film dark, in lighting and in tone. When she runs out she is in an abandoned street that isn’t looked after very much, showing it is a rough community. Both the men re dressed in very smart suits and the woman in a very glamorous dress, even though they are there to see a boxing match, most people wouldn't dress that smart to watch a fight. The police office also was very un-formal to each other, and late at night working, all wearing suits instead of their uniform, could show they are detectives instead. Also they were smoking and drinking coffee which is very stereotypical for them to do this because people think this is what they do all day. Most police officers in film noir are normally seen doing this, because they are seen as corrupt from the citizen’s point of view and they are seem to not be doing their job properly. They used diegetic sound near to the end, when the man recorded his own voice that he is currently investigating, but earlier on in the clip near the beginning it had non diegetic music that was very jazzy, jazz music was very popular in the 1940-50s and was normally played in local inns and clubs.

Clip - The Last Seduction

In the last seduction they use femme fatale to show the power of the women and what she is like compared to the other men in the film. This includes her ex-lover when she took power over him by saying they never knew each other and the man she was having an interview with, agreeing with him but also at the same time taking the power by telling him what she is going to do. This sequence used a lot of high-key lighting instead of low-key, but only used low-key in one section when she was moving into her house in the night. This shows that this film will take place in the light more and isn't going to be as dark as the other noir films. All of the characters seen in the sequence were wearing very smart clothes, like in most noir films all the characters dress to impress someone throughout the film. They are all working class, because they all seem to be office workers or in an office environment, and most film noirs involve working staff as the main character, if it is a police detective or an office staff.

How does the use of mise-en-scene and editing to create suspense in the getaway sequence from Drive?

In this sequence from ‘Drive’, the driver is driving away from a bank heist and is trying to get away from the police without getting caught by the police, and successfully gets the money to the destination. He has two other people in the back that robbed the bank and he is the driver that has to drive them to safety. In the end the driver successfully drives them all to safety and he gets his share money in the end.

At the beginning of the sequence, there is a key mise en scene to tell a good description of what the character is going to be the driver (which is also the main character’s name isn’t mentioned throughout the film and is just called the driver) sitting waiting for the other two characters, he sees a shadow in the car side mirror but he doesn't react to it that much and just looks over his shoulder to see who it is. This shows that even though they are robbing a bank, he is still very calm and is very care free, but could also make the audience feel suspense as well, because they will want to know who this object is, and they only got a shadow in the reflection. This section of the scene has a lot of key conventions of noir films, because it is set in a dark area of the city, it is also uses low-key lighting as well to show it is going to be a dark, this is similar to ‘Batman Begins’, the main character lives in a very corrupt city/area and is always hard boiled and doesn’t like to get into anyone’s business, keeping himself quiet .This also shows that he has committed this a lot of other times and is used to it now. But this scene creates suspense, when he is driving down the road, the camera points at him turning round the corner of the road. Also its easy to commit crimes if it looks like he has done it before and doesn’t quite care he is committing a crime, showing that the area is very corrupt, a convention used in a lot of noir films today. This creates suspense, because only the character knows what is round that corner and the audience will have to wait for the camera to turn around and wait to show what it is. When the driver starts to drive because the other two characters that just robbed the building are in the car now, they start to drive slowly behind a police car. Even though they are trying to get away from the police, he decides to drive right behind the police without getting caught as well. This shows that he is very careful and knows what he is doing, and knows what the best way of escaping is, it also shows that he is a good driver to be able to know when the right time to sneak behind the police car and when to leave without looking too suspicious. This raises suspense and tension, because the audience wants the driver to escape without getting caught, but he is very close to the police and can easily get caught, so the audience don't know when the police might turn around and arrest the driver and the other two characters in the back seat. When they are on the bridge they are driving normally like all the other cars that would have normal citizens in, but there is a helicopter with a spotlight trying to find the criminals. It is shining its light at a lot of different cars but then finally stops it on their car, the driver then starts to drive a lot quicker now because the police might think it is them who stole the money. This shows that police have found them and under pressure, the driver still can drive very well and tries his hardest to try and escape from the helicopter without getting caught, and eventually is able to escape it. This also shows that he is a skilled driver and has been doing this a while because even though there was a helicopter right above him, he still managed to escape from the helicopter. This also create suspense with the audience because they don't know if he will escape now, a helicopter is a lot harder to escape than a police car and he might get caught now. Also when the driver was waiting at the road because there was a red light, there was a police car just opposite him, and they could hear on his radio that the police car was talking about them and could be a suspect. After this was mentioned both vehicles were still waiting for the light to go green. The traffic light was a key use of mise en scene because it shows that even though both the Driver and the police officer had a lot of power, the traffic light had the most power and kept them both waiting until it was green. This will cause suspense for the audience, because they will want to see what the characters will do, getting excited and can’t wait until the traffic light turns green. They are located in the night of a big city in America. They seem to be in a very rough area of the city and a place where there are a lot of crimes committed in and low-key lighting. This is a typical convention of noir films, set in dark cities with a lot of low-key lighting making it look mysterious. This could make the audience feel tensed up and will suspect something bad to happen to them because they are in a rough area, waiting for action and what will happen to the characters in the car.

As well as using different pieces of mise en scene which gave me an idea of what the rest of the film is going to be about, there was also a lot of editing in this sequence as well, this is because they wanted to use this to their benefit. Because it is a car chase, it is already exciting for the audience, so because they keep changing it to different angles, it gets the audience even more excited and enjoy the sequence even more. because it keeps switching, the audience expect something different every time, but most of the time it is the same and the audience get tensed up waiting for something different building up the suspense. Also they used cuts to the other characters, which had just robbed the bank, to show their faces and their emotions at that moment in the sequence. The audience might feel that they want to know what they are looking at to make the characters feel like that, and this might cause suspense within the audience. Near the beginning of the scene, it cuts to the front of the car perspective, showing what it looks like for the front of the car. The film did this to try and get the audience tensed because they know something might happen now, because it cut to that particular angle and it also shows how well the driver is at driving and calm even though he is being chased by the police at that moment. This is another convention of noir films because it shows that the driver is very calm all the way through it and doesn’t care, like most main characters in noir films. When the driver is driving at the normal speed over the bridge, and the police helicopter spots him, the camera cuts to him at a mid-shot of his waits upwards. This was done to try and show what his reaction to it and how quickly he will take action, driving a lot quicker now and showing that he is an expert at driving. This is done in a lot of action films today and is one of their main conventions. For example, in the expendables there is a lot of action, gun fire and fighting. But normally if one of the characters are going to shoot their weapon, the camera switches to them just before to show their reaction and expression to show the audience what they are doing. This will make the audience feel tension as they know that he is going to do something exciting and the audience will want to see how he will take action. Also, every now and again, they had diegetic sound of the radio to get louder, and then quieter. This might because they want to try and have the audience to listen to the more important bits of information on the radio. It was a baseball game, and the driver was using it to know when the game is over, so they can successfully get away without being caught. This could get the audience tense because of the radio, because they might be wondering throughout the whole scene, why is that radio important? I also wondered why it was important as well and understood until the scene was finished, trying to make us solve it before it happened and only telling us at the end.