The boat that rocked - Richard Curtis case study

1) Who are the target audience for the film and how do you know? The target audience for this film would be mainly adults, both male and female. The humour in the film may attract a younger/ teen audience but the plot would mainly attract adults as they would understand it more.

I don’t think there is a specific audience for the film ‘The boat that rocked’. The humour in the film can be aimed at a wide audience. However I think the main target audience would be those who remember and lived through the times of the pirate radios like ‘Radio rock’. The first offshore radio station was broadcasted in 1964. Those who were around then would remember pirate radios and the events that followed. These individuals may find the film more interesting than others, although others learn the story of pirate radios (although its not represented in the exact way it occurred) and find it interesting.

2) How does the film rely on stereotypes?

There are many stereotypes within the film. The main stereotypes being the ‘pirates’, being portrayed as frequent drug and alcohol abusers and defiant to the laws surrounding radio stations. Others that are stereotyped are the government officials who all walk around in suits giving out orders. Those who make the law and those who break the law are stereotyped in a specific way. The way these characters are portrayed however makes the audience vote in favour of those who disobey the law opposed to those who are creating the law.

3) Explain the film making process from concept to culmination in 150 words or less

(will do this question but cant remember how to get onto the PowerPoint thing on our documents???).

Storyboard

This is a link to our storyboard. More information on Sam's blog.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y217/samj042000/storyboard.jpg

Working title films

Working title films is a British film production company based in London. It produces feature films and some television productions. The company is now co-owned by Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan who's films have won 6 Academy Awards, 24 BAFTAs and won prestigious prizes at the Cannes and Berlin film festivals. Not to mention the awards that they have won themselves; the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the 2004 BAFTAs and the Alexander Walker Film Award at the Evening Standard British Film Awards in 2005.

Some of the 'Working title film' productions include:

• About a boy



• The boat that rocked



• Billy Elliot



• Wild child

• Burn after reading



• State of play



• Bridget Jones's diary

Working title films is actually quite a small production company, however works (makes deals and co-finances films) with the well known production company universal studios, based in Hollywood America ( which is a subsidiary to NBC universal).

This is why, as you may have noticed, not all of the working title film productions are British.

Violence in 'Get Carter' and 'The Italian job'

There are many similarities between the films 'Get Carter' and 'The Italian job'. The well known actor Michael Caine stared in both films, resorting to violence to get what he wanted.
The violence however differed between the films as the criminal activity was glamorised more in the film 'The Italian job'.

I found that the film 'Get Carter' was at a much slower pace than 'The Italian job'. The slow pace however made 'Get Carter' seem more realistic. In today’s society it has become increasingly more common for violent films to be shown in a more glamorised manor. Not only in 'The Italian job' but in other recent films such as 'Oceans 11', 'The Bourne Ultimatum' and many others the criminal activity present in the films is shown in a way that makes the audience what them to get away with the crime. In 'The Italian job' the main character (Michael Caine), even when he first appears in the film, he was coming out of prison and was then rewarded with a visit from many women (prostitutes). Straight away his character is a person who impressionable young boys would look up to.
The violence in the film also shows little repercussions, so the audience is aware of the violence however isn't shown how bad the result of these actions are.

In the film 'Get Carter' the violence is made to seem more real. This is done by the slow pace of the film and also the dark shots that were used. The dark shots help the film show the real side of crime. The violence is also more real as it shows some of the repercussions of crime, for example when it showed Jack's brothers dead body. The dead body made the crime and violence in the film seem more real as the audience was aware of what had happened to Jack's brother at the start of the film and therefore knew what would happen to the characters that get hurt. The death of the brother is also constantly on the audiences mind as it was shown at the start of the film and the plot is based around this death, this also makes the film seem less glamorous.

Iweb experience

my experience on the Iweb program was very short and I would like to practice more in order to understand it more.
From what I done while i was on I web i know that you can upload pictures and videos to the web page, while I was doing it i uploaded a picture that represented British films. It was apparent that you could also podcast on the Iweb.
Hopefully when I have created a website by using the Iweb people will be able to visit it from a search engine such as google.

UGC

User-generated content (UGC), also known as consumer-generated media (CGM) or user-created content (UCC), refers to various kinds of media content, publicly available, that are produced by the audience.

Examples of UGC -

http://www.youtube.com/

youtube is an example of UGC as you can upload videos and then others have the opportunity to comment on and rate the video.

http://uk.yahoo.com/?p=us

Yahoo is also a UGC because people are allowed to comment on the news that is regularly updated.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/

This is a UGC because the users can rate other users purchases.

Media and collective identity

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y217/samj042000/mediacollective.jpg

This is a link that shows the table we had to fill in on British film and their identity.