British Class System

Indie Film Marketing Research

For my research I chose to look at the documentary film 'Amy'. 'Amy' was produced by 'On the Corner Films' and was distributed by 'Altitude Film Distribution'. The documentary film was released in 2015 and was aimed at her life and the tragic ending to it.

The marketing was organised by a lady called Lia Devlin who made sure that every route they took positioned the film as a mainstream event rather than a niche film release. This included a teaser campaign which made headlines around the world to a publicity campaign managed by the agency 'Organic'.

The official poster designed by a company called 'Wonderland' won best poster campaign three times in a row as well as the documentary campaign and the trailer. The trailer was made up of clips from the film which consisted of Amy talking about how she felt about depression and her fame which is one of the main reasons head of Altitude Film Distribution, Hamish Moseley thinks it was such a big hit in the box office. Since the film has been released, it has reached a worldwide hit of $8,390,554. 

'Hustle' Gender Representation

How does camera, mise-en-scene, editing and soundtrack represent gender?

One way in which the soundtrack represents gender in this extract is that it presents women as being very manipulative. This is shown when the lady loses her ring and she is frantically listing chores for the owner of the shop to complete for her. The dialogue she uses also shows she is very bossy, for example she says "i need an entire shop search" and "call me as soon as you find it". This is going against the representation that men are the demanding ones as the lady is shown as very demanding and manipulative. This also shows that she is overreacting and being hysterically irrational.

The young lady in the shop is also being shown as being very judgemental which can be shown when there is a cutaway from the conversation between David Walliams character and the other lady in the shop. The young lady's facial expression in the cutaway shows that she is almost looking down on the other lady as she is unable to pay for the expensive dress. However, this could also show that she is being sympathetic. Both the judgemental and sympathetic attitude support gender stereotypes about women.

Throughout the extract there are various cross cuts. The cross cut between the dress shop and the gentlemen's club is shown when David Walliams' character skips off excitedly when he has found out that the lady will purchase the 3,000 pound dress.  As he exits the scene there is a wipe which is followed by the cross cut to the club. This shows a strong juxtaposition between a stereotypical female environment and a male environment and also presents David Walliams as being quite flamboyant which is counter stereotype of men. The female environment in the shop is very light and glamorous whereas the club is very dark colours and they are all smoking and drinking.

Lenny Henry

- He believes there is slow change and effort being made to show how black/asian actors are being portrayed withing the media.

- Broadcasters should widen what they put on television so it fits all ethnically different people

- There is only a small percentage of  black and asian actors within the media and there should be more

- He thinks that producers should include and produce more racially diverse television programmes that include actors from different ethnicities and backgrounds.

Star Wars Case Study

It is estimated that there is a production budget of $200m, with a further $243m spent on marketing, distribution, and distribution & marketing of digital, dvd, & blu ray.
Marketing products such as an app and an uprising game which is supposed to 'fill the gaps' between episode 6 and the new release of 7. This is a significant moment for mobile gaming, which until recently has more often been a source of licensing dollars rather than new stories for the franchise.

The Uprising gaming app designed for Android and iOS is a feature for closing the gap between the recent star wars, Return of the Jedi and the new soon to be released Star Wars, Force Awakens. It has been a massive hit with the fandom due to the wait between episode 6 and 7.  

The themes of this app consists of allowing you to design your own theme within the app, connecting with others around the world which i believe is a very important factor as it allows the audience and the fans to be very proactive within the fandom. This also allows people to unlock characters the more they play the game and has pop up notifications within the app to release updated events and news to do with star wars. 

It also has a live countdown to the release of the new star wars film, the force awakens.

Approximately $3 billion a year is spent on producing merchandise and licensed clothing to promote the films of Star Wars. Disneyworld has made a new Star Wars area in the theme park. 

Desperate Housewives Stereotypes

Susan Mayor - a divorced mother with a sense of humour for drama and in search for love. Represented by a damsel in distress who can't handle anything and is stressed and needs to be relieved by a hero. This suggests that women are disorganised and rely on men.

Lynette Svaco - a former business woman turned stress out stay at home mum of 4. Represented by the Earth mother who is full of abundance and fertility and is shown drowning in the large amount of children she has. This implies that women are irrational and can't handle anything alone.

Bree Van De Kemp - the seemingly perfect mother struggling to save her marriage.  Represented by the temptress who physically attractive and brings out their downfall. This shows that women are being treated as objects who can be replaced easily by the man.

Gabrielle Solis - an ex model whose unhappy marriage leads to an affair with the gardener. Represented by the unfaithful wife who sees a dull or distant future with her husband. This shows that women are being shown as unfaithful and disloyal.

Gender Represntations

Emotional	Prudent	Co-operative
Community minded	Compliant	Rational
Efficient	Competitive	Individualistic
Ruthless	Submissive	Sensitive
Dependent	Independent	Demure
Controlling	Confident	Strong
Ambitious	Aggressive	Assertive
Selfish	Selfless	Domesticated
Violent	Powerful	Competent

Cultural Hegemony

cultural hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of that society — the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores — so that their ruling-class worldview becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm; as the universally valid dominant ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class. 

Hotel Babylon - Mise-en-Scéne

One way in which Mise-en-Scéne is used to present race is through the use of props. When Ibrahim has been captured the rest of the employees pack away his stuff including his uniform and photos of his family. The way that Jackie is packing away the photos of his family represents the fact that he now has no one and everything has been left behind including his other family who he worked with. This makes us sympathise with Ibrahim and the others as they have lost a part of their team. 

Moreover, when Jackie and the rest of the hiding employees run out to try and convince the immigration officer to let Ibrahim go the hotel manager calls Jackie's name and uses her body language to signal her to move the immigrants along as if she is brushing away like dirt. This again makes us realise who is on the side of the white people and makes us sympathise with the illegal immigrants as they are being treated extremely badly and unfairly. 

When the camera moves towards the prop, the hoover after Ibrahim has been taken away it shows that it is a symbol of Ibrahim and who he is, which is a cleaner. This also shows that he's not classed as much, the white immigration official steps over the hoover as if it is small and weak like Ibrahim. Which tells the audience that he is socially inferior and lower than the rest. 

Finally, another use of Mise-en-Scéne that the director has chosen is when Jackie locks the door and there is a close up of the key turning. This shows that the illegal immigrants are trapped and can't escape which again, makes us sympathise with the employees. The immigrants are all on the bottom floor whereas the legal employers are all on the top floor which creates a literal form of superiority against inferiority between the immigrants and the non immigrants. This makes the audience realise who is classes as a higher status and who is not, they also have to hide and can't be seen which shows that they are always on the edge of being taken away and have to be careful. 

Love Thy Neighbour

In Love Thy Neighbour episode 1 series 6, the main white protagonist gets the privilege of shaking a man’s hand who is part of the government and says that he will “never wash this hand for as long as I live”. He then goes off to the next door neighbour to tell him to take his poster of the tory down but mistakes his hand gesture as anteing to shake his so he reacts by his touch ad says “you’ve contaminated my hand” suggesting that the black man is unclean and unhygienic. This implies that the white man thinks he is superior in contrast to the black man and that the white man is more socially acceptable than the black man.

The two protagonists also end up having an argument about the posters and the white man says “you tar brush tory”. By using the word ‘tar’ he has used a common racial offence which was used mostly in America when a lot of racial movements and groups were arising and ended around the mid-1970s. This suggests that the white man, again, feels socially superior against the black man and feels he can use racial terms to associate him with.

These factors show how racism was being portrayed in media and shows how the white man has always been represented as being the one higher up than the black person. White people have been represented as ungrateful and racist and ones who always put themselves higher than anybody else, especially black people, and black people have been represented as week and socially inferior towards the white people. Both races have a stereotype against them. 

Warner Brothers Case Study

Warner Brothers was founded in 1923 and is an American entertainment company that produces film, television and music. As one of the major film productions it is an addition to Time Warner and its headquarters are based in Burbank, California. The top grossing film that Warner Brothers has produced is the Dark Knight which was released in 2008 reaching $534,967,645. Its 5^th most grossing film was Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone which reached $317,575,550. Its total income for 2014 was $12.526 billion.

 The Dark Knight: Action, Drama, Crime Released on 18th July 2008 (USA) IMDB rating: 9.0 Gross (opening weekend) in the UK and USA: $158,411,483 (USA) (20 July 2008) (4,366 Screens) £11,191,824 (UK) (27 July 2008) (502 Screens) Total Gross by 2012: $534,858,444

Race and Ethnicity