Social, Technological and Economic aspects of Blockbusters

Location Report

The following images are the two locations I will be using for my dystopia reboot of Moonrise Kingdom.
The first location is a downstairs hall/basement of a church in Greenwich - this will be where the scene of underground world would be set. These photographs were taken at night which is the time that the scene will be set to fully illustrate the darkness and bleak lives the underground people are living in. These pictures were taken with most of the lights on but in the reboot sequence certain lights will be turned off to create the eerie, depressing and uncomfortable atmosphere. I think that the first part of the underground scene where Gabe is set at a table should take place on the stage which is lit by a single light, creating an intimate atmosphere. This reinforces the MACRO of my textual analysis with the representation of childhood being altered - the young children handling and exchanging drugs shows their rebellion and detour from an innocent childhood.
The health and safety aspects of this location are making sure the actors do not injure themselves when getting on and off the stage and that they are careful when going up and down the wooden steps to avoid injury.
There will be at least two people in this underground scene and a maximum of six people.

The second location I will be using for my dystopian reboot of Moonrise Kingdom is Stone Recreation Ground. This will be used to film the scene where Gabe and Andrea meet up to exchange the pharmaceuticals. Although these pictures are taken during the day, the scene will be set at night to represent the secretive acts Gabe and Andrea are committing by meeting. I also chose this location because the large amount of space would make the characters look inferior and clearly illustrate the fact that they're only children. I chose to set this scene at night to portray that they're carrying out adult tasks by performing a drug exchange when they're only thirteen. This links to my MACRO study which is how representation of childhood becomes both altered and conformed to.

There are no health and safety precautions for this location. but the weather is an aspect that needs to be considered. 

There will only be two characters in this part of my Moonrise Kingdom reboot so only two actors will be used. 

The Walking Dead Movie

A-Lister: Andrew Lincoln

Spectacle: The society of the film is in reverse; it's the zombies who are seen as normality and the humans who are inferior. The zombies 

Set piece: The humans are the ones who are struggling for survival

Half Term Homework; Task 1

Released in 1975, Jaws was the first event movie in the history of cinema. It was also the first film to be released internationally at near enough the same time. Jaws already had an existing fanbase due to the novel of the same name published a year earlier which helped the film gain popularity and also gave advertisers a chance to extend the merchandise to wider audiences. Jaws became the largest earning movie within that time period. It was the first movie ever to go past the 100 million dollar box office and collected numerous awards due to it's massive success. To this day Jaws is still classed as one of the most revolutionary films to exist

What are the characteristics of a blockbuster?
A blockbuster is a film with great financial success
Elements of a blockbuster:
Franchise
Event movie
Blur between video game and movie experience.
Non CHN
Literature
Great advertisement
Other Sources
Wide audience appeal
Post-genre
'Stars' (However not always a guarantee).
Producer/Director (Still not always a guarantee, reputation and style can affect this).
Global Appeal
Culture Neutral
Simple Characterizations
Stereotypes followed
Save the world
Love interests
Spectacle, CGI, production and pyrotechnics.
Visual film or dialogue based.
Branding (Helps continuity).
Merchandise
Pre-existing audience

Task 3: Mark Kermode

1) What are the criticisms of Big Dumb Movies?
2) What is your stand point on this - how did we get to the point where the cinema is dominated by these films?

1)
-The main criticisms of "Big Dumb Movies" is that they are hyped up and heavily reliant on CGI and special effects.
-If you spend a large amount of money your film becomes a big event movie.
-In some cases, in order for the film to not be classed as a flop the budget has to be newsworthy.
-The budget doesn't guarantee success, it depends on the quality of the film
-Not all Blockbusters have to be dumb just because they are release in the summer where all the supposedly exciting films are to be released
-The summer is usually the time when people go out to the cinema and spend money on film, causing Big Dumb Blockbusters to be hugely successful. For example, Mark Kermode reviews Pearl Harbour as a terrible film, but the fact it was released during the summer helped it make money
-The first massive summer blockbuster was Jaws

2) My stand-point on this is that the makers of Hollywood Blockbusters are so contempt in their comfort zone they keep repeating the same story-line and adding more special effects to the film, they've lost heart about actually making a decent film which is why there are a lot of "Big Dumb Movies". If writers, producers and directors put as much time and effort into the story-line of a movie as the special effects they use, there would be amazing-quality films and if more risks were taken with characters, budget and other aspects of movie making, there wouldn't be repetitive story-lines and bored audiences.

Task 2: Characteristic of Blockbusters - Robocop review

Newly released Blockbuster I went to see - Robocop

-The post-genre of the 2014 remake of Robocop would br something close to a science-fiction action movie
-The reboot of the movie Robocop was heavily reliant on CGI and visual effects to emphasize the futuristic aspects of the film.
-The main target audience of this film was males aged around 15-25
-This reboot was supposed to be an "event movie" due to it's existing fan-base and the huge success of the 1987 original, but the lack of advertisement disallowed the reboot to be hyped up
-This re-make was just about classes as a big budgeted movie with the budget of an estimated $100,000,000
-Robocop 2014 was not star-driven, but did have one A-list star which was Samuel L. Jackson. Without him in the movie, the film would have been considered a "flop" because it did not conform to all the conventions in the Mark Kermode's Film Flop Formula. Another aspect of the film that contributed to it's downward spiral was the director, Jose' Padilha, who is not widely known and doesn't have a history of making widely known films (or that many films at all for that matter)
-This film was not heavily advertised, marketed or hyped up which could lead to a large decline in sales and making double the amount of money spent on the budget. The lack of well-known actors resulted in audiences being resistant to wanting to see the re-make. There was also a lack of merchandise prior to the film's release
-The Robocop reboot was heavily character-driven and followed the protagonist for the duration of the film in a way so the audience understands his motives and reasons for personal gain. Classic Hollywood Narrative was applied heavily in the story-line of this film
-Visual excess and set pieces over story-line was a trait that followed throughout the film - the heavy use of cinematography and CGI outweighed the narrative, possibly to distract the audience from the fact that there was hardly any narrative to be followed
-There was already an existing fanbase from the 1987 original so this re-make has a large expectation to live up to.

Rough Draft of Script