Saving Private Ryan Case study

Director  - Steven Spielberg

Writer – Robert Rodat

Cast – Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon

Genre - Action, Drama, History and War

Release Date – July 24, 1998

Budget - $70 million

Revenue - $481 million

Inspiration – the writer Robert Rodat was inspired to create the film when he came across a monument dedicated to four brothers who had died during the American civil war, he decided however to base his idea around the Normandy landings in the second world war. The reason he chose this setting was because his son's birthday (June 6) shared the same date as the Battle of Normandy, and thus this was further inspiration for him.

·         The film was directed by the already respected Steven Spielberg, who had notable success with films based within the world war, such as schindlers list and empire of the sun ect.  Thus due to his creditability any possible investors would immediately be struck by the great potential for a successful film.

·         The main star within the film was the actor Tom Hanks, who was a well respected actor due to his performances in films such as Forrest Gump and big, which had won him a fine string of accolades. Much like having Steven Spielberg directing the film, the thought of having such a popular actor playing the lead role would generate revenue in itself, as people will always pay to see his films, which in turn gives the producer a greater chance of making a profit. Tom Sizemore was enrolled to play the role of the films “tough guy”, which due to his roles in films such as “heat”, he was perfect for, and just his reputation alone would help him portray the character.

·         Another key selling point was that there had not been a truly successful war film for some time, and as Spielberg had the intention of making the film as realistic as possible, the film had the capability to generate a large audience base, especially as it was recommended by true veterans from the war, who claimed it was as close to the real thing you could possibly get. This would attract attention from people keen to see what the conditions of the war would actually have been like.

Pulp Fiction Case Study

Director  - Quentin Tarantino

Writer – Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary

Cast – John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken among others.

Genre - Crime

Release Date – October 1994

Budget - $8.5 Million

Revenue - £212.19 Million

Inspiration - The initial inspiration for pulp fiction was the three-part horror anthology film Black Sabbath (1963) from which the idea of the 3 interlinking plots within the film was gained. This inspiration for the “golden watch” segment of the story was taken from a previous work of Avary "Pandemonium Reigns".  Two scenes originally from true romance (Work of Roger Avary, but did not feature in the final cut) were also drafted into pulp fiction and redeveloped to fit the plot.

·         Directed by Quentin Tarantino, a director known for previous successful films such as reservoir dogs. This would be appealing to an aspiring financer, because as a director, Tarantino had a grand reputation, and this therefore leads to the potential of achieving a good profit

·         As a co-writer, Roger Avary, had previously wrote true romance. This meant that to a potential financer the film had a great deal of promise in terms of generating a successful plot.

·         The film stars established actors such as John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, and Bruce Willis. When it came to selecting john Travolta to play the lead role, there was a great deal of scepticism due largely to fact he had not starred in a successful film for sometime. Despite this he reputation amongst film viewers remained high as a result of the successful films that he had been in, and he eventually repaid the trust that was placed upon him in the form of an academy award nominated performance. There were also questions raised when Uma Thurman was cast as “Mia Wallace” the husband of the crime lord “Marcell Wallace”, as she was a previously unknown actor with little acting experience so nobody knew what to expect. Quentin however expertly moulded her into her role as a mysterious women, who has come from nowhere into the limelight as the “big mans wife”, this is also retrospective of her career, where she was also cast into fame from nothing.

·         The 3 interloping plots was also a key selling point to the film, as it had not yet previously done on a box office level, with any success.  This in itself meant that if successful, pulp fiction would near enough be a unique film.

·         There was also the opportunity of producing merchandise to sell after the films release. This came in the form of the specially selected soundtrack, and t-shirts featuring captions and images from the film, such as the iconic pistol pose (John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson). Altogether this added to the chance of producing more revenue for the potential investors.

Film Development Timeline

Idea

This is the initial stage of a film, where the Writer or Director creates an idea for a potential film.

Development Finance

Once the idea of the film has been established, the Writer/Director will pitch the idea to possible investors, who then judging by the potential for success will then give the Writer/Director the funds required for the development of the film, such as the writing of the script.

Script Development

This is when the script for the film is developed and finalised. A general insight to the plot of the film will also be required to give the possible financers a better idea as to what the film is about.

Packaging Moment

Within this stage the genres of the film will be established, as well as details on the potential cast for the film. Any possible merchandising available from the film will also listed here in order to enhance the chance of a large financer investing in the film.

Financing

Once the film has gained its key investors, the financing of the film will have to be set, this includes the budget for actually creating the film, as well as completion bonds which is a form of insurance that covers the film in the event of it not being completed, and the investors money lost.

Pre-Production

This is the section of production that takes care of the preparation to the actually shoot of the film. It includes things such as selecting the cast, set and costume design (props also) and the storyboarding of the film

The Shoot

The section of a films production dedicated to the actual filming.

 Post Production

Once the film has been shot, special effects will then be edited in along with non diegetic sound such as soundtracks and further special effects.

 Getting a distributor

Now that the film is complete, it is essential that a distributor is found, so it can finally be released (distributed) and then hopefully the film be successful with the hope of generating a profit for all parties involved.

Punch Magazine Research and Report

Magazine institutions today provide numerous amounts of content to the modern day consumer, whether it is relative to the genre or the pages provided. To get to a magazine being produced and ready to sell, a number of stages have to be produced all equal to the final production.

With this in mind, a classmate and I (Michael Fenton) have carried out a research report on all what’s carried out within the production of ‘Punch’, a magazine that ventured the borders of cartoon humour in the late 19^th century. We will be looking at these stages, and what are included within each. The main 3 stages can be interpreted as the institution, the audience as well as the content.

Punch magazine was a weekly British humour magazine running from 1841 through to 2002. It became successful though providing humorous anagrams and pictures as a main selling point, eventually being the forefront for ‘cartoons’.

When the magazine was first established, its initial substance was one of comedy and satire, and the general method for the delivery of this essence was through smart jokes, wit and cleverly illustrated cartons in order to provide a backbone to this humorous genre. One of the key issues about the content of punch was that it was not only sophisticated but it also lacked any offensive material which ensured that it could remain a staple among British households for generations to come.  Despite the reader friendly basis that the magazine upholds, it was not the main feature that upheld the magazines popularity, this was in fact essentially the instalment of the hand sketched “cartoons” inside the magazine. These would either be delivered within an article to support the main points or it would be separate to any article, and deployed as with a small joke displayed underneath, which would be based upon the said image and this is generally where the magazine generated the majority of its humour. In conjunction with the satirical cartoons, the magazine itself contained articles which would more often than not be related to issues and events at the time and took almost a similar stance to Shakespeare from where the writers used the magazine as a tool get their views of important members of society across than they may do by publicly speaking against these people. As a result of this, newspapers like ‘The Times’ and ‘News of The World’ often allowed Punch to deliver a column or article within their papers, and this again supports the claim that punch magazines content was sophisticated and well delivered enabling them to expand influence over the late 1800s and early 1900s media and entertainment.

The first edition of Punch Magazine was printed by Joseph Last of Fleet Street, with n the early years of its existence selling about 6,000 copies a week, signifying that despite not being around for to long, the magazine had already acquired itself a fairly extensive fan base, which it could build upon in later years. The majority of this fan base would reside in the sophisticated upper and middle classes of society, who would find the clever wit and smart humour of the magazine very appealing. As well as this, children within this society were also enticed and allowed themselves to then take in the cartoons of the magazine for their own entertainment purposes, thus aiding the magazine in appealing to more than just their initial target audience of these high members of society. However, it was this which became the main downfall for the magazines decline in sales and eventual closure of the business.

This concept was linked to the ‘suggester in chief’, who was the leading person with regards to delivering the content found within, whether it be for the look or the topic. The first and most successful of these was a man called Henry Mayhew who was responsible for Punch’s most successful times. He incorporated the idea that ‘politics is funny’, and used this as his vocal point to society. The reason for the success held from these positions within the magazines institution is that no other or media item was produced by the owners of punch, so the producers could exert all their efforts onto Punch, and therefore they could ensure only the best content was delivered within the magazine.

Like many of the modern magazines of today, much of Punch’s income was not directly obtained from the initial selling price, but it is in fact made from the use of advertising within the magazine itself, and in the original issues of the magazine it is clearly identifiable that on the front cover we can see examples of these advertisements, such as the advert for car insurance seen on the front of this issue:

 Despite the magazines initial success, it eventually succumbed to the element of time with much of its content becoming outdated to compared to the newer and more appealing comics such as beano and the dandy, and as magazines/comics became more popular amongst lower classes, the upper class began to lose their appeal for such a common media induced factor of entertainment. As a result of this decline in popularity and sales the magazine hit a downward spiral which started  towards the end of the 1940s, and despite the magazines commitment to its loyal fan base it was forced to discontinue and by 1992 it was forced to close. In 1996, Four years after the magazine was shut down Mohamed Al-Fayed, an Egyptian businessman purchased the rights to the magazine with the intention of using it a weapon against Private Eye, who Al-Fayed currently had a feud against due to un-favorable articles and criticisms being published within it. Despite its re-institution punch magazine failed to achieve its once overwhelming popularity and was again forced to be shut down in may 2002 after, after recording losses of around £16 million. This would be the final attempt to date of any comeback for punch magazine, and due to the lack of any real success for nearly 70 years, I believe that it will also be the last.  However In 2004, much of the archive, including the famous Punch table, was acquired by the British Library, thus helping to reinforce the magazine as a British classic even with the recent failure of the magazine, so the content found within the library will more notably be from the earlier days of the magazine, which was when it achieved greater success and contained more iconic material, such as items produced by the great Charles dickens.

Task Completion Table

TASK	Completion	Completed	Yes
Initial Production of Preliminary Task (School Magazine) (Front Cover)	end of October	Yes	Yes
Initial Production of Preliminary Task (School Magazine)  (Contents Page)	end of October	Yes	No
Final Production of Preliminary Task (School Magazine)  (Front Cover)	during November	Yes	Yes
Final Production of Preliminary Task (School Magazine)  (Contents Page)	during November	Yes	No
Research for The Main Task (Music Magazine)	Beginning of December	Yes	No
First Draft of Main Task (Music Magazine Front Cover)	During  December	Yes	Yes
First Draft of Main Task (Music Magazine Double Page Spread)	During  December	Yes	Yes
First Draft of Main Task (Music Magazine Contents Page)	End of December	Yes	Yes
Final Production of Main Task (Music Magazine Front Cover)	During January	Yes	Yes
Final Production of Main Task (Music Magazine Double Page Spread)	End of January	Yes	Yes
Final Production of Main Task (Music Magazine Contents Page)	Beginning of February	Yes	Yes
Evaluation (Who would be the audience for your media product?)	During February	Yes	Yes
Evaluation (How did you attract/address your audience?)	During February	Yes	Yes
Evaluation (In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?)	During February	Yes	Yes
Evaluation (How does your media product represent particular social groups?)	End of February	Yes	Yes
Evaluation (What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?)	End of February	Yes	Yes
Evaluation (What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?)	Beginning of March	Yes	Yes
Evaluation (Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?)	Beginning of March	Yes	No

Audience Lifestyle Results

	Your Answer	Respondent 1	Respondent 2	Respondent 3	Encoding /Decoding Reading
1	Low/middle class	Middle	middle	lower
2	16-29	18-25	16-30	16-25
3	Male and female (70/30%)	Male	Male and female (90/10%)	Male
4	Small cheap to run car (ie citoren saxxo)	VW Polo	rovers	Ford fiesta
5	Council estate – semi detatched	Semi-detached	flats	Semi detatched
6	Cheap drinks, cans ect	Strongbow	Lager and other beer	Basic beers ect, nothing fancy
7	Comedys and sporting programs, live football	Comedy	comedy	No reality tv , humour based tv
8	Drum and base, dubstep, the charts	Dubstep	dubstep	Drum and base
9	Takeaways	pizza	Cheap food	Kebabs, fast food
10	Football and rugby	Football	Contact sports	Football
11	Single, prowling	Single	Single	Single
12	Wherever the deals are at	Greek islands	Clubbing resorts, Ibiza	Holidays with clubs and bars
13	No interest in politics	Conservative	labour	Not really bothered
14	No preference to any band	Plan B	Nero and other bass artists	Professor green
15	High street designers when affordable, primark any other time	River island	asos	As long as it looks good
16	Roughly £500 a month  for leisure	£450	Around £600	£400