The film was originally a book by Daniel Clay (real name Nigel Spriggs - changed because the publisher didn't think it sounded interesting enough). The film began by Marco adapting it and BBC films funding it. Originally, they had Colin Firth playing one of the main characters - however, he pulled out at the last minute and they lost £2 million of funding due to this. Eventually they managed to get Tim Roth on board and they could begin casting all the other actors - like Skunk (850 girls were auditioned for this role). They had a small window to get the rest of the money - they recieved the final funding on the Friday and they began work on the film on the Monday.
Media Ownership
- In the actor's contract was how much they'll get paid, expenses, where they'll be staying - there are rigorous rules about how long they can film, must do certain amount of publicity, must approve all stills (50-75% if there's more than one photo).
- The overall cost was £2.2 million but it actually cost around £1.7 to make.
- They had to defer the money using a recruitment schedule in order to distribute the finance equally and sensibly.
- All the directors came from theatre. Originally they wanted £3.8 million for the film. They got BBC Films and BFI turned them down 3 times until the last week where Dixie wrote to the head of the British Institute.
- BFI, BBC, Lipsync and Tax Credit - get 18% of the budget back which actually goes back into the film.
- They did have an American financier.
- They sold 'Broken' to 20 countries.
- The opening weekend is everything - about 8 films come out every week.
Cross Media Convergence and Synergy
- Blur did the music for this film.
- Music was released on iTunes and was sold for £150,000.
- The film didn't make the money from the iTunes sales though.
- Got Eloise Laurence to sing at premier.
- The main dialogue scenes were structured but the others were just the camera rolling facing the actors.
- Were going to shoot it in 16mm but used 35mm film for an extra £50,000.
- Film stock was close to sell by date (short dated film) to save a bit of money.
- Wanted a grainier picture quality so didn't use digital.
Proliferation of Hardware and Content
- They competed with other films but it was a short run.
Technological Convergence
- Charles Gant - editor of Heat - writes article on winners and losers of British Film and tweeted about 'Broken's' "strong comeback".
- Shortcuts (newspaper on tube) is read by 700,000 people per day and they got a good review from it.
- Gaurdian didn't like the film - gave it a bad review. Dixie thought this was unfair because newspapers should support the film.
- They used new media - Stephen Fry tweeted about the film to his £5.5 million followers. However, Dixie wasn't sure if this helped.
Targeting of Local and Global Audiences
- Originally they didn't like the poster - had to find images from the film and couldn't get it right.
- Market for women in their 30s after a Market Screening (survey after the film) told them these people liked it best.
- Had Tim Roth on the poster for the older generation.
- They had a hard time finding the market audience after the film was released as they couldn't get people to go and see the film.
- They believe word of mouth is the best way to get your film heard about.
- Publicity is key - actors have a publicist and the bigger the actor the bigger your film will be.
- They got Tim Roth on Jonathan Ross.
- Got Eloise to sing at the Cannes Film Festival to attract audience and media attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment