THE FILM INDUSTRY: EXAM TOPIC PRACTICE

Today we take an exam question and explore the issues raised, practising how to use our case studies to support our points as well as how to scaffold our views with theoretical frameworks. (You will receive the copy of the exam question answer separately.)

Case studies today:

Bait Mark Jenkin (2019) BFI

I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Sorry We Missed You (2019) Ken Loach, Sixteen Films

Roma Alfonso Cuarón (2018), Netflix

Black Panther (2019) Ryan Coogler, Marvel Studios, Disney

No Time to Die (pulled 2020) MGM and Britain’s Eon Productions 

 

(We could have also /either used 

Legend (2015) Brian Helgeland, Working Title Films

Captain Marvel (2019) Marvel Studios, Disney

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) dir. G. Edwards, Lucasfilm, Disney)

 
Warner: plans to release all of its 2021 content on HBO

Disney+: exclusive back catalogue of Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars movies + recent acquisitions from 21st Century Fox  

 

Cineworld with its 128 theatres  

Vue chain with its 90 UK screens 

Peckham Plex, independent cinema SE London, closed September 2020

Genesis, independent cinema in Whitechapel, surviving

Theoretical frameworks today: 

Blumler and Katz - Uses and Gratifications  Audiences actively use media to gratify needs, such as the need for escapism, diversion, entertainment (mainstream audiences of blockbusters ); audiences use media to gratify the need to share experiences and confirm their sense of personal identity (left-leaning and 'prestige' audiences of Ken Loach films; African American audiences of Black Panther)

Reception theory (also called Reader response theory) - Stuart Hall 

Audiences are generally considered to be 'active' in the sense that they construct meanings (rather than just accept whatever they are told). This means that there are any number of different meanings as well as audiences for texts - groups of people with like-minded political ideas, for example, or shared ethnic experiences. Gender, age, experience, social class, regionality - all these factors have a bearing on how audiences respond to a film. There isn't a 'single' audience any more that there is a single way of consuming media.

 

 

*