Kill You Darling Brief Research

UK Release Date? 
6th December 2013

Institutions behind the film's production and distribution? 
Production:  Killer Films
                     Benaroya Pictures
                     Outpost Studios

Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
                      The Works UK Distribution
                      Future Film
                      Lumiere
                      Paris Filmes

Film production budget?
N/A

Nationality of film?
American

Any connections with other films?
None

Director?
John Krokidas

Star name in cast?
Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsburg (main character)
Ben Foster
Jack Huston
Dane Dehaan
Michael C. Hall

What is the film about?
A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. -IMdb

Target Audience?
Fans of Daniel Radcliffe as well as fans of the genres(Drama, Romance, Thriller and Biographical films)

What I Learnt from Marcus Markou

Marcus Markou came out our school to give us an insight of what it was like making an independent film by himself using the money he borrowed from his own co-owned internet company with his brother.

Some things he told us that i didn't know of:

•  He was rejected by all the British distributors in UK, and his only options were to "sell" his film for free to a distributor or to distribute it himself. And that was why Double M films was created; for Marcus Markou to distribute his independent film. 
• His main target was mainly families and greeks since the film is based on a greek family, therefore they have something relate to. The family genre can be related to by all audiences, hence that's why it was so popular among families.
• When he marketing his film, he found areas where the greek culture was densely populated. For example, where Greek churches are is where most greek people live around. Then he would approach them, promoting his film and giving out the facebook, twitter and youtube account.
• When he was trying to recruit cast members, he would try to personally get in contact with the actor. Like Marcus personally rang Georges Corraface to recruit him, whereas it was hard for Marcus to recruit Stephen Dillane since Marcus had to get through his agent first.
• In the end, when Frank Dillane was hired to be an actor, Stephan Dillane decided he wanted to act with his son, hence the true father and son relationship shown in the film.
• Since this was an independent film, he had to save as much money as possible, so he hired a line producer to sort out the finances and since Sara Butler was doing such a good job, he decided to just promote her to producer since it would save him much more money as well as keeping the job done.
• 100 people were part of the crew of the set. Most of the money that is used to pay the cast and crew is mainly to the main characters and the other members of the crew have a set amount of money that is given to them.

Research on Paps & Sons

Papadopoulos & Sons is directed and written by Marcus Markou. The stars of this film include:

• Stephen Dillane- Harry Papadopoulos
• Georgie Groome- Katie Papadopoulos
• Frank Dillane- Jame Papadopoulos
• Georges Corraface- Spiros Papadopoulos
• Cosima Shaw- Sophie
• George Savvides- Hassan Ali
• Cesare Taurasi- Mehmet Ali
• Selina Cadell- Mrs Parrington

Synopsis

Harry Papadopoulos a wealthy rich entrepreneur who has everything. Then comes a day when he hits a financial crisis where he loses everything except a co-owned fish and chip shop called 'Three Brothers' with his brother Spiros, who he hasn't seen for many years. So Harry ends up joining Spiros to re-open 'Three Brothers' chip's shop. With the idea of bringing the chip shop back to live to make a living. While the rival neighbouring Turkish kebab shop's son has his eye on Harry's daughter, Katie. As each family member begin to accept their new life, Harry continues to have trouble regaining his lost business, however once the chip shop begins to come to life, Harry realises what he didn't have before.

Producer: Sara Butler, Andrew Markou

Sets: London, 2 shops a factory and a mansion.

Runtime: 105 minutes










Platforms they used for marketting:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Papadopoulosandsons
Twitter: https://twitter.com/papasonsfilm
Google+: https://plus.google.com/112420387227700619018/posts
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PapadopoulosandSons
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2006810/

Trailer:


Poster:

Distributors:

Double M Films- Marcus Markou's own company.
Where he took his film to: 1) Dinard Festival of British Cinema in France
                                        2) Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece ( received Michael Cacoyannis Audience Award)
                                        3) Palm Springs Film Festival in North America
   

Reviews:

IMDb - 6.2 out of 10
Rotten Tomato - 83% with a average rating of 5.9 out of 10
The Guardian- "an ambitious attempt to rewrite Lear for laughter rather than tears. It's a throwback, but relaxed, sweet and funny with it: a first feature that makes an impression by not pushing too hard to make an impression"

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Sweded

For 2 weeks, me and my group, Shani, Yssy and Abi, have been working on a sweded film project on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Here are the links to our marketing and our youtube videos:

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/harrypottersweded


Twitter:
https://twitter.com/HpSwede

Our Harry Potter Swede trailer/bloopers:

THE ACTUAL VIDEO WILL BE LIVE ON THIS LINK!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Overall, i'm quite proud of our final swede. When we were looking through the footage, i didn't expect for our final swede to turn out this good. It definitely wasn't what i expected. Although i'm not sure whether we made the characters and the plot clear enough. However as long as it entertains people and they understand roughly what is going on, i'm satisfied.







Sweded Film

A sweded film is where a famous movie/trailer is recreated as a summary with a very low or no budget. There are usually around or under 4 minutes long so they are only able to include a limited number of scenes from the actual movie; those scenes tend to be the most iconic ones. Sweded films are usually unedited with only a single take per scene; usually ending up with a very comical result.

 

My favourite sweded film is:

 



 

 

It covers all the main scenes and is very enjoyable. Despite having a very low budget, they used a very creative way to recreate the scenes. They were also very professional about it, since they did not laugh during the recordings and took it very seriously.

Prelim Evaluation



Our brief was to plan, film and edit a continuity sequence of a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair to exchange dialogue with another character. In the exercise, we had to include demonstrations of match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.



Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

The people I worked with were Yssy and Josh B, the main character is acted out by Josh and the other character is acted out by Yssy and I did most of the camera work.

How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?

We had a few problems trying to think of a plot to plan our sequence on since the initial idea we had was impossible for us to do with the limitations we had since we had to record in school. However once we got over that fuss, we decided to alter the initial idea we had of a comical spy-like sequence so it would be easier for us to film without any injuries. While we were planning out the sequence, we definitely remember to keep the continuation going throughout the whole thing. To do this, we remember the theories that were mentioned in the brief; which were match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. Before the shoot, Josh made a floor plan and finished our storyboard, however we didn't do a walkthrough or blocking in the area we were going to film in, so we had a few troubles during the shoot.

What technology did you use to complete task, and how did you use it?

For the filming, we used the Canon HV30 camera and the Senheiser HD 201 headphones to check the sound. We also had a tripod to hold the camera steady so we wouldn't have shaky framing. For editing, we used the software Adobe Premiere Pro. We captured the footage, then dragged the clips of it that we wanted into the timeline so we could edit the clips into the sequence that would work suit the brief as well as making sense.

What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

The factors we had to take into account when planning included the space in the area of the scenes, which we didn't take into account, since we didn't do a walkthrough of our sequence. Also, since the hallway was needed by other groups, we should've made a schedule for when they are able to use it and when we will be using it. However since that wasn't planned out properly, during the shoot we had clashes with the other groups. For shooting, we needed to make sure we had enough space, which we didn't do because we didn't block the area, so we didn't realise the office we used was smaller than we expected. As for the editing, we had to take into account of the time, since we ran out of time and had to have a bit more time than other people.

How successful was your sequence? Identify what worked well, and what would you improve?

In the end, I think our sequence turned out fairly good. Except we thought we were able to include music, but we weren't able to and didn't have time anyway. If we were able to include the music, the sequence would be better and the atmosphere would be built better. Surprisingly, we were able to edit the match on action pretty well, since you wouldn't notice it. And we had to use an ellipse to cover up the mismatching scenes we had

What have you learnt from this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

I have learnt to make better judgements during the planning, otherwise it would leave me and my group in a situation where we would need more time to shoot and edit. Our organisation will also have to be better, since I wasn't that great at the organising in my group. 



Art of the Title grid analysis

Summarise your film idea. Provide a brief synopsis and outline what happens in your film opening.

Our film idea is in the genre, psychological thriller, and is about a teenage boy who has extreme paranoia, hence the film title 'Paranoia'. In the film opening you see, at the beginning, just a normal school boy. Then as the film opening progresses, it reveals that the boy is all alone, let alone being in school and by the end, the screen cracks as well it getting darker and darker, showing his mental distortion.

What kind of information has been included in your film opening?

In our film opening, we've included the credits of the important people. For example, who it's written by, the director and music composer. Also we've included hints of what kind of person the main character is. We've included that he a very secluded person despite being in school, which is usually full of people and a place where people meet their friends.

How do the titles link to the main film idea?

The fact that our title fonts(Plane Crash) are slightly eroded gives the idea of a distorted mind. This fits the concept of our film since our film itself is about a boy with paranoia which so it shows that his mind isn't stable.

Identify three things that you included in your grid that are important in the construction of an opening sequence and explain their role in understanding the film

• We've included a font that is able to connote the genre of the film just by the look of it. Most film openings have fonts that express the genre of the film. For example, in the opening credits of 'The Conjuring', the font used is very sinister showing that horror genre.

• We have used long shots to express his loneliness in the shot of him in the assembly. 

• The darkening of the shots as it progresses to the end of the opening sequence signifies that the film is going to have a sombre tone.

How effective is your film project as an opening? Explain your answer.

In my opening, I think the film idea was good. It had a really strong enigmatic ending to the opening title, which just makes the audience question why the screen cracks, even though they get a slight understanding of why, but doesn't have the whole story.