Bullet point plan for video podcast

Bullet points for presentation

·      Introduction- talk about what films, brief background information, (actors, storyline, brief description)

·      Talk about the statistics, budget, filming dates, gross, box office, release date

·      How budget affected production, e.g. CGI, miniatures and locations, studio based or different locations.

·      How the films are different in terms of style, mise en scene and storyline and how this is relevant to different audiences.

·      There were huge big budget SCI-FI films out before Dredd such as Transformers; this could have inspired the remake.

·      Explain the ERA relevant fears, 90’s (cold war, government, riots) 2012 (terrorism, drugs, fear of where we live)

·      Explain reasons for the remake, they were both, artistic, to give existing comic fans a new look on judge Dredd and it was also financial because the Dredd franchise was big in terms of the comics and original film so they knew it would’ve made a fair amount of money, (or at least they thought it would)

·      Talk about how each version was marketed, acsess to the internet, posters, trailers, comic con/conventions

·      The original was shot on film and the new Dredd was shot on digital, the original was sold on VHS and the new Dredd on DVD/ BLU-RAY

·      How the audience reacted, different audiences, i.e. comic fans, film lovers, critics

·      Personal view on the remake and the original.

Really good just maybe have a few more facts and statistics. Talk about how the film went down with fans a critics and use a few quotes. get a few dates for dvd release and stuff like that. I like the point about how CGI and miniatures and stuff influence the budget. this is very interesting.

Alex Thorn 

Remakes and reboots podcast notes

For my podcast i am going to be looking at judge dredd, the original in the 90's and the 2012 remake, these are just notes that will help me during my podcast.

Judge dredd was played by Stallone in the original and Karl Urban in the remake

it was filmed in Öræfi, Iceland, and Shepperton studios. Dredd 2012 was filmed in south Africa, cape town studios and several different parts of South Africa.

Because it was made in the 90's there would have been era relevant fears, for example the fear of our 'era' is terrorism, and this is shown in the remake, the enemy is a drug lord, in the early 90's there was fear of the cold war hovering around, and throughout the 90's there was government corruption and protests and riots. and this is reflected in the film, show relevant clips. explain  how story line is relevant to research.

The target groups are different, the original dredd is a unrealistic, cheesy, sci-fi shooter. Where as the new Dredd film is dark, gory graphic and very sinical in terms of storyline, so i think both films reach out to different audiences, but again this could be era relevant, since the millennium, films have become increasingly exposed to violence

the budget was $90,000,000 and made $113,000,000 at box office, explain how the CGI and mix of minatures was fairly good for its time, there were good and bad parts. Dredd 2012 had a budget of $50,000,000 it grossed just under $14,000,000 , which is a huge flop, this could have been for several reasons, the audience, its comparison to the comics being inaccurate, and the poor marketing, another reason is because it was an 18 there was such a small market, 15 year olds go to the cinema more than 18 year olds do, do they had a pretty shut off market.

there was marketing for the first film, they had posters, trailers on TV, they didn't put anything on the internet as it was still very new. Dredd 2012 was advertised with trailers and posters and a website, but the website was rushed and it was very basic.

The production for judge dread would have taken longer due to the lack in technology a lot of things had to be done by hand, miniatures, they also shot in film which would have taken longer to process and edit than digital. In terms of distribution they would have still been using VHS which again would have taken longer to create than that of a DVD or BLU-RAY disc.

Audiences had mixed views, some people didn't like it because it wasn't relevant to the comics, a lot of people hated that it was in 3-D, and in general some people didn't like that it was such a new and different perception of the judge.

Marketing essay, second draft

Space Jam raked in $230,418,342 in box office with just an $80 million budget, but for the film the earning didn’t stop there. Space jam was heavily marketed with so much merchandise from all sectors within the film, for example, during the 90’s Michael Jordan was ‘the’ worldwide basketball star and had his own fan base separate to the film, (Chicago bulls fans), warner brothers who made space jam had their own fan base because of the loony tunes, (bugs bunny, daffy duck E.T.C.), and all of these factors combined to potential millions of dollars in merchandise, some of the items included, Space jam basketballs, NIKE got involved and released a pair of shoes worn by Michael Jordan in the films, there was two video games, a pinball machine, action figures and plush toys of the characters, and this is just some of the merchandise there was endless amounts of themed products to buy. The advantage of the merchandise was that there was a vast mix of fans and warner brothers accommodated the merchandise to fit this demand.

In the lead up to the film warner brothers created something very new to the market in terms of advertisement for a film, the internet was only just starting to become popular in the 90’s and warner brothers took this opportunity to create a website based on the upcoming film, the website would be considered very basic now but for the time it was new and exciting for fans as it was different. The website contained links to a theatrical trailer, information about the film, a section for kids, a link to several merchandise stores and links to flash games. This new approach to marketing the film created an exciting and eager build up for the fans; as well as the merchandise the website was created to accommodate for the variation in fans, for example it was orientated just as much for child fans of Loony Toons as it was basketball fans of Michael Jordan/Chicago bulls, and this created a bigger overall fan base.

As well as having references from other warner brothers television shows, the film included several references or ‘intertextuality’ from other films or television shows, two of the main films referenced in there is pulp fiction and ghost busters, the reason there are so many references in films is it because it opens up a level of banter for different audiences watching the film, for example, adults taking their kids to see the film, it offers them banter that they will understand and therefore increase the market potential for the film.

Fan culture within space jam was split into two main groups, firstly, fans of warner brothers/ loony tunes, and secondly basketball/ Michael Jordan fans. Warner brothers had to accommodate space jam for existing fans of loony tunes/Michael Jordan, for example, a child would see the film because they love bugs bunny, or an adult would see space jam because they are a fan of Michael Jordan. The aim was to bring the current fan groups into a new fan base; this could have been through different forms of advertising. For a child who loves loony tunes they may see the trailer on the television channel, in which they watch loony tunes, but for an adult who would prefer the basketball side of things they may see a poster such as the one below that portrays a more serious look to the film and may appeal to an older audience than the children.

The idea of test screening is not as popular now as it was during the 90’s, a test screening is where the company offers around 200 people to watch their film before it is released in cinema, these people were chosen at random. The companies went by the rule that if 70% of the audience didn't like the film then there was something wrong with it, and they got feedback on what the audience didn't like and changed it; space jam was not changed from the original cut, as the test screening was successful. The reviews of space jam on public release were different on the other hand; 35% of critics liked it and 57% of the audience liked it. The reason the rating were so low was based on several critical opinions, firstly, Janet Maslin, a well know critic said, ‘visually, it's a mess: the attempts to blend 2- and 3-D animation with live-action and computer-generated images produce scenes that are fuzzier than the storyline', this view was also backed up by Rob Vaux who said,’ This film was made very quickly by animation standards, and the haste shows’, these were two views of critics, but members of the public said things such as, ‘Cute, rambunctious, generally amusing rather than outright funny, this clever mix of live action, highlighted by the unequalled skills of basketball superstar Michael Jordan, and animated Looney Tunes antics will be a must-see for kids’, there is a clear confliction of views, some people, (mainly critics in this case), are looking at the film from a technical aspect where as others are looking at it from a children’s point of view, so maybe the ratings do not reflect what people think of the film as there are so many different ways people could look at it and different aspects it could be judged on, as mentioned earlier, the film had to accommodate for two existing fan groups, Michael Jordan fans and loony tunes fans so there are going to be endless different views/fan groups on the film; so for me personally the reviews don’t do the film justice.

After the film had been released in all cinemas they began to release VHS copies, the first VHS copy was released in 1997, the first DVD copy in 2003, a special edition in 2008, and then a Blu-ray copy in 2011. The reason there were so many re-releases is because they tried to get every possible bit of income possible, an example of this is a re-release on each new playback platform, for example, they released a VHS copy which was the original, then a DVD and DVD special edition when DVD was the main platform and in 2011 they released a Blu-ray format to accommodate to the new technology. 

 Assimilation is how popularity of a film is judged and where the popularity can be measured, back in the 90’s not many people had access to the internet and therefore had to go by word of mouth, reviews in magazines/papers and so on. Now we have access to the Internet in so many different forms, mobile, tablet and pc. A website such as rotten tomatoes uses a rating system for films where there is a percentage of critics that liked it and a percentage of public viewers that enjoyed it; this gives people a better understanding of people’s opinions of the film.

 Space jam is the highest earning basketball film that has ever been made, the CGI for the time was exceptional, and the film and all merchandise made $230,418,342 in total and still a loved film of children and adults today.

Terminator re-boot

Our task today was to discuss how we would reboot a film, we had several choices as to what we could do, me and alex chose terminator. As this would be a 2013 adaptation there would be several changes, firstly there would have to be a few character changes/ updates. Since the first terminator film was released females within cinema have changed so much, they have become more independent and have more of a powerful impact on the story.
Another major change would be the terminators, the original terminators were slightly false and unrealistic, for our reboot we would make the robots more realistic, more human like, another major change would be the amount of gadgets, in modern cinema everyone loves a cool, futuristic and unrealistic gadget, and having gadget packed cyborgs would be massively appealing to a modern audience. Adding to the idea of modern robots, another idea we had would be a very interesting twist to the story line, this would be spy robots situated within the human resistance, this would add great twists to the story line.
In terms of the story line, we would make it faster paced, the originals are slightly slower paced and a high octane action packed film would be more appealing, swell as the faster paced the story line would have to be intriguing and clever to keep people interested.

The big re-launch

From 2007-2009 the american drama comedy, 'Pushing Daises', run sucsessfully according to statistics, with  an average of 9.6 million viewers per episode and good reviews from critics, some critics quoted, ' it was funny, imaginative and smart', and,' it follows the directing style of tim burton'. So with good viewing ratings and good ratings from critics and audience what went wrong?
There were several reasons as to why the seemingly successful show cancelled, firstly as the show was beginning to get monument and popularity the writer went on strike, and it collapsed on itself, another reason is because it was very expensive to produce and make.

If i was going to re-launch this program i would firstly find a dedicated production team with contracts so there wasn't a chance of them quitting, secondly i would hire a budget team and come up with ideas on how to save money from each episode, these ideas include things such as, more green screen, less props, cheaper actors, whilst still trying to keep the same quality it produced before hand.

Technically pushing daisies shouldn't have shut down, it was successful and was popular with the public, but there expensive tendencies with the episode cost outweighed the amount of revenue they were making back, so in terms of cast i would use the same actors and try to save money in different aspects of the program.

The schedule would be once a week, compared to the second season showing on wednesdays and saturdays, this would save a lot of money and allow better quality episodes to be produced, and more money would be made from the weekly showing instead of showing two episodes a week.