Small Institution research

 Belstone pictures

Belstone pictures was founded in on 26 Janurary 2012 by Finn Bruce. It is an independent film, development, finance and production company of international films. Finn founded Belstone prior to leaving Hurtwood and his aim was to make films that push the boundaries while telling inspirational stories. 

Belstone's founder, Finn is based in London, where he has done work on set in TV and film, such as, Top Gear, Downton Abbey, X factor and Les Miserables. Following this, he did some work at Blink TV, MPC, Mario Testino and Sky News. Belstone Pictured Ltd. is also based in London.

Belstone is an independent company, which includes finance, production and sales. This would benefit the company as they wouldn't have to employ other people to do these thing as they do them all themselves. However if the film doesn't do very well, they will be more severely effected as the loss of money can't be shared out. In contrast, if the film does well, all of the money will go to Belstone. 

Belstone is mainly known for the films, Tucked (2019), Tank 432 (2015) and Tracks (2019). Therefore being the most successful films that they have released. 

Belstone use the same director for their films, however the actors they use don't seem to be the same. 

Belstone have some films currently being produced. They have 9 in pre production and in development and 7 in production and on release. 

The benefits of a small company are:

- There is not as much backlash if their products don't do as well 

- there is more flexibility

Large institution Research

Warner Bros. 

 Warner Bros. was founded in April 4, 1923, when it was originally named ‘Warner Brothers Classics of the Screen. It was founded by Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack L Warner. Warner Bros. produces films, television, music recordings, video games and publishing, however it is mainly known for its film studio division. 

They started acquiring movie theatres beginning in 1903, and then progressed into the production of films. They started making their own films around 1913, and they moved their production headquarters to Hollywood , California, in 1917. In 1923, they formed Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. Therefore Warner brothers had been around for 97 years. 

Warner Bros. Pictures group includes, Warner Bros. Pictures, New Lane Cinema, the Warner Animation Group, Castle Rock Entertainment, and DC Films. 

It also has a production company for television, animation studios, comic book publisher, video game development and publishing arm, cable television channels and 50% interest in the CW television network. Warner Bros also operates many divisions that specialise in publishing, merchandising, music, theatre, and theme parks. Owning these things helps the company as they do not need to pay for as much advertisement themselves, as they can do it through these subsidiary companies. 

 Bugs Bunny, a character from the Looney Tunes series, is the company’s official mascot.

5 of the Warner Brothers biggest Box office successes are:

1. The Dark Knight (2008) 

2. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

3. Harry potter and the Sorcerers stone (2001)

4. Twister (2001) 

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (2011)

These are the company's top 3 highest grossing films:

The Dark Knight - 

Budget: 180 million USD

Domestic Gross: 534 million USD

The Dark Knight Rises: 

Budget: 250 million USD

Domestic Gross: 448 million USD

Wonder Woman:

Budget: 300 million USD

Domestic Gross: 822 million USD

Warner Bros have 21 movies in pre production status. 

Some advantages of being a large institution are:

- They have a large economic status, therefore a lot of money to spend on films

- They get political clout - meaning they have enough money to get rules and laws to tilt in their favour

- They can employ many more people to specialise in roles

- There are set policies and procedures

- Branding 

Film scene anysis

 This is a presentation I did analysing a film scene, I chose the opening scene of Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith

Black Panther poster analysis

 

From first glance you can see multiple genres present in this film, firstly action, this is represented by the characters holding weapons. Having weapons in the poster emphasises that this film will be action based, and will draw in an audience that enjoys action movies. Another genre being presented is the Afro-futurism genre. We can see this in the architecture of the buildings, and the traditional garments being worn by the characters.
The light behind the characters presents a sense of mystery and power, and the smoke gives us a sense of the unknown.
The fact that he is facing straight on to the camera and looking directly into it could symbolise honesty, therefore presenting him as a good character. The fact that the rest of the characters are not looking into the camera and he is separates him from the rest of them. 
He seems to be unafraid. While the rest of them are holding weapons, he appears to be unarmed. This could also link to the direction the characters are looking, as most of them are looking away, perhaps looking for enemies, whereas the main character seems to be very confident and unbothered that no danger can harm him. 
The whole poster presents people of colour as powerful, and the two men in suits are the only two people not of colour, they look a lot less powerful than the rest of them due to their outfits, facial expressions, positioning and the fact they are unarmed. This is challenging stereotypes as superheroes are not usually presented as black, so it will draw in a more multicultural audience. 
It both goes with as well as challenges gender stereotypes, as the main character is a male, but is does also present a lot of women in the poster, who look very powerful. Therefore is presenting both genders as powerful, however the male is the main character which is stereotypical. 
The pyramid of characters is positioned above the buildings and are larger than them, symbolising them maybe controlling the city, and being more powerful than it. These buildings, which are massive, are made to look small by these powerful characters. 
The setting looks very futuristic. Indicating that this film will be set in present time or in the future. It looks quite unrealistic so maybe in a different world? The structure they are surrounded by looks like a gate or door of some kind. The blue glowing weapons give us even more of a sense of futurism. It has symbols on either side of the buildings, emphasising the complexity of the architecture. The symbols add to the sense of mystery as we don’t know what they mean, or how they got there.
There are steps at the  very bottom of the poster and having everything above them in different levels shows us the order of importance. As the steps go further down it gets darker, creating suspense. 
There are two animals who look very futuristic and violent, again presenting action and violence. They look as though they are protecting the city or the characters. 
The marvel logo is placed above the title, which would draw in audience as marvel films are very successful and popular so people may want to go and see it purely because it is a marvel film. Underneath the title it says ‘Long Live The King’, this little bit of information gives us a little more knowledge about the movie and also creates mystery as we want to find out what happens. 

This film poster is an extreme long shot, which means all the action is in one frame, meaning that just from this we can gather a lot of information about the film. Straight we can see that the character at the top will be the protagonist, due to the size of his picture compared to the rest of the characters, it is a lot bigger which signifies more power and importance. His positioning also symbolises his power. He has been placed a lot higher up and is the highest point of everything in this frame. Being above everything else implies power and we can make a connotation that he is of more importance than the rest of the characters. 

Opening sequence analysis

 Here is a presentation I did with Fin and Georgie on an opening sequence created by a past student on how tension is created in an opening sequence. 

The Most Recent Film I Watched

The most recent film I watched was ‘Tenet’ which I watched at Cineworld in Crawley on the 3rd September. This film was directed by Christopher Nolan. It was released in 2020 and it was produced by Warner Bros. pictures. The director, Christopher Nolan has directed many successful films, and is known for ones such as Interstellar (2014), Inception (2010), Dunkirk (2017) and The Prestige (2006). The main cast are: Robert Pattinson - as Neil, Elizabeth Debicki - as Kat, John David Washington - as the Protagonist. The film Tenet only has 280 VFX shots, which is a lot less than most romantic comedies and is also low for the director of it, Cristopher Nolan. The other films he has directed have a lot more visual effect shots than this, for example The Dark Knight (2008) had 650 VFX shots, and Dunkirk (2017) had 429 VFX shots. 

I thought that the actors in this movie were amazing and the whole concept of it was extremely clever, however I found it quite hard to follow and quite confusing. It is very hard to gather all the information, but after thinking about it and looking into it in more detail you see all of the hidden details and put all the elements together and it begins to make more sense, and you start realising how genius Christopher Nolan is. The introduction scene to it was very attention grabbing and I found myself drawn to knowing what was happening, and there was a lot of tension built to make the audience curious as to what was happening. 

The music and sound effects, I found, were amazing and helped add to the atmosphere, which is one of the most impressive elements about this film, as the atmosphere created by both visual and sound effects, is very thought provoking and helps engage the audience. The only thing I found with the sound effects and music that could be improved is that they were very loud, making the dialogue quite hard to understand, which made the whole film even more confusing!

I have heard from a lot of people that it is better the second time you watch this as it is such a heavy watch, so I think I will do this so that I can understand all the hidden elements in more detail. 

The concept of inversion was outstanding and very original, and I loved the scenes of the inverted fights.

Overall I think that this film is a masterpiece, but also very mind bending and insanely genius, but a second watch is definitely necessary, probably with subtitles.