164. Try these sites

http://www.mediatedcultures.net/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/giants

 http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/

 http://www.bfi.org.uk

 http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/fli/simpleSearch.jsp 

www.simplyscripts.com

 http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/advance-timeline.asp 

 http://www.cjr.org/owners/index.asp

163. Questions to ask

Critical Research Study Advertising ·      Research into advertising, marketing and sponsorship.·      Issues such as the nature and purpose of advertising – selling image and lifestyle. ·      Issues of ideologies, values, messages and meanings. ·      Consumer cultures. ·      Product placement. ·      Niche and mass markets. ·      Audience targeting. ·      Social demographics and product mapping.·      Marketing strategies. ·      Case studies of particular campaigns. ·      Audience reception of advertising.·      Relationship between media institutions and advertising.            Children and the Media·      Research into the relationship between children and the media.·      Consumers of the media. [“Children” to mean up to and including age 15].·      Targeting and use of children in media products. ·      Representations of childhood and gender.·      Academic perspectives. ·      The media as educative. ·      Research into effects theories in relation to children and the media. ·      Children as participants in media productions. ·      Views of parents, teachers and children on the media and childhood. ·      Children’s reception of media texts.·      Media to include television, film, radio, magazines, comics, newspapers, video games and internet.        Crime and the Media·      The representation of crime in/across a range of media.·      Crime films; televisions crime series. ·      True crime magazines. ·      Press representations of crimeand criminality. ·      News reporting of crime; radio and internet crime coverage.·       Moral panics.·      Show case trials; crime and news values. Trial by the media. ·      The media and public perceptions of crime.               Sport and the Media·      Relationship between media conglomerates and sports agencies. ·      Attraction and retention of audiences via sport in order to promote other products.·      The representation of ideology (such as global unity/competition/nation, gender).·      Proliferation of sports covered including minority interest sports. ·      Media as sports watchdogs and commentators ·      inter-media competition. ·      Sport and advertising/ sponsorship. ·      Use of new technologies in sports coverage.    

162. Comics and Graphic Novels Links

www.brokensaints.com www.dieselsweeties.com http://www.comics.com www.moderntales.com http://www.talkaboutcomics.com http://www.scarygoround.com www.sluggy.com http://www.explodingdog.com http://www.filmeducation.org/mirrormask/index.htm

161. Critical Research Study – How to structure responses

critical-research-structuring-responses.ppt

159. Research – the essential guide from the bfi

http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/teaching/researchguide/pdf/bfi-edu-resources_research-the-essential-guide.pdf

158. FS2 Being British

Being British

Since1990, British films, actors and filmmakers have won about 20% of all major Oscars. See:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/cgi-bin/text.pl?/www.culture.gov.uk/creative/intro.html 

Being British is a concept that is unique to each individual. Our identity, or the way that we perceive ourselves, encompasses class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, race, interests and allegiances. There is also regional identity to consider: whether we regard ourselves as English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh, or align ourselves with a less specific area, such as being ’southern’ or ‘northern’. In addition, our parents’ nationality, or country of birth, can further express our distinctive form of being British. The idea of ‘Britishness’ is a highly complex notion and a film can rarely cover all of its aspects.   Whether we like it or not, however, British films that are released internationally give the rest of the world an impression of Britain, whether it is accurate or not. After all, who hasn’t at one time based their opinions on another culture on the basis of a film or television programme.  Explicit, and implicit, messages and values about cultural identity are present in nearly every film, documentary or television programme.  The cinema provides a means by which identity can be explored. Films can rummage through the things that add up to ‘being British’ and can challenge conventionally held beliefs about society, and the roles that people play. East Is East, for example, follows the difficulties of a Pakistani father wishing to bring his seven children up according to Muslim tradition.  Born of an English mother and brought up in Britain, however, they increasingly see themselves as British and start to reject their father’s rules on dress, food, religion, and living in general.  Then there is Billy Elliot, which looks at the changing representation of men, boys and masculinity in the north of England, whilst also addressing class issues relating to the miners’ strikes of the 1980s.  Questions to consider: 1. Can you think of a film you have seen that you would consider to be typically British? How would you define a British film?  

• Does the story and/or setting have to be British? If so, can you give some examples?
• Does it have to be made by a British director?
• Should the cast be entirely made up of British actors and actresses?
• Does it have to be made in Britain?
• Does it have to be wholly or largely financed by a British company or organisation?
• Should it be made primarily for British audiences?
• How has British identity been represented in film over the years?

2. Has our idea of “Britishness” changed over time?  If so, how? Do you think there is still a sense of “Britishness” today? 3. What do you think about regional identity in films?  

• Does a film have to represent all of Britain to be British? Or is a Welsh film as equally British as a Scottish one, or a Northern Irish one, or an English one?
• Imagine that aliens landed on Earth, having had no contact with human beings apart from watching our films. What assumptions would the aliens make about life in Britain based on our films?
• What do you think an alien coming to Earth for the first time would think of Britain if he/she/it had seen Braveheart before landing on our planet? Would The Full Monty, Carry On Camping, Trainspotting, Twin Town or Chariots Of Fire be a better introduction? What films would you show them on their arrival to make sure that they had a balanced opinion?  Check out:

http://www.filmeducation.org/secondary/s_archive/NSFW01/britpix/index.html 

 Defining a British Film From the last section you should have realised that drawing the line between what is, and is not, a British film is actually quite difficult.  So much so, in fact, that in 1998 the Department of Culture. Media and Sport (DCMS) drew up a points system to allow tax relief on some films. Below is the new test that came into operation from 1^st Jan 2007.  Any film scoring 16 points of a possible 31 – and at least one point in each of the three sections - can be officially described as ‘British’.

 

Section A   Content

• Film set in UK                                                            4 points
• Lead characters British citizens or residents        4 points
• British subject matter                                                4 points
• Original dialogue in English                         4 points

Section B  Cultural Hubs

• Studio +/or location shoot/vis/sp effects                 2 points
• Music Recording/audio post prod                           1 point

 

Section C Cultural Practitioners

• British director of photography                                       1 points
• British scriptwriter                                                               1 points
• British producer                                                                   1 point
• British composer                                                                1 point
• British lead actor                                                                  1 points
• Majority of cast                                                                    1 point
• Key Staff (lead cinematographer, lead production

designer, lead costume designer, lead editor, lead sound designer, lead visual effects supervisor, lead hair and makeup supervisor)                                               1 point·         Majority of crew                                                                     1 point

 

 

TOTAL = 31 points 

157. AS MEDIA VOCABULARY FOR ANALYSING THE MEDIA

The following are words and phrases you need to know. Add to these terms any brief definitions you need. 1)    PRODUCTION OF MEANING

ANCHORAGE

CONNOTATION

CONVENTION

DENOTATION

IDEOLOGY

INTERTEXTUALITY

LANGUAGE CODE

MYTH

SIGNIFIER

STYLE

SYMBOLIC CODE

TECHNICAL CODE

GENRE

CROSS-GENRE

GENRE

ICONOGRAPHY

NARRATIVE

ACTION CODE

ACTS

ADDRESS

BINARY OPPOSITION

CHRONOLOGY

CLIMAX

CLOSED NARRATIVE

CLOSURE

CODA

ENIGMA

ENIGMA CODE

FIRST PERSON NARRATION

FLASHBACK

FRAME NARRATIVE

IMPERSONAL NARRATION

INVESTIGATIVE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

MULTISTRAND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

NARRATIVE

NARRATIVE CODE

NARRATOR

OMNISCIENT NARRATOR

OPEN NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

PLOT

PLOT POINT

POINT OF VIEW

STORYTHEME

THIRD PERSON

NARRATION VOICE

REPRESENTATION

ACCESS

CONSENSUS

DEVIANT READING

GHETTOISE

PREFERRED READING

REPRESENTATION

STEREOTYPE

156. Critical Research Study – an overview

nb-alevel-critical-research-studyfor-website.ppt

154. Critical Research Study with Possible exam Questions

Critical Research Study For this unit the student is required to undertake an extensive personal research task. The teacher will guide the students in pedagogy and resources, but cannot teach the student directly about their project. Many resources can be found on the net, in the library and the student will be required to undertake primary research such as interviews, questionnaires and content analysis.  Some useful terms: Primary Research- The students own research based on first hand studies and research such as questionnaires and content analysis. Secondary Research- the study of other people’s ideas both academic and popular criticism. Qualitative Data- Opinions Quantitative Data- numerical data  This is an examined unit in which the students are required to answer two questions:

1. They must described their research methods and conclusions giving detailed and accurate references to sources
2. An argumentative essay based on their research and requiring the student to argue a hypothesis

 Example Question 1: Advertising: Question 1Explain the different methods of research you examined in your investigation into advertising Children and the Media: Question 1Give an account of your research methods, and examples, used to investigate the mainarguments about the relationship between children and the media. Crime and the Media: Question 1Give an account of the methods, and examples, you used to investigate the relationshipbetween crime and the media. Example Question 2: Children and the Media:What evidence have you found in your research findings to support the view that children adopt the beliefs and values that they learn from the media? Crime and the Media:With reference to your research findings, to what degree does the Media shape the public’s perception of crime? Advertising:With reference to your research findings what are the necessary components of a successful advertising campaign?

153. Audience Issues and Models

‘Audience’ is a very important concept throughout media studies. All media texts are made with an audience in mind, ie a group of people who will receive it and make some sort of sense out of it. And generally, but not always, the producers make some money out of that audience. Therefore it is important to understand what happens when an audience “meets” a media text.

Constructing Audience

---

When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most important question the producers consider is “Does it have an audience?” If the answer to this is ‘no’, then there is no point in going any further. Audience research is a major part of any media company, using questionnaires, focus groups, and comparisons to existing media texts, they will spend a great deal of time and money ascertaining if there is anyone out there who might be interested in their idea. It’s a serious business; media producers basically want to know the

·         income bracket/status

·         age

·         gender

·         race

·         location

of their potential audience, a method of categorising known as demographics. Once they know this they can begin to shape their text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listening habits.

One common way of describing audiences is to use a letter code to show their income bracket:

A	Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals
B	Middle management, teachers, many ‘creatives’ eg graphic designers etc
C1	Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc
C2	Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)
D	Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)
E	Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

 

They also consider very carefully how that audience might react to, or engage with, their text. The following are all factors in analysing or predicting this reaction.

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT	This describes how an audience interacts with a media text. Different people react in different ways to the same text.
AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS	These are the advance ideas an audience may have about a text. This particularly applies to genre pieces. Don’t forget that producers often play with or deliberately shatter audience expectations.
AUDIENCE FOREKNOWLEDGE	This is the definite information (rather than the vague expectations) which an audience brings to a media product.
AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION	This is the way in which audiences feel themselves connected to a particular media text, in that they feel it directly expresses their attitude or lifestyle.
AUDIENCE PLACEMENT	This is the range of strategies media producers use to directly target a particular audience and make them feel that the media text is specially ‘for them’.
AUDIENCE RESEARCH	Measuring an audience is very important to all media institutions. Research is done at all stages of production of a media text, and, once produced, audience will be continually monitored.

Audience reaction to even early versions of a media text is closely watched. Hollywood studios routinely show a pre-release version of every movie they make to a test audience, and will often make changes to the movie that are requested by that audience. Read about test screenings here.

Creating Audience

---

Once a media text has been made, its producers need to ensure that it reaches the audience it is intended for. All media texts will have some sort of marketing campaign attached to them. Elements of this might include

·         posters

·         print advertisements

·         trailers

·         promotional interviews (eg stars appearing on chat shows)

·         tie-in campaigns (eg a blockbuster movie using McDonalds meals)

·         merchandising (t-shirts, baseball caps, key rings)

Marketing campaigns are intended to create awareness of a media text. Once that awareness has been created, hopefully audiences will come flocking in their hundreds of millions.

 

Counting Audience

---

Different types of media texts measure their audiences in different ways.

Film	Figures are based on box office receipts, rather than the number of people who have actually seen the movie. Subtract the production costs of a movie from the box office receipts to find out how much money it made, and therefore how successful it has been in the profit-driven movie business. Be aware that a film which does not cost much to make (eg The Blair Witch Project) and takes even a modest amount at the box office can be considered a greater success than a big action movie which cost more, has a bigger set of box office receipts (ie lots more people went to see it) but has a smaller profit margin.Also be aware that film companies are very coy about publishing production costs of a movie, and that they rarely include the cost of a film’s marketing budget, which is probably at least a third again of the production costs, and is frequently more. in some cases, the marketing budget may exceed the cost of originally making the film - Four Weddings & a Funeral’s American marketing spend is an example of this.You can find details of the box office of more recent movies at IMDb.
Print	Magazines and newspapers measure their circulation (ie numbers of copies sold). They are open about these figures – they have to be as these are the numbers quoted to advertisers when negotiating the price of a page.
Radio/TV	Measuring the number of viewers and listeners for a TV/Radio programme or whole station’s output is a complex business. Generally, an audience research agency (eg BARB) will select a sample of the population and monitor their viewing and listening habits over the space of 7 days. The data gained is then extrapolated to cover the whole population, based on the percentage sample. It is by no means an accurate science and you can find about some of the techniques used here . The numbers obtained are known as the viewing figures or ratings.

AudienceJ      The effects model J      The Cultivation modelJ      The Two Step ModelJ      Uses and gratifications J      The active audience J      Mode of address J      The ethnographic model   In covering this topic we need to be aware of a broad shift from a perception of mass audience to one which recognises that, whatever the size of audience, it is made up of individuals. Along with this altered view is a shift in emphasis from what the media do to the audience to an acceptance that audiences bring many different approaches to the media with which they engage.
  The effects/hypodermic modelThe original model for audience was the effects/hypodermic model which stressed the effects of the mass media on their audiences. This model owes much to the supposed power of the mass media – in particular film – to inject their audiences with ideas and meanings. Such was the thinking behind much of the Nazi propaganda that was evident in Triumph of the Will and similar films. It is worth noting that totalitarian states and dictatorships are similar in their desire to have complete control over the media, usually in the belief that strict regulation of the media will help in controlling entire populations. The effects model has several variants and despite the fact that it is an outdated model it continues to exert influence in present debates about censorship and control in the media. The Cultivation theoryBecause of the difficulty of proving the effects of individual media texts on their audience a more refined version of the theory has been created called the cultivation model:According to this, while any one media text does not have too much effect, years and years of watching more violence will make you less sensitive to violence, years and years of watching women being mistreated in soaps will make you less bothered about it in real life                   The two step flowA theory that springs from this idea is called the two step flow. The idea of this is that whatever our experience of the media we will be likely to discuss it with others and if we respect their opinion, the chances are that we will be more likely to be affected by it. (The theory calls these people opinion leaders.) Do you think a friend’s ideas about a media text could ever effect your behaviour in any way? This is what some people have suggested happened in the James Bulger case- that one of the two children talked about a film he had seen and influenced the other’s behaviour.The Frankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School developed concerns about the power which modern mass media had to propagandise on behalf of fascism. The founders of this school of thought were left-wing and clearly under threat in the context of pre-war Nazi Germany. They moved to America and refined their model in an era of expanding media output in post-war America. They articulated criticisms of a capitalist system which controlled media output, creating a stupefying mass culture that eliminated or marginalised opposition or alternatives. A less theoretical variant of the effects model was developed in response to the violent content of certain TV programmes. Some of the moral watchdogs, or the ‘moral majority’ as they styled themselves, took issue with TV output that was deemed to be explicitly sexual, too violent or in other ways offensive. Their concerns were for those vulnerable members of the population who could be corrupted as a result of such material. Perhaps the best known of these groups in the UK was the National Viewers and Listeners Association (Mary Whitehouse) which argued that TV was a direct cause of deviant behaviour, especially among the young. The problems with the effects model, in whatever form, have to do with its roots in behaviourist psychology. The behaviourist explanation of human behaviour (Skinner and Pavlov) is looking increasingly hard to justify as we have come to develop a fuller understanding of the complexities of human behaviour, which is not predictable nor is it controllable. There are also the difficulties of linking cause and effect in terms of how we engage with media texts. The large number of studies that have been done do not prove the case conclusively either way. These range from the Walters and Bandura experiments to studies that count incidents of violence on TV. Other criticisms of this model centre on the stress that it places on the audience as passive, whereas newer models suggest that the audience is much more active than was initially supposed. This model, it seems, is something of an anachronism but it is constantly revived by politicians and social commentators when moral panics are generated around issues such as ‘video nasties’ and their influence on children (eg the Bulger case) or computer games allegedly damaging literacy skills or contributing to violent behaviour (eg the Doomcomputer game). Such concerns often try to scapegoat parts of media output as if these were the sole relevant factor in anti-social behaviour. This approach ignores the other factors that work as a mix to influence behaviour i.e. home, school, peers and social interaction. Perhaps the kindest interpretation of this model is to note that the media, especially TV, can influence general perceptions about public events and social trends. (Note some of the terms that have entered the language as a result of media exposure: ‘Winter of Discontent’, ‘double whammy’, ‘Sinn Fein/IRA’).
  Uses and gratificationsA more recent model of audience is that of uses and gratifications, which suggests that there is a highly active audience making use of the media for a range of purposes designed to satisfy needs such as entertainment, information and identification. In this model the individual has the power and she selects the media texts that best suit her needs and her attempts to satisfy those needs. The psychological basis for this model is the hierarchy of needs identified by Maslow. Among the chief exponents of this model are McQuail and Katz. The main areas that are identified in this model are: a) the need for information about our geographical and social world (news and drama) b) the need for identity, by using characters and personalities to define our sense of self and social behaviour (film and celebrities) c) the need for social interaction through experiencing the relationships and interaction of others (soap lives and sitcom)
  d) the need for diversion by using the media for purposes of play and entertainment (game shows and quizzes).The active audienceMore recent developments still, suggest that there is a decoding process going on among the active audience who are not simply using the media for gratification purposes. Morley’s view of dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings of texts is a semiological approach because it recognises the importance of the analysis of signs, particularly visual signs, that shape so much of modern media output. In this model, at its simplest level, the audience accept or agree with the encoded meanings, they accept and refine parts of the text’s meanings or they are aware of the dominant meaning of the text but reject it for cultural, political or ideological reasons.
  Mode of addressStill in line with the active audience idea is the concept of mode of address. This refers to the way that a text speaks to us in a style that encourages us to identify with the text because it is ‘our’ kind of text. For example Friends is intended for a young audience because of the way it uses music and the opening credits to develop a sense of fun, energy and enthusiasm that the perceived audience can identify with. This does not mean that other groups are excluded, merely that the dominant mode of address is targetted at the young. Mode of address can even be applied to entire outputs, as in the case of Channel Four which works hard to form a style of address aimed at an audience which is informed, articulate and in some ways a specialised one. Newspapers, too, often construct their presentation to reflect what they imagine is the identity of their typical readers. Compare The Sun and The Guardian in this context.
  Ethnographic modelThe latest research into audience has resulted in an ethnographic model, which means that the researcher enters into the culture of the group and uses questions and interviews to try to understand media engagement from the perspective of the group. What seems to be emerging from this work is a) the focus on the domestic context of reception of media texts b) the element of cultural competence, and finally c) technologies.
The first of these stresses the fact that engagement with the media is often structured by the domestic environment because of the domestication of entertainment and leisure. It appears that the home is not a free space and there are issues about finance for purchase of media goods, control of the remote, the gendered nature of watching TV and the ‘flow’ of TV that fits alongside or within a set of domestic relationships. So TV viewing may not be the concentrated, analytical business that some theorists suggest. The second area is best understood in terms of texts that can be identified as belonging to a genre that has gender appeal. For example, soaps are usually seen to have a strong female bias in viewing audience. There is a selection of competencies that are brought to such texts so knowing about cliffhangers, the role of the matriarch or the fluid nature of character relationships simply adds to the pleasures associated with the text. Think about the texts that you enjoy and even though you know how a text will be shaped or how it will end these are not barriers to your enjoyment of that text. Competencies even include the very expectations that you have for the text. The male preference for news and more factual forms can be seen as a feature of cultural competence because men occupy more public space than domestic space and therefore feel the need to be aware of the public worlds reflected in such texts. The third area identified relates to the way we engage with the hardware in order to enjoy the output of the media. There seems to be a strong gender divide here with computers and complex technology fitting into the category of ‘boys’ toys’. If present trends in technology continue then there is a real danger that just as our society is dividing along lines of information-rich and information-poor then there will be a further demarcation along gender lines. This explains why schools and TV programmes need to present positive gender representations and good practice that supports females and technological expertise. You will note that many of the lifestyle programmes that are on TV use females in less traditional roles as a way of redressing the balance. Overall the shift in the models for audience has gone from mass audience to individual viewer with stress on the active audience rather than the passive model. The level of activity in the implied audience is related to the uses, pleasures, cultural competence, situation and available technology for the particular audience.  

152. Assessment of Planning

A2 – Advanced Production                 Assessment of Planning                       Candidate Name:  ____________________ 

Element	Level 10-11(marginal)	Level 212-15(satisfactory)	Level 316-23(strong)	Level 424-30(excellent)	Areas for improvement
Evidence of the origination of the brief
Research into existing media practice
Research into existing comparable products
Research into potential audience
Organisation of actors
Organisation of settings
Organisation of props
Organisation of technical resources
Prior scripting / storyboarding
General comments

151. Assessment of Critical Evaluation

150. Assessment of construction

149. Trip to Hertfordshire Uni 3 and 7 March AS and BTEC

Hi Guys

Remember trip leaves promptly at 08:30

Outside the Playhouse

148. Look – Categories!

Hi Guys – look at the right – we’re getting more organised!

147. Women and film timeline

2003 The professional association Women in Film and Television (WFTV)

launches the initiative Directing Change.

Colleen Atwood wins the Oscar for Best Achievement in Costume

Design for Chicago (2002, Marty Richards).

2002 Halle Berry becomes the first black woman to win an Oscar for Best

Actress in a Leading Role for Monster’s Ball (2001, Marc Forster).

Moulin Rouge! wins two Oscars: Best Art Direction/Set Decoration

(Catherine Martin – Art Director, Brigitte Broch – Set Decorator), and

Best Costume Design (including Catherine Martin) and is nominated

for a further six, including Best Editing (Jill Bilcock).

1999 Shakespeare in Love wins seven Oscars (and is nominated for a

further six) including: Best Actress in a Leading Role (Gwyneth

Paltrow), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Judi Dench), Best

Costume Design (Sandy Powell), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration

(including Jill Quertier), Best Picture (including Donna Gigliotti).

Jenny Shircore wins an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Makeup on

Elizabeth (1998, Shekhar Kapur). The film is nominated for a further

six Oscars. At the BAFTAs, Elizabeth wins another five awards,

including Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Cate

Blanchett), and is nominated for a further six.

1997 Ann Roth wins an Oscar for Best Costume Design in The English

Patient (1996, Anthony Minghella).Stella Bruzzi’s book

Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the

Movies published.1996

Antonia (directed by Marleen Gorris) wins an Oscar for Best Foreign

Language film.

1994 Jane Campion becomes the first woman to win the Palme d’Or at the

Cannes Film Festival with The Piano. The film also wins three Oscars

(Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Supporting Actress, Best

Writing – Original Screenplay) and is nominated for a further five

Oscars (and numerous other awards), including Best Director.

Jackie Stacey’s book Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female

Spectatorship published.1989 Jane Campion’s film

Sweetie released.

1987 Christine Gledhill’s edited collection Home Is Where the Heart Is:Studies in Melodrama and the Woman’s Film

published.

Vivienne Verdoe Roe wins an Oscar for Best Documentary, Short

Subjects for her film Women – for America, for the World (1986).

1986 Charlotte Brunsdon’s edited collection of essays Films for Women

published.

1984 Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp and Linda Williams’ Re-vision:Essays in Feminist Film Criticism published.

1982 Mary Ann Doane’s article ‘Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the

Female Spectator’ published in Screen (23: 3–4).

1981 Laura Mulvey’s article ‘Afterthoughts on “Visual Pleasure and

Narrative Cinema” inspired by King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun (1946)’

published in Framework.

1979 Sally Potter’s feminist theory film Thriller released.

The first female Prime Minister in Britain elected – Margaret Thatcher.

1977 Laura Mulvey’s film Riddle of the Sphinx continues her work with

Peter Wollen in making feminist theory films.

1976 The Domestic Violence Act (UK) attempts to increase the Courts’

protection of battered wives and gives police powers of arrest for

breaching an injunction in cases of domestic violence.

1975 Laura Mulvey’s essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’

published in Screen.

Work of Dorothy Arzner: Towards a Feminist Cinema (ed Claire

Johnston) published.

1974 Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons by Laura Mulvey (co-directed

with Peter Wollen) puts feminist theory into practice.

Jump Cut, quarterly journal with a feminist perspective, launched.

Contraceptives free for all women on the NHS.

Molly Haskell’s book From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment ofWomen in the Movies published.

1973 Claire Johnston’s ‘Women’s Cinema as Counter Cinema’ in

Johnston’s Notes on Women’s Cinema published. First anthology of

feminist film theory.

Season of Women’s Cinema at the National Film Theatre, London.

Toronto Women and Film Festival.

Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies and the American Dream by Marjorie

Rosen, the first book on women and film, published.

1972 Film Comment publishes a filmography of women directors.

Special women’s event at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Take One, Film Library Quarterly and Velvet Light Trap journals all

have special features on women and film.

New York International Festival of Women’s Films.

146. FS3 Film Studies – Elizabeth links

http://www.elizabeth-themovie.com/genesis.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0127536/

www.salon.com/ent/movies/reviews/1998/11/06reviewa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhar_Kapur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_%28film%29

www.tipjar.com/dan/kapur.htm

www.aboutfilm.com/movies/e/elizabeth.htm

www.viewlondon.co.uk/films/elizabeth-the-golden-age-film-review-20782.html

www.film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2202924,00.html

and

www.shekharkapur.com

The Genesis of Elizabeth

Based on the remarkable story of the rise of the young Elizabeth Tudor to Queen of England,

Elizabeth depicts the early life of a woman of independent spirit who ascended to the throne in 1558

to a reign of intrigue and betrayal. The conflict of her private passions and personal friendships with

her duty, as monarch, to achieve national unity, form the basis of a story that is both heartbreaking

and inspiring.

Elizabeth stars Cate Blanchett in the title role, with Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush as

Sir Francis Walsingham; Christopher Eccleston as the Duke of Norfolk; Joseph Fiennes as the

Queen’s favorite, Lord Robert Dudley; and Richard Attenborough as Sir William Cecil. The

distinguished international cast also includes Fanny Ardant, Kathy Burke, Eric Cantona, Vincent

Cassel, Daniel Craig, Jamie Foreman, James Frain, Edward Hardwicke, Emily Mortimer, Kelly

Macdonald, Terence Rigby, Amanda Ryan, and Sir John Gielgud.

Filmed on location in Northumberland, Derbyshire, North Yorkshire, and at Shepperton Studios,

Elizabeth is directed by Shekhar Kapur. The producers are Alison Owen, Eric Fellner, and Tim

Bevan.

Elizabeth is the latest production from Working Title Films, Britain’s most successful production

company, which boasts credits that include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Dead Man Walking,

Fargo, Bean, and The Borrowers.Explaining the attraction of bringing Elizabeth to the screen, Alison Owen says, “We had often

talked about doing a ‘modern’ film about a historical character. We had discussed Boadicea, Henry

VIII, Guy Fawkes, and Cromwell, but I was happy when Elizabeth I was decided upon, as it had so

much potential for a modern audience.” Tim Bevan adds, “We were keen to do a period movie, but

one that wasn’t in the recent tradition of what I call ‘frock flicks.’ We wanted to avoid, as it were, the

Merchant Ivory approach, and we thought it would be great to do a picture set in Tudor times, as that

was the most exciting of historical periods. We settled on Elizabeth I and her early life, a period that

hasn’t been particularly well documented on the screen, and one which would give us more dramatic

life. We also wanted to stamp a contemporary feel onto our story, and with the early part of her reign

being filled with such uncertainty, we decided to structure it as a conspiracy thriller.”

Alison Owen continues, “We were a lot more influenced by films like ‘The Godfather’ than by

previous historical dramas. Although it is a film that is very true in spirit to the Tudor times,

historical veracity has not been our main point of contact. We have not changed facts but

manipulated time periods. In doing so, we have given our film so many things to attract an audience.

At the heart of it is a wonderful love story.”

She adds, “For me, it was very appealing that the central character is a woman. Her story seemed

to have lots of parallels with modern twentieth-century women who are often faced with that choice

between career and personal life. It is a dilemma many contemporary women are trying to resolve in

their own lives that Elizabeth had to face. She had to give up the chance of marriage and children in

order to achieve stability in the country. I thought that was very interesting.”

Tim Bevan says, “To bring the elements together, we put the project out to two or three writers,

one of whom was Michael Hirst. He reacted to it immediately and worked out a whole construction.

It was his idea to end the movie with the Queen painting her face and becoming the icon we all know

and the person where most movies about her would start. We commissioned Michael to do a first

draft, and although much has evolved since then, the bricks and mortar of the structure of the story

were very much laid in that first draft.”

With a script in place, Working Title then set out to find a director to take on the challenge of

bringing to the screen a historical-based story with a contemporary feel.

“We put it out to a few English directors,” said Bevan, “but soon decided to widen the net to

attract a director who would really interpret it, and not get bogged down with the sort of tradition that

we have of our own history. We met with Shekhar Kapur and he immediately responded to the

material. Shekhar knew nothing about Elizabeth I when he came to it, and so, in many ways, his

journey is the film’s journey. He has learnt about this character and this period of history, and has

brought a completely different sensibility to the movie than any western director would have done. It

is a fresh approach which an audience will immediately react to. Shekhar is an extremely visual

director, and he brings to the project a shooting style that is imaginative and that has great energy.”

The cast of Elizabeth is both international and eclectic. Shekhar Kapur was captivated by the

then-little-known Australian actress Cate Blanchett after viewing a show-reel of footage from Oscarand Lucinda

. He knew immediately that he had found his Elizabeth.

“In some movies,” says Tim Bevan, “When you have up-and-coming stars in them, it brings a

whole new level of magic to what can happen to that film. For example, with Four Weddings and a

Funeral, Hugh Grant turned into a huge star. Similarly, Wish You Were Here and My BeautifulLaundrette

made stars out of Emily Lloyd and Daniel Day-Lewis. If I was a betting man, I would say

the same thing is going to happen to Cate Blanchett with this film.”

Coincidental to this, another Australian actor entered the Elizabeth casting frame. The role of Sir

Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s confidant, called for an actor of extreme power and influence.

Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush was the producers’ first choice.

When it came to the role of the Duke of Norfolk, casting director Vanessa Pereira championed

Christopher Eccleston. Although initially not interested in playing in a period film, Eccleston was

soon enthused by the script and the prospect of working with Shekhar Kapur.

The important role of the romantic lead was decided after Cate Blanchett screen-tested with a

number of young ‘Brit Pack’ actors. The standout was Joseph Fiennes, who was duly cast in the role

of Lord Robert Dudley.

“What is good about Geoffrey, Christopher and Joe,” Tim Bevan points out, “is that they are very

different. The film is really about the influence these three characters have on Elizabeth’s life. You

have Joe as the romantic character, Geoffrey as the almost mystic Walsingham, and Christopher as

the ambitious thug and villain. It’s a mix of casting that has worked, and will track well through the

movie.”

“On the next level, we have a fantastic backup of actors like Richard Attenborough and Kathy

Burke—who establishes a huge presence as Queen Mary—plus some fine French actors: Fanny

Ardant as Mary of Guise, Vincent Cassel as the Duc d’Anjou, and Eric Cantona as Monsieur de Foix,

the French ambassador.”

To many, soccer star Cantona was a surprising piece of casting, but when Shekhar Kapur went to

Paris to meet with various French actors and had lunch with Cantona, he was convinced that

Cantona’s physically imposing presence would translate to the screen.

“This is not stunt casting,” Bevan maintains. “It is going back to our original concept of not

wanting to see actors popping up who had been seen in other ‘frock flicks.’ It was a deliberate

strategy, and one that helps give the film its freshness. The look of the film is extraordinary, and

coupled with a very tight story and powerful performances, it is a cracking good yarn—which is

basically the first rule of any movie.”

134. Really Big Studio System Powerpoint!

nb-film-studies-intro-hollywood-studio-system.ppt