UWE - Filmmaking and Creative Media (BA)

Ridley Scott Auteur Profile

• Stunning visuals - He personally sketches most of his own storyboards
• Strong female characters
• Being the actors' director that he is, Scott favors extensive use of the two-camera 'V' set-up, thus enabling his actors to play more fluidly off one another without being constantly interrupted by calls to "Cut!".
• Frequently uses music by Hans Zimmer
• Begins most films with an info card sequence/montage
• Frequently casts Russell Crowe
• Usually incorporates snapshot photography into edited sequences
• Usually casts / works with actors who have a strong theatre background and are graduates of drama school. He likes to be personally involved with the casting of his movies as well
• Is the father of "director's cut"
• Owns the visual effects company Mill Film, based in London. They did the majority of the effects work on Gladiator
• Owns Shepperton Studios in the UK with his brother Tony Scott
• He cast his partner in life, Giannina Facio, in all of his films since Gladiator
• Coming from an army and fine arts background, he is an inveterate stickler for detail...... Sigourney Weaver to complain that he cared more about his props and sets than he did about his cast.

Francis Ford Coppola Auteur Profile

·         Frequently casts Robert Duvall, the late John Cazale, Nicolas Cage, Diane Keaton, Matt Dillon, Harrison Ford, Laurence Fishburne and Marlon Brando.

·         Often works with cinematographer Gordon Willis and producers Fred Roos and Gray Frederickson.

·         Includes the original author's name in the title of his adaptations (i.e., Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1972), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)).

·         Often casts his own real-life extended family members in his films. In the case of the Godfather films, their characters' relationships to "Michael Corleone" often paralleled their real-life relationship to Coppola.

·         He is among an elite group of seven directors who have won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay

·         He, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg presented Martin Scorsese with his first ever Oscar for Best Director for The Departed (2006). All four directors were part of the "New Hollywood" movement in the 60s and 70s.

·         He and George Lucas founded the studio ‘American Zoetrope’

Gender Representation - Film 18/03

·         Gender

o   Male/Masculinity

o   Female/Femininity

·         Propp’s character archetypes – do they apply?

·         Strauss – Binary opposites – (Masculinity against femininity, Females exhibiting male traits, Vice versa)

·         Uses and Gratifications model:

o   To affirm cultural and moral values

o   To witness beauty

o   Sexual experience

o   Identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging – there’s always a character that the audience can identify with

·         Mulvey

o   ‘Women have learnt to see themselves as being looked at’

o   ‘Men act, woman appear’

o   Men see film through the male gaze and so do women’

·         Todorov’s theory is generally gender neutral

·         Mise-en-scene – costume, lighting, composition of shot, location/setting

·         Language used – interaction between characters

·         Stereotypes – applications – conform or go against stereotype

·         Genre conventions applied (i.e females as victim in horror)

·         Audience positioning

o   Do they manoeuvre the audience for a preferred/dominated reading – so audiences enjoy

§  Can also apply negotiated or oppositional reading

o   What is the film makers intended message? How do the audience read it

·         Ideology – in terms of both themes and characters

Film industry Regulation 15/03

• BBFC (British Board of Film Classification)
• MPAA (Motion Picture Asscoiation of America)
• Censorship - shared ideologies on what should be regulated for certain ages
• Self-regulation - to target audience/wider audience
• Copyright -  a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work
• FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) - a trade organisation in the UK established to represent the interests of the its members in the film and broadcasting business on copyright and trademark issues

Auteur Theory

• French word for Author
• Relates to the Director
• The theory that a  Director is able to leave their own impression on the film
• Director leaves traits which are recognisable
• Genre (s)
• Studio vs Independent - are they affiliated with certain Studios
• Talent - actors, crew, writers, producers, editors, Director of Photography (DOP), production designers (costume, props, sets), casting agencies
• Style - Narrative/Storytelling, visual style/aesthetics, music/soundtrack

Convenience and Neccessity - Text: 'Road Hog, Morrisons'

Students to apply knowledge and understaning of gender representation in supermarket advertising.

Representations of masculinity:

• '100 % British Beef' - Richard Hammond as sex symbol
• Domestication of British men - are there more stay at home men/father during the credit crunch
• Hammond is very particular about standard of service - highlighting supermarket quality
• Female shopper is irritated by Hammond's 'driving'
• Reference to Top Gear
• Does this suggest a switch in roles
• Patriotic - British band, Union Jack, repeats word 'British' - implies that buying this 100% British Beef is going back into the economy
• Repetition and difference (male protagonist) - reflects modern society; lots of men made redundant because of the recession
• Still can target same audience (Mum's, middle aged women) 
• Take That
• Hammond - appeals to wider audience as they can relate to a normal/average person (not aspirational like Chanel). Typical family man (wedding shot clearly in shot at start) - 'catch' for middle aged women. Still masculine becuase of activities he's doing while telling us (farming, plane driving, bull-run) and also his profession - presents Top Gear
• Targets men
• Interaction with other masculine men and every other is a female - place to pick up women
• Man of the house - decisive, in charge of budgeting