"Britishness"

British films often adhere to certain stereotyped settings and styles so they are easily identifiable as British, these include: countryside/ rural setting, council estate and cities with easily recognisable landmarks. There's references to british cultural experiences and phenomena. These are often self depricating allowing others a clichéd view of Britain or the opportunity to laugh at us.

The hints of "Britishness" in the film start before it the films even begins to run, the Universal logo is backed with a meddly of whistles and sirens that are getting more and more recent in a sense showing the evolution of the police force as well as making it identifiable as a british film before it begins. The opening scene is set  in London. This is easy to identify because of the Thames river in the background, there is also derelict factories as well as a quintessentially british type of crime, knife crime.  Then you see Constable Angel dressed in modern police uniform, He also identifies himself as a constable which is a british rank of officer as well as seeing the Queens crown on his badge. Throughout the entire first scene the music in the background is the british 80's band adam and the ants.

The following chapter is when Angel moves to a countryside village arriving is stereotypical english weather, rain. The hotel he stays in is outdated and a "classic" style hotel as well as the surrounding area being cobbled and a stereotypical british pub containing things like oak beams and brass saddles. All of these you would expect to see in a country side village.

Generally i liked hot fuzz and think it did a good job of representing britishness with the soundtrack and mise en scene. It made it easily recognisable to british people as well as a wider world audience.

Film Companies

Founded by Carl Laemmle in 1912 and is one of the the six major movie studios in the world. They made their first film in 1914 and are still doing so today. The first film they made was called By The Suns Rays was a silent, black and white western movie.

A London based film company and was founded In 1983 by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe. They produce feature films (Johnny English, love actually) and quite a few television shows.







A France based film production and distribution company founded by Pierre Lescure in 1988. It owns one of the largest film libary in the world with films such as Rambo and Terminator 2. They also own the rights to lots of films internationally.

Another London based film and television production company. Founded by Nira Park in 1995. It directed hot fuzz and shaun of the dead and tv programs like spaced. People like Nick Frost and Simon Pegg have become famous following their starring in their productions.

Prezi

We were told to do a prezi presentation on a given director. Me and Lydia were given Anton Corbijin to find out information on and then present the info to the class in a presentation. Here is the Prezi:

Anton Corbijn on Prezi

Tv Dramas

This week I watched

• The inbetweeners
• Coronation street
• eastenders
• Emmerdale
• Hollyoaks
• Waterloo road
• skins
• This is england '86

All in all i prefered the programs with a deeper story, less throw away story lines like This Is England '86 which is well developed whereas Waterloo road has an indeterminate amount of time between each episode which could have passed.

Directorz

Wes Anderson

An American director, went to uni with Owen Wilson and wrote three scripts with him, he casts many of the same actors/ actresses in his films, for example, recurring faces would be that of Owen Wilson, Bill Murray and Ben Stiller. He often uses the music of the rolling stones within his film along with many other british "classic rock" bands. He likes to use symetry within his films and often has things that are near to symetrical on either side of the actor in a shot.

Michel Gondry

A french director who is somewhat unique and has sometimes been described as "weird". Originally set out to be an artist but soon expanded into more diverse areas of media, making music videos for the likes of Kanye West. He has also dabbled in feature films creating titles like "Be kind Rewind" and the widely unreleased "The Science of sleep".He likes to use bright, bold colours within his videos.

Spike Jonze

40 year old American director, born in Maryland America. He made the very popular film Jackass and the recent smash hit "where the wild things are" an adaptation of a 25 word childrens book. His audience is generally male teens but for where the wild things are, a more child orientated market. He has won oscars, a golden globe and a MTV movie award.

Shynola

4 men make up the collective shynola. They are Gideon Baws, Richard Kenworthy, Chris Harding and Jason Groves. They make music videos for bands like Blur, Coldplay and Queens of the stone age. Due to the wide range of people they cover in their videos i think they have a large audience generally for whoever likes the music of the band. For example, Coldplay would be middle age, middle class people. They generally do it for the cash.

Hammer & Tongs

Two guys, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, they've directed music videos for the likes of Vampire Weekend. They also directed Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy and son of rambow, their audience is anywhere from teens to the older market. There is a strong British influence within their work like Vampire Weekend could be classed as English prep style and son of Rambow is based in a private English school.