Film4 impacts
So, what impact did Film 4 (F4) have on our production?
Pre-Production One of the first things we done as research is discover what F4 actually is and what makes them different to a major label: They are a British film label that contribute to the production of independent films, many being the genre of British Social Realism which is the genre of our opening sequence. There budgets are never sky high and their audience is niche as opposed to targeting the mass market which major labels would do. The Pre-production for this unit has been widely influenced by the chosen institution of F4. We studied the sound in films such as Trainspotting, not directly made by F4, but also an 'indie' film of the BSR genre. We noticed how the voiceover in the opening sequence tied down the basis of the films narrative with its themes and ideas and transferred this idea to our own plans. The primary research Vox Pox were influenced by the F4 label. By finding students within the school who represented the independent side of film rather than the mainstream this meant we purposely targeted those who we thought would have more of an insight into the BSR genre, allowing our research to having a more specific influence over our work.
Production In the Production of our work, by working towards the basis of a film created by F4 there were significant impacts on equipment, locations and cast. F4 would use low budgets real locations and young unfound talent for actors. The equipment was to be provided by our school whether we were going by an independent label or not. However it meant we were limited to using the basics even if the more expensive stuff that major labels use were available. The locations we used were scouted previously by ourselves which is similar to how F4 would find their locations. We used our local neighbourhood and rave scenes that we had attended. This impacted our work giving it a realistic approach with real gritty locations, similar to how F4 would do so. Our cast consisted of our friends who took part for free, showing our lack of a budget. The main character, Rob, is a young actor - including him shows our use of new and young British talent which is effectively finding new talent for an extremely cheap price.
Distribution F4 films are most commonly shown through one of their website, TV channels and film festivals across the world. They most commonly use other independent distributors from Britain, for example 'Four Lions' which was distributed by Optimum Releasing's. We decided the film would be distributed via the F4 website after its first showing of the F4 TV channel across Britain. This means it would be cheap to view and largely accessible to our niche market with in Britain. As a film in under the F4 institution we would also use Optimum as distributors. F4's contributions with the are usually successful as they are one of the most recognised distributors in the UK 'indie' film business. They distribute similar films to ours as they are mostly 'indie' films of the BSR genre.