Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Psychological Thriller Conventions

I found this short sequence very helpful with information on psychological thrillers, we have tried to follow the conventions and themes of such a genre in our own film.

Thursday, 12 December 2013

Last Kind Words Independent Film Case Study

17-year-old Eli has just moved with his family deep into the backwoods of Kentucky to work on the isolated farm of a local recluse. Inexplicably drawn into the strange forest that lies beyond the farm, Eli encounters the beautiful, sweet and mysterious Amanda, seemingly the perfect girl. But with the discovery of decaying bodies hanging from the trees, he realizes that the forest - and Amanda - are harboring some very dark secrets. Suddenly, Eli is living in a waking nightmare where the lines between life and death are scrawled in blood, and there is no escaping the terror from beyond the grave.

This film is produced by Brainwave and The East Gable, neither of these are main Hollywood film studios, and was directed by Kevin Barker, who is known for his independent films such as Five Fingers. The main actors in the film are Brad Dourif, Spencer Daniels and Alexia Fast, none of these had major roles in films before but have appeared in some films as lesser characters.


The film's budget was originally estimated to be less than $100,000, in other words a micro-budget. This film is clearly an independent film it was produced by small film studios, only stars relatively small actors and was produced at a cost estimated at less than $100,000. Unfortunately this film has not won any awards and has only received a rating of 4.9/10 from 685 users on popular website IMDb.


Tuesday, 10 December 2013

The World's End British Case Study



  • Stars: Nick Frost, Simon Pegg and Martin Freeman (These actors are very popular within British audiences and are very well known for heir usually comedic acting)
  • Genre: Comedy/Sci-fi (Comedy is a very popular genre and sic-fi is very modern tying the two together gives a greater audience appeal as they're is a lot of interest for these two genres
  • Budget:

     $40,000,000 (estimated)
  • Opening Weekend:

     $8,790,237 (USA) (23 August 2013)
  • Gross:

     $26,003,149 (USA) (29 November 2013)
  • Production Company: Relativity Media, Working Title Films and Big Talk Productions (Both Working Title Films and Big Talk Productions are British production companies)
  • Certificate: 15 (This is a safe certificate as it does not rule out a large target audience)
  • Release Date: 
  • 10 July 2013(Leicester Square)
  • 19 July 2013(United Kingdom)
  • 23 August 2013(United States)
  • Mainly received positive reviews with TIME magazine even saying "It overflows with middle-aged angst over lost youth. And laments the generic nature of our corporate-driven culture."
  • Maketing included trailers on T.V. and the internet, displaying the best parts of the film. There were also promotional posters and various merchandise available