Observer Articles

The Observer is widely known as offering respectable, educated opinions on the culture of Film and British Film. Because of this I have decided to explore some of their articles in order to gain an insight into a professional view on films, which may be helpful in inspiring the distribution and production of our own short film.

The BAFTAs - 'The Artist'

The BAFTAs, or British Academy of Film and Television Arts, are a British charity that hosts an award ceremony annually. They reward excellence, and promote new talent within the country, making them very important in terms of recognition. The fact that 'The Artist' was awarded one of these prestige awards shows that films produce in the modern era do not necessarily have to comply with expected stereotypes. This is inspirational in terms of our own film, as although our film will not be silent like 'The Artist', it will have no dialogue and a lack of special effects. This use of breaking the stereotype should prove effective to audiences, as 'The Artist' has shown. 

Silent Films

This article also looks at 'The Artist', but explores the effects of silent films on a deeper level. The article says, "Of all the many strengths of Michel Hazanavicius's film, the absence of words is the greatest. No words means no reliance on a form of communication that isn't, in fact, anything like as effective as we think. The language of gesture often says more – and it's always more passionate." This shows that for our film to be as effective as possible, we will have to utilise the importance of body language within the production, as this is an effective tool of communication. 

British Film as a Global Brand

I found this article and thought that it was relevant to 'Flight', as the distribution of the film will only be within the United Kingdom, meaning that less money will have to be spent, although it reduces the size of audiences dramatically. David Cameron himself said that the UK Film Industry, particularly the British Film Industry, should financially back "more commercially successful pictures". This is due to the recent success of 'The King's Speech', directed by Tom Hooper. It had a budget of $15 million, and took a staggering $414 million. It's success is due to the fact that it features well known names - such as Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth, and that it captures the sense of British spirit. If other British films similar to 'The King's Speech' were to funded appropriately, it could mean a massive success in terms of profit, which will, in turn, help the economy of the country. The article also states that "The review, which will be unveiled on Monday , is also likely to propose a system that allows the profits from successful films to be fed back into the industry. Such a scheme would see a percentage of box-office receipts paid back into the lottery fund in cases where producers had received an initial grant." This means that the money made from the profits of British film can be funded back into the industry, meaning that Britain can be a competitor with the Hollywood film industry which has dominated the globe.