Honeytrap Research

The film was directed by Rebecca Johnson, who was the director of also the critically acclaimed film 'Top Girl,' which way of production was used very similarly with Honeytrap. 

This feature film is base on the case of Samantha Joseph, a true story. In july 2008, Samantha led a sixteen-year-old Shakilus Townsend into an ambush. This tragically ended in the murder of the young sixteen-year-old, by Samantha's boyfriend and his gang. 

The film was produced by Sarah Sulick, an american who moved to Britain to continue doing the thing she loved which was creating films. 

The budget of this film was under £1 million, which was primarily sourced through donations from the public (crowd funding) and corporate social responsibility. This was not such a big problem for both Rebecca and Sarah, as they have had a strong record for raising money quickly, they secured £20,000 grant from the Walcot Foundation.

The casting stage of the film was similar to the casting stage for 'Top Girl.' They searched for young people in agencies, theatres, schools, community centres and even did street castings.

Sarah is part of a company 'Bright Pictures' an independent company, she has also had one of her films 'The waiting room' sold to different companies in order for them to be viewed in different countries, (the film was sold to Lionsgate in order for it to be viewed in the Uk, IFC Films for the US and E1 for Canada.)
They used camera's and sound design was also very important.

The film was produced in Brixton, this was important because the director wanted to work with people in and around the community to be able to create a film that looks realistic to the actual idea of producing a film that reflects the actual reality of young adults in the society we live in.

The production team were first brought attention to Anchor Bay/ Starz, a distributor, who they found during their first campaign. This distributor will be in charge of releasing the film into cinema screens and then later DVD/ VOD in the UK.

Honeytrap's target audience for the film is :-

Urban adults (25+), who seek out critically well-reviewed films

Urban young aged around 15-25

Along with other traditional marketing tools like, posters, trailers, print ads on buses etc, and social media will be key to their marketing strategy as it is free and mostly everyone can access the sites. 

Facebook- 1,173 likes

Twitter- 297 followers

This film is a very good example of helping young adults to prosper in life, rather then commit crimes or just wonder the streets. This film changed the lives of 30 people, which is a impressing amount for an independent film. The production team also included a community Liaison, Julie Fawcett. This was the person who helped and supported the young people that were all involved in the film production and taking part in the Fierce projects.

This film will appeal to a national audience because it is a film based in the Uk and it focuses on young adults and their struggles in society which is topic that is highly known and many people can relate to this type of story or maybe just for others it allows them to see exactly the problems that engulf society and young people in it.

The role of the BFI London Film Festival is to get the movie seen and if it is liked by the festival it will give the film high ratings and recognition for the director and production team. 

Honeytrap's release is mostly national, begin released in the UK and Ireland. However it is also to be sold to Australia and New Zealand, these countries are some that are not so much giants in the film industry but the key idea is the film being distributed to a range of different audiences. 

The film is due to be released in UK cinemas in February 2015, the date is not yet confirmed which means that the distributor is planning out a release weekend that will get the most sales for the box office. 

The film has been selected by BFI as the 'Official Selection' and the director has been nominated for 'Best British Newcomer' Award.

Marketing and Exchange

In this poster, it only indicates the month and year, not yet informing the audience the day of the films release. This is so that the date can be changed depending on the weekend. 
     

Of course, James Gunn and company delivered a winning final product, and so Disney screened it early and often and let the review embargo drop right before Comic-Con. And now, since the marketing campaign kept quite a few narrative and visual surprises out of the clips and trailers, it may well reap the benefit of audiences discovering their favorite beats in a theater, which is a major driving force for word-of-mouth and repeat viewings.

As another big marvels production, the Exchange of the product much also be quite big.

The exchange of the film is also a extremely vital part for making the film money, for example the Disney production, Frozen, made nearly all of it's money through the exchange.

Production and Distribution

Filming Dates

9 July 2013 - 11 October 2013

Budget

$170,000,000 (estimated)

This is a large filming period, which would is due to the large amount of action and also making the sets for the different scenes and ensuring every big scenes are filmed accurately. The filming part of the film is the most important stage of the entire film chain, as it allows the film to be crafted and brought to life.

Make-up:

Georgia Allen	...	special makeup effects artist
	...
Eloise Anson	...	prosthetic makeup artist
Emmy Beech	...	makeup junior: crowd
Farah Beegun	...	contact lens optician
Paulina Boneva	...	special makeup effects artist
Jessica Brooks	...	prosthetic makeup artist
David Christopher Brown	...	special makeup effects artist

Distribution

Opening Weekend

Release Date:1 August 2014 (USA) 

$94,320,883 (USA) (3 August 2014) (4,080 Screens)

The decision of releasing the film during the summer holidays was very clever, as it meant more people were able to go watch the movie, especially teenagers with friends on days out. 

The world premier of Guardians of the Galaxy was held on July 21, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. This was an hugely anticipated film, and this meant the marketing of the film was meant to be very cleverly crafted. The film was released in cinemas in the United Kingdom on July 31, 2014 and the 1st of August in the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN10QltBBtE 

 They produced a teaser trailer which makes it very clear that they are wanting to get the audience to really get excited for the film and  gradually, day by day get closer to seeing the film.

There were several teaser trailers before the actual full trailer, this meant the intrigue for the film was trailed for longer to create a big buzz.

The Stars

The Stars

Zoe Saldana

The skilled assassin character sports green skin and is that last of her species, which was exterminated by a race known as the Badoon.  More interestingly, though, is the fact that the character was raised and trained by super-villain Thanos before eventually turning against him.

Chris Pratt

Chris Pratt plays the film's wisecracking space cowboy Peter Quill (aka "Star-Lord") who is as deadly accurate with a one-liner as he is with his trusty "element gun."Casting director Sarah Finn suggested Pratt to Gunn, who dismissed the idea despite struggling to cast that role. Despite this, Finn arranged for a meeting between the two, at which point Gunn was immediately convinced that Pratt was perfect for the role.

Dave Batista

A warrior in search of vengeance against Ronan for killing his family. Bautista's make-up took approximately four hours to apply, though it could be removed in just 90 minutes. The character, Drax has various scarring patterns on his body, which replace the simple tattoos from the comics, each having a specific story. Additionally, his skin tone was changed from the bright green in the comics to a muddier grey, to avoid visual similarities to the Hulk.

The Production

Guardians of the Galaxy is a 2014 American film by the company Marvel and it was produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

The production of the film was first mentioned to be created in the year 2010, however the actual production of it was not yet planned or ready. As the years passed they decided to try to create a movie which has similar characters like from The Avengers.
From the Marvel Studio, who created, Thor, Iron Man, The Avenger and many more, The Guardians of the Galaxy is a new creation fit for the upcoming generation.

Director: James Gunn

Budget	$170 million
Box office	$752.8 million

Special effects make-up designer David White took head and body casts of actors, to experiment with materials used to create the characters. The special effects were very important for this film and had to be very good as it needed to be as good and maybe even better than the other Marvel films. 

The Guardians of the Galaxy

BFI

The BFI is also known as, British Film Industry, the BFI was founded in 1933. They combine cultural, creative and industrial roles, bringing together the BFI National Archive and BFI Reuben Library, film distribution, exhibition and education at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, publishing and festivals.
Film Forever is their five year strategic plan for 2012-2017 to support UK film. This is very important for independent films and low budget movies this allows them to receive as much help as possible to make their film liked and known to the British public.

Exchange

Audiences get to see films through: TV, cinema, YouTube, social networking sites, billboards, trailers, magazines, posters around London.

The box office is a place  where tickets are purchased by the public, this means that when you purchase tickets at the cinema it doesn't go the cinema, it goes to the box office and films with high box office ratings means a large sale of tickets by the public.

The box office identify's the success of the film and they measure the amount of profit they have made and as I said the amount of money made through tickets. If the film is successful the money is then shared to the film.

The Cinemas profit is all made from the food and drinks sold, this is therefore why the prices in the cinema is at higher prices than usual, therefore if no sales were made through food and drink, the cinema would close without business. Therefore there are some cinemas that do not allow any food and drinks that is not purchased from the cinema. The cinema also receives money from the on-screen adverts that occur before the movie starts, this is well chosen by the marketers because the audiences are forced to watch it. Therefore if the film is a blockbuster then the cinema would ask for a higher amount of money to play their trailer on- screen.

The cinema has a range of offers such as Orange Wednesdays which is very appealing to many people and 2 for 1 offers. They also offer 3D, 4D screenings.

Home screening, also known as Ancillary marketing, is companies like Netflix, airlines (movies shown before even released in cinemas), and other sources. This allows friends and families to watch feature movies at home without going to the cinema and paying a lot of money. The payment monthly for the different companies is something that is more efficient.

Marketing

Marketing is the process of advertising the product through teaser advertisements and trailers, this is different from distribution as it is not showing the whole product to the audience, it is just selecting certain parts to tease and intrigue the audiences.

This is very important for making the movie well anticipated, and teasing through posters and other advertisements.

A key example of this is the blockbuster film;

 Frozen was one of the most anticipated movies at the release date was very well thought out, as it was due to be released around Christmas time. They had things from teaser trailer to teaser posters.

 Frozen is one of the movies that was reproduced in different languages, like the song ' Let it go' was produced in 41 different languages.

This meant it was truly a large success around the entire world.By now, parents of young girls may be especially well-versed in the global hit "Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen. However, they may be less familiar films with versions sung in one of the 41 other languages recorded for the film's foreign releases.

Film Festivals

Film Festivals

Film festivals give independent films a chance to show their production to the audience, it gives them a push and are usually used as launch pads for films. A festival is also a place where acquisition executives can discover new talent as they have a platform to screen their first shorts and features.

 The distribution of a film is the stage where the company can see if the film will do well or not, if the distribution is not as successful than the film overall may not be as good.

A distributor may decide to release the film on particular weekend than another, because it could be half term and therefore people are able to go watch, a Halloween weekend if fitting for the content. They choose a certain weekend depending on the box office.

Distribution

Distribution is the process where a film is shared to the public for the first time, as a highly competitive business of launching and sustaining films in the market place, it is very important that the distributor know exactly what they are looking for and needs to make sure the right decisions are taken. Like other forms of entertainment, the film business is product-driven: the films themselves are the reason why most people buy cinema tickets.

The distributor has a very important role of deciding and coming to an agreement on which release date is fitting for the film, for example during half term or a public holiday, like a bank holiday weekend.

A distributor is an individual or organisation who will represent your film at festivals and markets around the world and who will attempt to sell it to cinemas.

The traditional ways was through theatre and cinema distribution, it is the well known but as more and more movies are being watched illegally online and many at home on any home entertainment. This means the traditional ways of watching new films is becoming less and less used.

 

Films Main Producers

As well-known studios around the world and America, this means the films that they create will not only be of good quality but also interesting to watch as they are so well-known therefore the expectation will be high which means more attention to detail will be taken.

Independent production:

Independent production is a professional film production for a feature film which takes place outside the major studio. The Feature films are distributed and produced by the independent companies and they are disguised by their style and content and the production of the film. This sometimes might not be as well represented as the major studios, as their representation is known for making well adapted films.

Production and Post - Production

Production:

The production is all the filming of the film, using the planned out scenes and script all done in the pre-production stage. Each scene if film up to how many times the director sees fitting, this is to ensure that the best piece of film is used for the post-production stage to construct the film. The strength of the pre-production is tested, a film set with good planning before filming would find it much simpler to film. Great care must be taken to make sure that all the filming is done correctly and all necessary shots are taken, as it would be sometimes very hard and almost unmanageable to re-film a certain scene when the film is in the post-production stage. 

Post-Production:This is the stage where the film is assembled by the editor. The first job for the editor would be to build a rough cut taken from sequences or scenes, based on individual shots. The purpose of this would be to ensure the best shots are selected to create the right scene. The next step would be to create a fine cut, this means getting all the shots to flow smoothly in a seamless story, to have one motion. Trimming is the process of shortening scenes by a few minutes, seconds, or even frames - is done during this phase. As well as the editing of footage, all music, graphics, menus are added in this stage. After the fine cut has been screened and approved by the director and producer, the picture is "locked," meaning no further changes are made. This means the film is now ready to be promoted to the public and cinemas.

Production: Part 1- Pre-Production

Production is the first stage of The Film Chain, it is the part where the film is planned, filmed and edited.

There are three parts to the production, Pre- Production, Production and Post- Production.

Pre- Production: 

All the planning for the project takes place, during pre-production, the production is broken down into separate scenes and all the locations, props, cast members, costumes, special effects and visual effects are chosen. This is very important planning and key to have a well-constructed film, as this pre-production allows the director and all the member of the film to understand what the concept of it will be.  The script if not yet completed will be in the written stage, also a detailed schedule is produced and arrangements are made for the necessary elements or people to be available to the film-makers at the appropriate times.

The Film Chain

Editing

Editing took us, of course, longer than actually filming the swede, but it allowed us to use more tools, special for editing. We firstly started off, looking through all the film footage and chose which clips we wanted to keep and which we wanted to lose. This did take up a bit of time because we did have quite a lot of clips to look through and at points there were difficult decisions on which clips we wanted to keep. But once we got that done, we began to put all the clips into one film, we edited each clip, by selecting which part of that clip we wanted to keep, for pressing ‘I’ (for start) and then ‘O’ ( for out). Once we completed the basic layout of the film, we began choosing the music we would want to have in the final swede. We sourced our sound from “Garage band”, we choose our sound from a series of sounds. Garage band was an essential part of the swede because it allowed us to source as much sound as we wanted, to create our perfect final production swede.  Once we chose the sound, we then had to convert it into a suitable file to use in ‘I Movie’. Once we sorted out the sound, we then started adding in captions and transitions to make it look interesting. And once we finished our swede editing we had to export it and upload it to YouTube to present it to the audiences.

Filming the Swede.

Men In Black 3 Swede Filming

Filming the swede was a quick process that meant travelling up and down corridors, down stairs and into different rooms around the college. And the weight of the camera did not, at all, help that process, but we completed it all in three hours which was truly surprising as we had many different scenes to film. The 'Men in Black 3', as all 'Men in Black' movies, has aliens in them which did present a struggle for us as there was not aliens around us. But we adapted the alien scenes by using props and very creatively we used a painting in the corridors as one of our aliens. This did give our swede a much different, funny edge to it. We did initially were going to use toys but sadly we didn't have much time to get those ready for the swede.We used different things from zooming in with the camera but we made sure to do that before we started filming as it would make the video look blurry and unprofessional. I found the filming an exciting way to not only work as a group but to also film in different angles and environments.

Coming Soon, very soon!

Coming Soon!

Daily Mirror : "A truly sensational adaptation!"

      Sunday telegraph : "The best feature swede, a definite MUST SEE!"

Guardian : " a breathtakingly fast-moving swede." 

Independent : " Must See!!!"

Our Swede Production Plan

Group 18 have chosen to base our Swede on the movie, Men in Black 3. Our Swede will have aliens and of course our own production of Men in Black, and with other features we will create a Swede fit for any blockbuster seat.