How is Media Convergence important for audiences and Institutions

How is Media Convergence Important for Audiences and Institutions

Character File Mrs Fitts

Character File of Mrs Fitz on Prezi

Kick Ass Case Study

Find out all how it was produced

Kick-Ass had a budget of $28 million and used special effects such as “Double negative” which did over 835 visual effectsfor the film, using mostly CGI through green screens and other methods. Around £8-9 millin were spent on special effects.
Mark Miller and Jane Goldman were hiered to edit and develop the scrip further, these ediors had previously edit the film Stardust.

Miller came up with the idea after drawing Hit Girl and Big Daddy and liked his idea but thought the ideas were to 'out there' to be the main character leads. He came up with the first outing of the superhero where he got stabbed and run over by a car and realised the project had to be made.

Director Matthew Vaughn invested his own money into the making of the film, he therefore took the largest revenue. Vaughn and Brad Pitt (along with others) helped to produce the film.

Above the live costs: $7.7 million
Below the line costs: $2.8 million

What it was based on

The film was created when Mark Miller drew the characters that are based in the film. It was based on Batman and Robin, linking 'Hit Girl' to Robin and 'Big Daddy' to Batman, then giving them their own unique and unusual personality, a bit more crude and violent than the original based characters.
They started creating the comic book version of the film at the same time as they started to shoot the film, making it a very different way into starting the making of a film.
They chose to write the comic book first as they were faced with the problem of not being able to afford the 'C Grade' Marvel character.

Problems in making the film

• Couldn't find a distributor at first
• If no one liked it at Comic Con then they wouldn't have had a distributor
• 'Bunch of British people' made it, what will America think as its a British film.
  
  
  
  

The director’s views on the British film Industry

How they saved money

Budget $28 million

They saved money by not actually filming in Manhattan, which it where the film is set. Matthew Vaughn’s prefers to film in London, and it wasn’t just to do with a “budgetary consideration”, as the film contains a large amount of gunfire and fighting scenes within Manhattan it would become very difficult to shoot these scenes without changing the people’s lifestyles in Manhattan.
To solve this problem of trying to create a realistic Manhattan scene they built at set at Elstree Studios which had a gigantic green screen. Then they got *High-resolution plates* of Manhattan and imported them into *Media Composer*.

*High Resolution Plates: A silver halide photographic plate designed for high resolution photo mask applications. The plate develops an optical density of 3.0+ when exposed and developed in MTI D-5 Negative Developer.*

*Media Composer’s has an amazing motion tracking tools, so you can track the background using the on-set tracking markers. There’s a feature called Spectra Matte which allows you to adjust keys with such detail, it is incredible realistic.*

The audio that was recorded had particular attention to detail. Matthew Vaughn wanted to get the highest quality of recording of the original production sound. He wanted this so the actors never had to try and re-create the emotion of the moment during a shoot a month later.

The technology used

Special effects: Double negative did just over 835 visual effects for the movie, using mostly CGI through green screens and other methods. Between $8-9 million was spent on special effects.

Double Negative is a British full-service visual effects/computer animation company located in Soho, London. The company was set up in 1998 with a team of 30 staff and has since grown to over 1000 staff, making it Europe's largest provider of visual effects for film.

Green Screen is a special effects/post-production technique for compositing two imagesor video streams together based on colour hues.

How the films rating affected its performance

Because the film was rated an 'R' this then started a large amount of questions to how are children supposed to watch it? As its a superhero based film you are expecting it to get a large amount of viewing from children as they are all wanting to be a superhero at this age and they look up to them in the films. When parents came to realise just how crude it could be, they then chose the option of “why on earth would I let my child watch something like this, with a disgusting young violent and offensive girl just throwing out impressions of what to be like to my children” - or something like this.
With this view from the American's, this then dropped some of the potential viewings as the children could not go without their parents being there also, of which did not want there children watching a film that contained the 'bad-est of bad words' the 'C' word.

Controversy surrounding the film

Here is what those projections failed to account for:

• As mentioned, the “audience awareness” sampling came from a community predisposed to be aware of, and interested in, a film like Kick Ass – as well as its source material. Without a recognizable name attached, or broader brand appeal, that awareness wasn’t representative of the general movie-going audience.
• Much of the target audience for Kick Ass was not old enough to take themselves to an R (hard R) rated movie, and this film is not an easy sell to parents.
• Misinterpretation or rejection of the film’s central characters and story lines.

A lot of people felt that the film was morally wrong due to its casting of a young girl that is extremely violent, her violent actions and fairly outragerous language caused an up-raw with viewer. This was because they would not be willing to take their child to see a film that is giving messagers to other children that this is a pretty 'cool' way to act.

“In January 2010, an uncensored preview clip of the film was attacked by family advocacy groups for its display of violence and use of the line "Okay you cunts, let's see what you can do now," delivered by Chloë Grace Moretz, who was eleven years old at the time of filming. Australian Family Association spokesman John Morrissey claimed that "the language was offensive and the values inappropriate; without the saving grace of the bloodless victory of traditional superheroes" “

Promotion

Prints and advertising costs were near enough $10.5 million, Lionsgate distributed the film taking a large percentage of the final box office figures.

Final box office figures worldwide: $96,188,903

They produced individual posters separately before the film was released, which showed each of the individual characters within the film to promote the film. Adding the film title and character’s name to the posters, allowing the viewers to know who would be within the film.

They released an enormous influx of trailers, videos and other marketing materials, prior to the release of the film – an idea that may have backfired, positioning the audience to rail against a film, a result of overexposure.
When the film had failed to perform, the *Blogosphere* jumped as the chance to write a bunch on 'snarky' articles which described the films financial defects.
They then got put in their place when it came into interest that the film cost $25 million and then went on to make $96 million worldwide “hahaa”.

*The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions. Since the term has been coined, it has been referenced in a number of media and is also used to refer to the Internet.*

The soundtrack

The soundtrack has been mainly composed of songs from previous films such as '28 Days Later' and 'Sunshine'. They used John Murphy's as his songs from the films are highly recognisable and have also been heard on not just the movies for which they were written, but they also achieved *omnipresence* on trailers, adverts and TV.

*Omnipresent, ubiquitous refer to the quality of being everywhere.*

Kick – Ass used a bit too much existing music, when really its about creating your own music for the film and giving it its own feel, not reminding people of what other film they'd heard it off. They also used too long a clip of a song within the film, making it more of the whole song playing throughout the scene rather than just a clip to build some tension or maybe emphasis what is going on in that scene.

The film did have a wide-ranging soundtrack which was a challenge for them, maintaining the consistency with material ranging from Elvis to The Prodigy.

Vaughn really likes using commercial music tracks during the movie, and “only feather in sound design where its needed.” One of the biggest challenges for them was mixing the gunshot elements with the music that was playing in the background, Pro Tools gave them the flexibility to make instant changes on the mix stage.

Differences between comic and film (extra information)

While being based on the comic book, Kick-Ass had several notable differences from its comic inspiration.

• Kick-Ass has been shown to be the only character in the film with a similar costume to his comic book counterpart. All of the other main characters have different costumes in the film.
• Frank D'Amico is called John Genovese in the comic book. The name is taken from the Genovese crime family.
• In the film, when Big Daddy quizzes Hit-Girl, they are in the armory while Mindy plays with her new knife. In the book, he quizzes her on a communication device whilst she is killing gangsters in a bar, with him providing over-watch with a sniper rifle.
• In the film, Hit-Girl and Big Daddy track Kick-Ass to his home by his IP address, which they then re-route to protect him from anyone else doing so. In the comic, they simply follow him home.
• Big Daddy is not actually an ex-cop in the comics, as he admits to Genovese and Dave shortly before his death. He was in fact an accountant who, much like Dave, fantasized about being a superhero. He made up a fake history of himself and lied that he was an ex-cop with a personal vendetta against John Genovese (Frank D'Amico). He also gets money for himself and Mindy by selling his rare comic books. His comic back story is touched in the film by his use of comic terminology in the attempted execution scene.
• With Big Daddy's back story being a lie his wife, Hit-Girl's mother, is still alive and married to Marcus Williams.
• In the film, Big Daddy is killed by being burned and succumbing to his injuries. In the comic, he is shot in the nape (in a graphic depiction as the bullet exits through his left eye socket), shortly after he reveals that he was never a cop.
• When Kick-Ass is being tortured, he is not just beaten up like in the film, he has a car battery hooked up to his testicles and is shocked extensively. The mobsters do not broadcast this torture session on the internet, as they do in the film.
• In the comic, Dave never becomes Katie's boyfriend; after he reveals that he was not gay, she calls him a pervert for pretending to be gay and orders her boyfriend to beat Dave. Afterwards, they send him a picture of Katie performing fellatio on her boyfriend. In the film, Katie forgives Dave for pretending that he was gay, realizing that Dave loves her, watches the video feed of his torture and pending murder in helpless horror and she becomes his girlfriend.
• At the end of the comic when Red Mist is vowing his revenge against Kick-Ass, he is in fact writing an e-mail which he sends to him, as opposed to the film when he is just talking to himself.
• In the comic, Kick-Ass does not use a jetpack outfitted with machine guns during the climactic battle. In fact, he does not kill anyone at all (although he does seriously wound Red Mist's father by shooting him with a gun). Instead, he finds and pummels Red Mist with two large pieces of wood, while Hit-Girl kills everyone else.

How to be a Film Director

How to Be a Film DirectorResearch the requirements to become a film director. Learn about the job description and duties and read the step-by-step process to start a career in film directing.A film director visualizes how a script can be brought to life and oversees the technical aspects of making a film. They tell cast and crew members in a production what to do and oversee the overall production process. These individuals must be able to manage large groups of people.Becoming a film director may include attending film school and working up from a production assistant or lower-level team member. Not all aspiring directors find success in the industry.Requirements to become a film director