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The Birth of the Blockbuster and

Modern Hollywood
High Concept, Production Values and Movie Brats
What were the last three films you saw at the cinema and why did
you go to see them?
Spectre:
Sam Smith performing the theme song Writings on the wall. Intrigued to
listen to the song.
The concept in which James Bond's equilibrium of a spy is disrupted. Will
be interested to see the characters equilibrium disruption and how his life
changes from then.
The antagonist has a personal past connection with Bond, making the
conflict more intriguing and driving, for James Bond. Interested to see
the final outcome in the conflict.

Jurassic World:
The trailer showed surreal elements, such as a mosasaur tank.
The hybrid Indominus Rex was concealed during most of the trailers.
Intrigued to see its full appearance.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the five armies:


Wanted to see how the trilogy would conclude.
After the cliff-hanger in Desolation of Smaug, where Smaug flies to
Lake Town intending to destroy it, I was very eager to see Smaug's
attack on Lake town, having been fully captivated by Benedict
Cumberbatch's performance of the character in Desolation of Smaug.
What are the features of a high concept film?
Extensively realistic and engaging special effects.
Orchestrated epic music scores.
All star casts (E.g. The Revenant - Leonardo Dicaprio and Tom Hardy).
What may be the drawbacks of high concept films?

High concepts do not challenge audiences, due to meeting audience


expectations and firmly apply appropriate genre conventions, instead of
being alternative. The plots involve a replication and combination of
previously successful narratives and therefore are not completely original.

What do you expect when you go and see a film in the cinema and
why?
I expect to see stylish cinematography, good acting, an engaging plot and
grand soundtracks.

What are Production Values?


High quality talent, grand soundtracks, CGI/special effects, exotic
locations, sophisticated production equipment and technology (e.g. Imax
cameras/motion capture software and suits).

Budget Task

Spider-Man 2

Story rights: 1100

Screenplay: 1000

Producers: 1200

Director (Sam Raimi): 1300

Cast:

Tobey Maguire: 2000

Kirsten Dunst: 1500

Alfred Molina: 1000

Rest of cast: 1000

Production costs: 3050

Visual effects: 3000

Music: 3000

Composer (Danny Elfman): 3000

Total: $202 million[9]

Writing Task
Answer the following...

Why do high concept, big budget films appeal to audiences?


They contain a simple easy to follow narrative, meaning the audience
does not have to think so much about the story and can just relax and be
entertained by the visuals, special effects and music.
Why do they appeal to producers?
High concepts guarantee more profitable success with the mainstream
audience, who would be attracted by the use of sophisticated effects,
locations, star cast and simple narrative.
How have new technologies impacted this area?
Sophisticated editing softwares, have allowed editors, animators and
special effects artists to have more freedom and control in how a
sequence can be edited, the level of detail to a CGI design/creature,

allowing for more aesthetically pleasing visuals and engaging cuts and
paces for audiences to be drawn into viewing.

Be ready to feedback
What does Globalisation mean?
A process where the different continents of the world (e.g. Africa, U.S, UK
and Australia) become interconnected, due to cultural exchanges and
trades (e.g. A film made in Africa and U.S conglomerate help to market it
globally).

Research Task
Look online and make a list of all the tie in products you can find for the
new Star Wars film. (5 mins)
Merchandise:
Clothing (Star Wars quotes/characters).
Toys: BB8, action figures, lightsabre toys.
Books, comic books.
Lego video game of The Force Awakens coming soon.

The folly of Empire: how Star Wars menaced


Hollywood
Things were never the same after George Lucass Star Wars conquered all
the arty 70s gave way to a universe of blockbuster franchises. Is The Force
Awakens the last chapter in a process that began a long time ago, in a
galaxy far, far away?
David Thomson
Thursday 19 November 2015 18.37 GMT
Are you awakened yet? You must be. The trailers, the early
images and the talk keep coming. The Wikipedia entry on Star
Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens currently runs to 9,500
words, including 200 source notes. When the third trailer for the
movie was released in October, it got 128m hits in 24 hours.
Authorities on such things confirm a state of frenzy. It was added
that this seventh Star Wars film had cost about $200m (130m) to
make; its marketing costs would more than double that figure; but
insiders felt sure it was going to take more than $1bn
in worldwide box office. Or could it surpass $2bn? Anyone for
$3bn? The scholarship in such estimates can be sketchy, but the
films title does say Awakens, as if we are encouraged to believe
an old force is being revived.
I dont doubt these forecasts: the world does seem frenzy-ready.
And yet, when the predictions cover such a range, I wonder if the
hype doesnt resemble the fuss over that other Star Wars,
the Strategic Defense Initiative, the futuristic franchise that once
played in the mind of President Ronald Reagan with a far larger
budget and more optimistic projections of the good it would do.
Meanwhile, the mundane and frustrating task of dissuading or
eliminating Islamic terrorists still has problems knotty enough to
make chumps of budget and technology. But theres no
questioning the enduring fantasy of a pretty and epic vision of
svelte spacecraft that go whizz in the sky and make 100m hits on
our enemies. Its worth noting that Reagan may have felt the
sweetness of SDI when he remembered how it fulfilled the boyish
adventure of Murder in the Air, a 55-minute B-picture he made at
Warner Bros in 1940. Dont knock dreaming (even by presidents)

or its big hopes. Plus, The Force Awakens is a more stirring or


encouraging subtitle than Revenge of the Sith.
Sith was 10 years ago, and it was the third of the second group of
three Star Wars pictures. The first trilogy (Star Wars, 1977; The
Empire Strikes Back, 1980; Return of the Jedi, 1983) constitutes
the turning point in modern cinema though the turn was so large
that the word cinema no longer quite applies. This was an
entertainment franchise that inaugurated action on the electronic
screen. They were shot on film, but the profusion of special
effects characterised a comic book adventure come to life. The
trilogy spurred the development of video games, many of which
were a lot more violent than the Star Wars pictures.
Those first three movies helped reinvent a prospect of exuberant
action films for kids that parents could also enjoy. They had vivid
yet offbeat leading characters Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and
Princess Leia with epic supporting figures: those chatty robots,
R2-D2 and C-3PO; Darth Vader (splendidly voiced by James Earl
Jones); Alec Guinnesss Obi Wan-Kenobi (the wealthiest actor for a
moment on the strength of his residuals, and a focus of gravity in
the first film); and maybe the most original and beloved
character George Lucas has ever created, Yoda, with Frank Oz
doing the voice and activating the puppet figure.

Beyond that, an era of aspiring young American film-makers was


delighted at the surging career of George Lucas. The story was
told and retold of how Twentieth Century Fox had doubted the
chances of Star Wars, and of Lucas using that to negotiate a large
share of the merchandising rights for himself. The evil empire of
Hollywood seemed to have been vanquished and exposed by a
movie brat just out of film school. This fostered the ongoing
legend of Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Walter Murch (an editor
and sound designer vital in the work of the others) abandoning
the culture of Los Angeles and moving to the San Francisco Bay
Area to be independent. Lucass eminence surpassed that
achieved a few years earlier by Coppola as he made the first two
parts of The Godfather and The Conversation. If you wanted to be

a film-maker, you could believe that the art (and the business)
had been liberated for a fresh generation.
But was Lucas a maverick movie director or a new entrepreneur?
Was he an independent artist or someone refashioning the
media? He was born in Modesto, California, in 1944, the son of a
walnut farmer in the agricultural expanse of the San Joaquin
valley. It was a dull rural town that felt a long way from San
Francisco. Lucas did poorly in school, but painted in junior college
and that led him to film school at the University of Southern
California (USC). Gradually, he found a fascination with cinema,
along with the company of Murch and Coppola (his senior by five
years).
Francis and George made an odd couple. Coppola was far more
confident and outgoing; he saw himself as an auteur and a leader,
while the diffident Lucas concentrated on every detail in putting a
film together. Lucas worked for Coppola on The Rain People
(1969), and it was at the older mans urging that he directed his
first film (derived from a college project), THX-1138, made for
Coppolas American Zoetrope studio. This is the most personal or
revealing film the shy Lucas has ever made, a grim parable about
a romantic rebel in a regimented and repressive future society. It
was so pained it seemed confessional, and its failure hurt him
badly.
Again, it was Coppolas energetic defence that prevailed upon
Universal to stick with Lucass second film, American Graffiti, a
story of teenagers, set in Modesto and full of autobiographical
material. Whatever the foolish studio thought, it turned out a hit:
on a budget of $770,000, it grossed $140m. Not only is it (in my
opinion) the most satisfying and dramatically intriguing movie
Lucas has ever made, it prompted Fox to put up the $11m for Star
Wars.
George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola in 1988, on the set of
Coppolas film Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Photograph:
Sunset Boulevard/Corbis
Lucas wrote and directed the original Star Wars and he had every
reason to exult in its eventual gross of $775m. The shy kid had his
revenge and vengeance or payback is a persistent theme in the

franchise. Then, as Coppolas fortunes fluctuated in the early 80s,


so Lucas became the supporter of his old patron. A new godfather
had arrived, quiet, introspective, inarticulate, and more excited by
technology than creative expression. So, he didnt direct the
second and third films, but instead developed Industrial Light and
Magic, a special effects and post-production outfit that would
influence the entire industry. He got involved with the new
geniuses in Silicon Valley. Pixar was an offshoot of the Lucas
empire; in time it would be purchased by Steve Jobs. Lucas grew
helplessly rich. But he has never won a competitive Oscar.
Lucasfilm produced many more pictures (notably, with Steven
Spielberg, the Indiana Jones series). But after Star Wars, Lucas did
not direct another film untilThe Phantom Menace (1999), the first
of the three prequels followed by Attack of the Clones (2002)
and Revenge of the Sith (2005). Lucas personally wrote and
directed all three.
Was that part of the problem? Doubts over the first three films
resurfaced, as many noted how, in the second trilogy, the stress
on increasingly assured and beautiful effects failed to mask the
flat characters, banal dialogue and rather apologetic acting. The
new films did very well; they won many good reviews. But
hardcore fans were often disappointed: the fun and passion
seemed in retreat. You could believe that Lucasfilm had simply
acted on the assumption that a few more films were bound to
clean up. And now we have Episode VII.
That cleanup came to pass. In 2012, the revered independent sold
out to Disney for $4.05bn. Lucass was an unrivalled personal
success story, but it was a stumbling block for anyone who
wanted to believe in film as personal art. Not that it had ever
been clear that Lucas was in that company of creators. By
contrast, Coppola was totally and sometimes self-destructively
bent on making exceptional film statements of personal vision
(witness Apocalypse Now). So in a strange way and Im not sure
he has ever appreciated this Lucas had revived a new industrial
version of movies in terms of mass media.
Its worth going back to American Graffiti just to remind yourself
that this man once appreciated humanly possible action, realistic

settings, lifelike characters, talk and dramatic situations one


might have seen at night in Modesto. Set in 1962, Graffiti has
intimations of anxiety in young men over finding a girl and
wondering whether they will have to shift from the fields of
California to the jungles of Vietnam. Graffiti is one of those movies
from the 70s that help us feel what was happening in America.
This has seldom been a top priority in the Disney philosophy, but,
for their $4.05bn, Disney did want something from George Lucas.
The purchase had included the rights to Star Wars and so the
fictional empire would be revisited. Why not? For just as Lucasfilm
was the source of so much hi-tech movie-making, so it had
inspired star fleets of franchises for mainstream cinema: the Harry
Potter films, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Pirates of the
Caribbean and so many other reiterations not quite as
distinguished or so much fun, but all contributing to the principle
that cinema now makes a world that never was and never could
be. Its even possible that the glory of Star Wars helped sustain
that creaking dinosaur, James Bond.
So VII came into being (VIII and IX are planned it really is a
factory process). It will say it is a Lucasfilm, but you have to
know that Lucasfilm is owned by Disney. The film is directed by JJ
Abrams (creator of Lost and Super 8), and it is produced by
Abrams, his associate Bryan Burk, and Kathleen Kennedy, the
president of Lucasfilm. The final script is credited to Abrams and
Lawrence Kasdan (who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back and
Return of the Jedi). There will be a substantial credit for the films
creative consultant, George Lucas. For surely there are children
and the children of the original Star Wars kids who want to feel
the stamp of authority.
Word has it that Lucas did have conversations with Disney at an
early stage. He offered a few ideas that had been percolating over
the years. But those possibilities were not pursued. That seems to
me quite telling. Imagine a comparable situation in which Coppola
was told by Paramount that there were to be more Godfathers, on
which they would love to be able to use his name. I know Francis
a little and I think it might take as long as half an hour before the
creative consultant was actively, then furiously, then desperately
engaged in articulating a personal vision that should not be

denied. As opposed to a brilliant hi-tech franchise that might go


on as long as 007.
Yoda educates Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in the ways of the
force in The Empire Strikes Back. Photograph: Allstar/Lucasfilm
In a true sense, George Lucas is retired and good for him. He
does a lot for charity, including a large grant to the USC film
programme. He is developing his art museum for Chicago, which
will include his collection of Winslow Homer paintings as well as
all the Star Wars art (San Francisco declined this offering). But I
think he has been content to let The Force Awakens happen and
regards it as an interested if uncommonly well-informed onlooker.
I feel equally detached. I have not seen Episode VII yet. I am
confident it will do gangbuster business this Christmas season.
The merchandise will surge in the stores. And I can hear the
cheers as that heroic John Williams fanfare rings through theatres.
Harrison Ford will reappear; the daring of Han Solo will mean a
little more as we recall Fords recent plane crash while piloting his
Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR. I was going to say I want to see the new
film and its attractive newcomers to the myth, Adam Driver,
Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac but theres a funny way in which I feel
Ive seen it already. Doesnt that happen with franchises, that
each new film seems not so much a brave new story as one more
imprint from the trusted pattern?
If you loved Star Wars when you were 12, or if you were a dad
who rejoiced with that kid, you are likely 50 and 70 now. Thats
quite a stretch, especially if Episode VII seems just a little secondhand sometimes. What will count is whether there are new
children who believe that movies are about technology and doing
the same thing again. And again. Cross your fingers.

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