Working Title VS Warp Version 3

When looking at the production company, Working Title, we know that they are a company that produce most Rom-Com's, whereas a company such as Warp, focuses more on the social realist genre. We can see this in movies such as "This is England" and "Mickybo & Me". 

Another film from Warp, which is social realist genre and shows the hard life of an immigrant is the movie "She, a Chinese". The film is about a young girl, Mei, who is a Chinese immigrant, after escaping her provincial Chinese village and immigrating into Britain. 

The entire movie is in Chinese and is therefore not very appealing to a wide audience and would never be able to achieve a wide release. First of all, because there wouldn't be many people who wanted to watch a movie in Chinese and second of all because there are no famous actors in the movie. This movie came out in 2010 and didn't have a main cinema screening and it didn't make that much money. The income it made came from it's DVD and VOD release. 

In this case, the Gant Rule isn't applied, because it did not have any success in Britain and therefore didn't have any success in other countries either. The Gant Rule suggest that if a film is a success in Britain it will make 10x more money in the US and have 10x the amount of screenings if not more. A great example of a British movie that achieved this, is the one from Billy Elliot. The reason, why this movie got so much attention and was a great example of approving the Gant Rule, is because it is about the great American Dream of a young boy. This appeals to a global audience and especially  a wide American audience and therefore it had such a great success.  

Had this been a Working Title movie on the other hand, it would have been done in a completely different way. Working Title always do a more commercial approach in terms of how they distribute their film, how they produce their film and, which cast they choose. 

Due to this, "She, a Chinese", would first of all have been in English, secondly it would have contained at least one American actor or actress and lastly it would have been distributed in very big amounts everywhere, in order for it to be successful and get a lot of screenings. 

As an example, Bridget Jones' Diary was distributed all over the world. Rennee Zellweger's two co-actors, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, are both Britsh, whereas Zellweger is American. 

In terms of distribution, the movie was distributed in a different way from country to country.

In France, as an example, the movie was advertised with this poster, where Zellweger is on it without her co-stars. This was done, because she is one of the big American stars and everyone in France would know her, whereas at that time, only a few would know Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. 

However, in Britain, the movie was advertised with all three actors on it, because both Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are considered as big stars in Britain.

Comparing Warp Films - Working Title Films

In the beginning of the film, there is a voice-over, where it says: "Once again, I found myself on my own and going to my mother's annual turkey curry buffet".

When this movie was tested on an American audience, it was very confusing, since for the Americans, turkey connotes Thanksgiving and for a British person it connotes Christmas.
However later on in the movie, there was a visual intentional humor created and the american test audience laughed at the sight of Mark's jumper and the silly, little, magical sound effect.

This laugh was necessary because American audiences had been very confused after the "turkey curry buffet".

The mise-en-scene of this small, little, stereotypical village with cottages, snow falling down and a very British dialogue immediately connotes the typical image of England. 

Moreover, there are a lot of signifiers to show that it such as the Red Phone Booth (in the background of the shot below) and the Poppy on the monument from 11th of November that is dedicated to fallen soldiers of World War One and World War Two. 

When looking at a Warp Film such as "This is England", which is a social realist genre movie and you compare it to the Working Title Bridget Jones film, you can tell that there are enormous differences between the two companies. 

Warp doesn't use this posh aspect of England, but shows a lot of the urban areas and working class, whereas Working Title enjoys to portray the typical English stereotype. These stereotypes are useful to win an audience.

The first few shots you see in "This is England" is of a small room with pinned wallpaper and an alarm clock on a chair, which indicates that there are no real furniture.

Whereas in "Bridget Jones", we see a big detached country house with a huge garden and a sculpted hedge. Through this mise-en-scene, Working Title are emphasising on the stereotypical English house.
When Bridget enters her mother's house, we see a dutch angle. This angle was chosen, because it was the only shot you could use in order for the audience to see the entire entrance of the house. The director wanted the audience to be able to see the entrance to emphasise the old fashioned and stereotypical English house.

The entire mise-en-scene of the antiques, wallpaper, decor and even the mother's flower dress, is used to underline the stereotypical English house and character, which is considered to be very posh.

Moreover, comparing Warp to Working Title, Warp movies use non-diegetic music, however there is never any singing on the soundtracks. BUT in Working Title films such as Bridget Jones, there is non-diegetic music with singing such as the song "Magic Moments" by Perry Como.

In addition to this, the voice and the accent in Working Title films such as Bridget Jones and Notting Hill is very different from the voice and characters from "Tyrannosaur" or "This is England".
In Warp films, the characters use swear words and have a lot of different accents, whereas in Working Title films, the actors all have a posh British accent and say "jolly gosh".
When Bridget is introduced to Mark, she says "Ding-Dong", which is invented film language, that fits into the stereotypical creation.

Also, when Bridget Jones was filmed, Renee Zellweger had to put on a lot of weight to look as if she was slightly overweight. In the entire film, she wants to lose weight and it is about how women should look slimmer. A film company such as Warp who uses the social realist genre in a lot of their movies such as "This is England", would never ask someone to put on weight, or make a movie about it. They would consider it to be a horrible message to send out to women.

Another significant difference between Warp and Working Title, is that every Working Title film, have never used anyone who is black in their film. If they had used an actor who was black, it would have been to create the racist stereotype of a black dumb man. However, in a movie such as "This is England", there are a lot of black people and one of the main characters Milky, is very intelligent. This is why many people like the social realist genre, since it is very realistic and doesn't try to hide anything.

In terms of Warp and Working Title on the market, there are a lot of differences in for example advertising as well. For Bridget Jones, Working Title decided to put only Renee Zellweger on all the posters that went out internationally, because everyone knows her since she is a big American actress and in the British market Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and Renee Zellweger were on the posters because the 2 men were well known to the English audience back then in 2001. Although Working Title films are known internationally, they don't win any awards. However a company like Warp has big success at film festivals such as Cannes Festivals and Venice. They also win awards, despite the fact that they don't even closely have the same budget as Working Title.  

Film opening 6: This is England (2006) - Shane Meadows

Social Realism is an genre, which is often used by the film company Warp, that produced this film. The genre is based on real life and even though the story's are mostly fiction, the stories are supposed to show a reflection of the world we live in.

The characters, dialogue and the entire mise-en-scene are all used and inspired by the real world.

The film opening from "This is England" is very useful when looking for a good example of the social realism genre.

The film opening also represents a lot of historical context. It shows many uprisings and demonstrations on the streets. People going on strike, wars and bombing of houses and ships  etc. During many different clips we also see images of Margaret Thatcher, who was the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. By knowing this, we can state that a lot of the scenes may have been shot at that time period.

During the entire film opening, there are people and stories portrayed on screen. These show everyday characters and their working class backgrounds. This use of untrained actors and everyday situations, is a typical convention of a social realist film. It also makes the movie more realistic and the audience might also be able to relate themselves to the movie.

We also see a lot of different shots from the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Princess Diana, which took place on the 29th of July 1981. These pictures again show the audience that most of the scenes are shot in that specific time period.

A lot of scenes are emphasising on what Britain was like back then. The non-diegetic song in the film opening is called "54-56 What's my number?". The band "Toots and the Maytals", has written this song to show the ability to grow and thrive against injustice.

During the film opening, we see a lot of shots of demonstrations and also people fighting against the police. Since the song is about fighting injustice, we can conclude that many of the scenes were about people who felt unjust.