Sightseers
This resource will be studying the seven frameworks for analysis in film studies.
Authorship
Sightseers is an interesting analysis of authorship with the film written by its co-stars Alice Lowe and Steve Oram who both have a background in comedy, stand up and television work. They are both linked to producer/writer/director Edgar Wright who wrote and directed the Cornetto film trilogy. The connection with Sightseers is that Edgar Wright produced the film with Nira Park (producer of the Cornetto films) who also happens to be founder of the production company that made Sightseers, Big Talk. The film comedy circuit can be well connected and in terms of authorship clear comedy links can be traced. Lowe and Oram both brought their own backgrounds to the film playing characters from the Midlands where they were respectively brought up but also finally realising a project they had conceived in 2005. Verisimilitude was encoded into the comedy with both taking a caravanning holiday to the destinations that were to be used in the film.
Ben Wheatley was chosen to direct as someone who could deal with the unusually dark material in the film. His background was as a short filmmaker and animator but also as director of the difficult British horror Kill List in 2011, the year before Sightseers’ theatrical release. Wheatley gained popularity on the internet putting up over 100 short virals until he was noticed by larger production companies but was seen as ideal to work with Lowe and Oram on the film. Lowe and Oram had to put their trust in his take on the characters they had written. Sightseers also reflected, in terms of film ownership, the independent film-funding template of Film4 and the BFI (BFI Film Fund) who gave money towards the production costs of the film while StudioCanal UK distributed. Authorship would identify the film as culturally and institutionally British.
Genre and Narrative
The film is a horror/comedy hybrid...
