Across the varied and diverse ways in which a film text can encode and emphasise meanings and a specific viewpoint on or presentation of a subject, realism is a key aesthetic and formal choice and approach that has functioned as a key creative direction of so much western expression across literature and the visual arts. This resource, then, explores the characteristics of a particular film style that we call neorealism. It stems from post World War Two...

Associated Resources

• WJEC AS Level Film Studies FM2 Exemplar Resource Material A.docx
• WJEC AS Level Film Studies FM2 Exemplar Resource Material B.docx

Instructions

• Section A refers to the resource material (see associated resources)
• This is a Section A exemplar only
• Each question carries 40 marks
• You are reminded that assessment will take into account the quality of written communication used in your answers

Section A:  Producers and Audiences

EITHER:

...

Introduction

One of the most interesting ways to engage with genre is to select two films from the same genre and compare and contrast them. Critically, select two films produced in significantly different time periods and places - by doing this kind of analytical exercise we’re able to go some distance in identifying some of the ways in which a genre evolves.

Science fiction film certainly seems to offer a particularly rich case study in terms of what...

FM4: Varieties of Film Experience – Issues and Debates Section C: Single Film – Critical Study

Section C of FM4 offers students the ability to engage in a critical study of a single film, within a synoptic framework – this means the micro and the macro features need to be studied, as well as issues of representation. Useful will be placing the film in an institutional and cultural context in reference to production, funding distribution,...

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Understanding the relationship between the micro and the macro elements of a film is an essential part of our analysis of movies. Every shot, every sound accumulates to form the expression of an idea. Thinking about movies in this way might prompt us to acknowledge that a camera move for example, can express a character’s psychology, sometimes more forcefully and memorably than a line of dialogue could ever do. In the opening...

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While we often first think and refer to contemporary examples of film stars when we study film, it’s useful and valuable to consider film stars whose work has featured across several decades. More specifically for us as British audiences, it’s of particular interest to consider British film stars both in terms of the interest of their performances, and also in terms of how these performances offer representations of...

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The British Film Industry is successful and thriving but as Jill Nelmes identified in An Introduction to Film Studies can be defined on a number or levels and by a range of “disparate films, genres and movements?. In addition to this there are arguments over what is a British Film and as such, there have been many attempts to define British Film over the years. A useful definition that the BFI proposed in 1996 was that films...

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One of the key issues to be explored in our study of film is that of representation. As such, it’s fair to say that there’s an established, and largely agreed upon, understanding that film, like other media and forms of cultural expression, can reflect back to us aspects of the conditions in which we live or have lived with. Certainly, there’s scope for us to think about how British cinema has, in more or less...

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World War Two impacted ferociously on Great Britain: cities were attacked by German bombers, air battles were fought and daily life was severely tested over the six years of conflict. It’s understandable though, if the war seems a long, long time ago to you. Cinema, however, offers us a meaningful way to reconnect with, and reflect on the event and to develop a sense of the relationship between World War Two and British...

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Cinema is now nearly 120 years old and it’s a magnificently broad, deep, complex and exciting subject.

It’s understandably easy to think that the way films are now is how they have always been, in terms of their technology and particularly how they organize (tell) their stories. However, this isn’t the case and so it’s important for us to be aware that all forms of cultural expression evolve across time and that they...

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Film is technology. It’s an obvious point, and an essential one.

Film established itself as a symbol of the modern, mechanical age of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and so it is particularly interesting to now witness how the medium is moving into the digital age. Indeed, we should perhaps talk not of new technology but of now technology because it is so quickly ever changing and evolving. In Western Europe...

Ewan McGregor is a major British film star who has appeared in a wide range of films that have been released globally since 1994. His career has combined performances in a range of lower budgeted feature films and work in highly budgeted, event films released by the major film studios. Over the course of almost twenty years McGregor has appeared in nearly fifty films.

Professionally trained as an actor at London’s Guildhall, McGregor hails from...

The basic concept of Synergy can be explained through this mathematical formula:

Whilst this may not make sense to mathematicians, in business it does, when we think of profit value. If you sell two separate products, for example a video game and a film, they could both do very well, giving you a profit of £200 million each.

However if the video game and film were linked, i.e. both Harry Potter projects, this is synergy because the profit value...

The main aspects of marketing are:

• PR: offline/online
• Media: budget, targeting TV, press, radio, outdoor, interactive
• Research: NRG, Fame, TGI
• Creative: trailer, POS, print, TV/radio, interactive, strategy.

The main aim of marketing is to draw people into the film, but also to target audiences who the company believe will make it a blockbuster.

Star Trek provides a very valuable franchise, which has spanned a large period of time. Overall (in terms...

Process Of Attaching A Distributor

Distribution is fundamental for a film to make profit, or even break even on its costs. A distribution company may be attached to a project during pre-production, especially for Studio productions for which the distribution company will most likely be a sister company of the production company. However, in the independent industry getting distribution can be a significant challenge. Sometimes a distribution company will...