Harry Brown Homework

Companies responsible for making it...

The film was distributed by lionsgate.

A Daniel Barber film.

The film was directed by Matthew Vaughn, Kris Thykier, Matthew Brown,
Keith Bell

The year of release...

The film was released on November 11
2009.

The classification...

The film is classified as an eighteen due to its strong use of violence, strong language and drug use.

The revenue that the film took...
Money spent - $7,300,000

World wide gross - $6,294,140

Profit - loss of $1,005,860

Brief synposis...

The film is about an area of London that has trouble with gangs, violence and drugs. An elderly man called Harry Brown's friend is murdered by a local gang so Harry takes it upon himself to get justice as the police had previously failed to do so. One by one he shoots all of the gang and finds out how his friend dies. This eventually ends up in a stand off with Harry, the leader of the gang and his uncle. As the leader of the gang is about to kill a lady the old man takes a gun from his sock and shoots the leader. This then leaves Harry at the mercy of the uncle but at this point the polices gun lasers appear on the mans chest and then they shoot him dead. Harry Brown gets away with his crime and at the end he is seen walking through the userpass, a place previously obtained by the gang as a sign that he has got justice and this is no longer a problem for the gang.
 

The story is told in a way that even though Harry Brown is breaking the law te audience is on his side. The audience has sympathy for Harry brown as he is an old man and is shown to have some of the typical stereotypes. 

Youth is portrayed to be violent, aggressive and unsympathetic. The people in the area are shown to not have had the best up bringing and the location is shown to be rough and a dangerous place to live. The youths are shown to wear hoodies and tracksuit bottoms which stereotype that they are bad behaved and would be happy to break the law and commit crime.
The lighting in the film is quite natural as this makes the film seem more realistic and not staged. In the beginning of the film a hand held camera is used which doesn't have the best quality picture, this adds to the realistic way the film is shown and shows the audience these characters view of the situation.
The titles at the beginning of film were very small and simplistic which was done intentionally to represent how Harry Brown is an ordinary little man in a big world in which, he doesn't stand out for any reason, despite being the main character of the film.
The makers of the film put thought into every little detail in order to make the film exactly how they want it. For example they built a dirty bathroom just for one small scene, so that the audience get exactly the right idea about the location.
Harry Brown is seen completing ordinary everyday tasks such as making toast, washing up and wiping up crumbs all adding to the fact that he is just an ordinary man showing how his life no different from any ordinary persons.

Homework for 21st January

Notes:
Mise-en-scene -

• Sophisticated clothing
• non-cluttered, high class shop.
• Blonde lady in suit - smart, high class
• Man in suit, smart
• Mans body language blocks the woman away from the clothes after he takes the dress of her.

Camera -

• Man is taller than the women - authority - looks down at her
• close up shows blonde woman's appearance
• close up shows the woman's hands shows her to like expensive jewellery and looks after appearance (nails)

Sound -
Music - suave, jolly, upbeat

Editing - smart and strait,

An establishing shot showing the man being taller than both women suggests that he has more power and status than they do which is confirmed in the fact that they have both entered his shop.
The man then takes the dress off of the lady and uses his body to block her from the rail which then makes her leave. This shows how the male has the power over the woman that he can make them leave. A medium shot of the two men drinking allows us to see eye line matches between the characters and that they are at a very similar level suggesting that neither character holds more power than the other. When the older character breaks the fourth wall this continues to emphasise there power as this is not a common thing to happen in programmes.

The mise-en-scene in the shop with the neat and organized layout reflects the mans character. He also is shown to be quite feminine in his mannerisms and by the stereotype that he works in a shop selling women's clothing. He is wearing a smart suit and has a tidy appearance all adding up to him being a sophisticated high class character. The blonde woman in the clip is also wearing a suit but hers is a little bit less formal and as it is a skirt this suggests more feminine characteristics and that perhaps her power is not as high as his. Her blonde hair stereotypically suggests that she is not of great intelligence, however later in the clip it is clear that this is not the case and that her power is now more than the shop mans. The older woman in the shop is not wearing a suit and is the shortest in height suggesting that she has a lower status than these characters. The fact that she then cannot afford to buy the dress and leaves the shop confirms this point. In the gentlemen's club the men once again are shown to be wearing suits, smoking and drinking, this suggests that they are sophisticated and have the time and money to do this. All of the clip so far is suggesting that men have more power than women.

The editing in the clip, including the straight cuts and action matches help to build continuity and continues the smart and high class attitude the characters in the clip seem to have. The eye line match when the older woman looks up at the shop man their eye lines match but this emphasises that he is looking down on her. When the scene changes from the woman trying the dress on to having the dress on black slides in from the left following the ladies character, this makes her character seem more elegant and possibly foreshadows her more complicated side shown later in the clip.

Lastly the sound in the clip helps to emphasis each characters personalities. In the shop the non diegetic music is quite happy and upbeat as the man prances round his shop, as he knocks the woman down and discovers that she cant afford the dress the music stops emphasising the fact that the man no longer wants to talk to the woman and once again shows his power. Finally the music in the men's club is quite sophisticated so gives this trait to the men that are drinking there.

History of the British Film Industry

Early History:

• Cinema as an entertainment industry emerged from a series of innovations in the late nineteenth century mostly in United States, France and the United Kingdom.
• Small studios were established around London producing short films for use by travelling showmen and in music halls.
• In the first decade of the twentieth century, more than 30 film studios were established.
• British films rapidly established a large share of the market at home and abroad.
• This included 15 per cent of the American market by 1910. 
• The initial success faded as American production took off, using expensive and heavily marketed film.

• At the same time as film production was declining, going to the cinema flourished as a pastime of the British public.
• In 1908 Investment in cinema increased with the founding of many companies and investments of £1.5m.
• The government recognised the potential of the film industry as a source of revenue, when it included cinema together with other entertainment, music hall and theatre, in the entertainment tax, introduced in 1916.
• The rate was 25-50 percent of the price of cinema tickets then got reduced in the 1920's but was abolished in 1969.

First Government Support:

• 1925 British film production had declined.
• Fewer than 40 feature films were being made a year.
• The majority of films shown were American.
• May 1925, lord Newton raised the issue in the house of lords, 'industrial, commercial, educational and imperial interests'.
• In 1927, the government recognised the importance of film production to the British economy.
• The Cinematograph Films Act 1927 recognised the interdependency of production, distribution and exhibition, and sought to encourage home production by setting quotas for British-made films to be met by both distributors and exhibitors.
• The act was successful in the sense that production of films in the UK doubled.
• It also established several new production companies, including British international Pictures at new studios in Elstree, Warner studios at Teddington and Fox's studios at Wemberly.

The Challenge of American Film Exports:

• Government was quick to recognise the domestic importance of the film industry and film production.
• The American authorities were even quicker to recognise the importance as an export industry.
• American missions abroad were reporting on foreign film market opportunities as early as the 1910's.
• 1926, congress appointed $15,000 to set up the Motion Picture section within the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the department of commerce.  
• This collected market information through 44 foreign offices and 300 consular offices.
• The section also appointed a trade commissioner in Europe.
• Harvard business school started to offer seminar series in the business and management of the film industry and several other American business schools and universities followed.
• Domestically the film industry was responsible for about 2 percent of overall US.
• The hollywood studios generally broke even on the American market and derived their profits from export revenues.

The 1930's boom and bust:

• The arrival of the 'talkies' in 1928 had a positive effect on British film production.
• Their films were projected in the home market and, unlike the French and German film industries, able to compete with American sound films without the need for dubbing.
• The result was that the industry experienced a boom.
• The most successful British film production company was London Film Production. 
• This was founded by an immigrant from Hungary, Alexander Korda.

Emergent British Cinema 1880-1900:

• Modern cinema is generally regarded as descending from the work of the French Lumiere brothers in 1892.
• The first moving Pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park in 1889 by William Friese Greene.

Film Production from 2012:

• In 2012 647 films were released during the year - more than 12 per week.
• Action was the UKs favourite genre taking 28% of the box office.