Slumdog Millionaire Task 1:The Film

Synoposis:Jamal is a contestant in the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire.He has already won a vast amount of money and is only a question away from winning it all,which is scheduled for the next day .However the police believe that he has cheated as they find it impossible that he could be intellectual enough to know all the answers as he is only a 'slumdog'.Jamal explains to the police that he knew all the answers by chance because of things that have happened through his life,which are conveyed in a series of flashbacks.


Director:Danny Boyle who also directed the great British film Trainspotting.



Budget: The budget of the movie was $15.1 million.



Production:The film was produced by two British production companies Celador films and film four.


Where it was filmed : The movie was filmed in India and is set in the slums of Mumbai.



Main actors: Dev Patel who played Jamal Malik also starred in the British Television ensemble Skins.


Friedo Pinto who played Latika Jamal's love interest had her first acting experience in this film as she previously was an Indian model.


Madhur Miltar who played Jamal's older brother Salim Mailik had no prior acting experience before the movie.


Studio:The Warner Independent picture made a $5 million offer to win the rights to the picture topping the Fox searchlight pictures offer.The film was distributed in Europe,India,Asia-pacific and North America.


Origin:The film is a British film but is set and based on events that happened in India's Mumbai.


Festivals: The film was screened in August 2008 at the Telluride film festival, and in September 2008 the Toronto International film festival .It was also screened at the London Film festival.


Awards:The film has been nominated for 10 Oscars and has won a staggering 8 out of the possible ten.It has also won 5 critic choice awards and 4 Golden Globes.

Trainspotting Task 3:you

The main message of the film.is that in life the decisions you make and the path you choose to take effects your future and along the way of the path you have chosen you will have difficulties possibly financially if not physically,mentally or with those that mean the most to you.Trainspotting is particularly effective of making people reassess their lives and make them aware of their mistakes and it almost like a wake up call that you need to make the most of life and take care of yourself, because if you don't nobody will.

As a British film it says a lot about our society,it taps into a different culture,making a film about drug addicts let alone have scenes where the concussion of drugs is demonstrated is taking a big step.The drugs life is presented but not as accurate and as close to reality as what Trainspotting achieved.As using drugs and the effects of them is always very delicately portrayed to make it seem better than it is where in this film it is showing being the harsh but accurate reality of this type of lifestyle.Overall the film is a great example of verisimilitude

I think the film was successful because people respected and understood the message,it certainly was eye opener apart from the obvious message that drugs are bad it also showed how and why drug addicts get to that point in their lives.It made people reassess they way that they thought about drug taking and to a certain extent be a little more sympathetic without losing their moral beliefs.In my opinion I think this film was extremely successful because it was both entertaining and educational and it left the audience thinking.

Trainspotting Task 2:Marketing

Analysis of the poster

Denotation

• The five main characters occupy most of the space



• The man in the middle is pointing at the audience
  


• There is no colour except from the block where the title is



• Each of the people have an absurd expression on their face

Connotation

• The five characters all have an equal amount of space on the poster which is suggestive that they are all an equal part of the storyline,they have blame in the direction of the storyline.
  

• The gesture of the man in the middle is a good way of engaging the audience into the poster,it's as if he is pointing at the audience saying 'you' which draws them in and makes them curious to know more and want to watch the movie.
  

• The dull use of colour is symbolic to the film itself it suggests that their is an absence of colour in their lives (it is dull).The only use of colour is clever because it is bright and it highlights the title making sure the audience remember the name of the film.

• The characters personality is seen in this poster as they all have a different facial expressions and body language and it suggests the chaotic nature of the film.

The poster tells us that the film is far from ordinary, it grabs your attention as you are immediately drawn to what the character's are doing.It is successful in enticing us as an audience as it makes you wonder what the film is going to be about it excites us because the message that the character's portray is that their is a lot of depth to the film.The poster helps make it distinctive that the film will only be appreciated by an audience of a mature age as it's marketing method which is to make the audience think and become curious requires you to look at the poster's hidden depth and be interested and able to understand what it may entail.

Analysis of the Trailer

The trailer is narrated by what seems like the main character Mark Renton who introduces himself 1st .The trailer consists of Mark introducing each character one by one in a sequence which they are most significant in from the film and then is frozen whilst he introduces them by name. The trailer is based on several rhetorical questions asked by Mark who is without a doubt talking to us as an audience,this is very effective in keeping the audience engaged with the trailer.The action in the trailer is accompanied by up beat non-diegetic music which builds up tension and excites the audience.At the end when Mark has completed introducing everyone he takes the trailer to its climax which left effectively at the end he boldly states 'choose your friends,choose your future,choose life' this grabs the audience's attention and takes them back a bit.

The trailer gives the audience a real taster of what the movie is going to be like as actual scenes from the film are included this is an effective method of keeping the audience interested it builds them up to a climax and then just shuts them down which makes the audience by that point desperate to see more and go and watch the movie.The trailer suggests that the film is about 5 people who know each other as they are from the same walk in life.The themes that are made apparent in the trailer are: crime,sex,drugs,friendships and relationships and violence.
The trailer tells us that the film requires an intellectual understanding which suggests its targeted at an audience of a mature age.The music was particular effective because it was very fast and upbeat which excited the audience and suggested that movie could possibly do the same the whole way through.

Trainspotting Task 1: The film

The synopsis: A British film based on the novel by Irvine Welsh ,the film is about a group of young heroin addicts economically depressed in the 1980's in Edinburgh .The movie follows their passage through life and the effects their circumstances have on their lifestyle.

Director: The director of the movie was Danny Boyle and he has done other films with the production company such as :Shallow Grave,28 days later and the very successful Slum dog Millionaire.

Budget: The budget for the movie was $2.5 million and filmed over the course of seven weeks.

Companies that made the film:The movie was funded by Channel 4 (Film Four)and British company well known for funding independent films.

Where it was filmed : The film was set in Edinburgh ,but the majority of it was filmed in Glasgow except from the opening scenes which were set in Edinburgh and the final scenes which were set in London.

Main actors: Ewan McGregor who played the main character Mark Renton. McGregor has since worked on films such as Star wars,young obi-wan kenobi and the famous moulin rouge.He has also made appearances in theatre productions ,his success has been proved by him being ranked at no.36 in the Empire Mag's top 100 movie stars of all time

Jonny Lee Miller played sick boy his fame came from his role in the British TV drama Eastenders,where he later went on to starring in the 19995 film Hackers co-starring Angelina Jolie his former spouse.Miller has made several appearances in BBC film adaptions.

Robert Caryle who played Francis Begbie,has worked several TV dramas for BBC he also co starred in a fil called Faces alongside Ray winstone and made an appearance in the 1997 film The Full Monty.

Ewen Bremmer who played Spud has also starred in Guy Ritchies's Snatch as Mullet ,Pearl Harbour ,Black Hawk Down and he has appeared in several other TV dramas.


Kelly Macdonald who played Diane is an Emmy award winner and a Golden globe nominee this is for her outstanding acting in the many period dramas she has starred in.

Studio: Miramax films is the studio which distributed the film and was distributed in the UK and the USA and Australia.

Origin: The film is from the United kingdom it is Scottish ,set in Edinburgh but it is mostly filmed in Glasgow.

Awards: In 2004 the film won the title as the best Scottish movie of all time.It has also been nominated for 4 British Academy film awards in 1995.Another achievement of the movies is being ranked at no.10 by the British Film institute on the top 100 British movies of all time.

Controversy: The film caused a lot of controversy in the UK ,USA and Australia this was because it was believed to be moral depravity and glorifying drug use.However,some people thought it created awareness as it tapped into the youth sub culture of the time and it was described as a breakthrough in British film.