Working Title Visit

On Thursday 28th February Reepham College had a great opportunity to visit Working Title and have a talk with some people who work in the industry.

Charlotte, Tilly and Tristan - Internship
Tilly was on the program Action! which is a one year program. They choose 3 people one goes to developing, runner and production. They also talked about their own personal roles in Working Title and processes which they knew about.  
Tristan had worked on Skyfall and went to another country to film the beginning sequence on the train. It was very different because it was in a different language and there were 1000's of extras. He also spent 5 months working on Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. 

Development:
In development it is the whole process from the original idea to the screening. The Development process varies depending on what film it is. Anna Karenina took a very short time into comparison to other films like Les Miserables.  Marketing had its own department next to development, they aren't they same department. Development needs to have loads of conversations between colleagues because their will be constant difficulties. 
Amelia Granger is in film development. To come up with ideas for a film you use resources to such as magazines, books, thinking process and meetings with writers and directors

Assistant Director:
The Assistant Director is there from production to on set and the communication between each individual group is handled by them. They get to see everything on set. Things will nearly always go wrong so contingency plans are needed and you need to think on your feet. 

Adaption:
Adaption is hard and takes a long time if you are going from book straight to film. With Anna Karenina it wasn't the case because they used a fair bit of the screen play. Twilight was a surprise to have taken off, but it is thought it has because of the actors chosen. Anna Karenina was out of copyright and Working Title knew previous adaptions could be improved. Tom Stoppard is a screen writer who did Warhorse and Shakespeare in love, worked on Anna Karenina. In the adaption they focused on Anna Karenina's story and Leverd's, so they removed a lot of the content and put more in.     

Tristan suggested The Knowledge if looking for places to go and get experience.

Production and Anna Karenina:
Production focuses on schedule and budget. For Anna Karenina Universal gave a certain amount of money. The money they were given wasn't enough for the original plan. To film in Russia like they originally wanted to was too expensive. When they came up with the idea of filming it all in a theatre it saved a lot of money. They filmed in one place in Russia, Kizzy. It was -40 and many of the crew got frost bite and equipment broke. Offices are given scripts to breakdown and analyse the script to be able to identify the locations and actors needed to then work out rough budget for filming. When the set was built they would have a portable office built nearby. Anna Karenina was expensive in the Mise en Scene, because it is a period piece. So props, costume and makeup had to be considered. One of the visual effect techniques was to put a Dior stocking over the lens for a soft effect focus and it was shot on film. They used as many resources as possible. 1 million feet worth of film was used on Les Miserables.

Audience for Anna Karenina:
The target audience was aimed at those in the upmarket class with a literature background. The audience is similar to Pride and Prejudice.

Investors: 
Investors have little input to be honest. They are sent a casting list, concept designs and given a general overview, they don't have full control. The studio focus more behind the decisions. Other production companies working with Working Title compromise and it is generally a satisfying process with very little disagreements.

Special Effects:
Visual effects crashed and businesses are shutting down or reducing their employee numbers. It is described as a famine or feast situation, whereby either all films want a lot of visual effects or not. It took off around when Avatar was out causing businesses to expand but now the demand isn't keeping isn't as high. Businesses are downscaling and freelances are being made. It is hard to predict what will happen as it fluctuates. The prices were sky high but now dropping, it is incredibly competitive.

Editing:
The editor puts in a rough cut with every scene in it and everyone watches a screening of it. Les Mis when first screened was 4 hours long at first. Afterwards they would talk about it and visual effects come in and decisions are made. Once the director has delievered his cut it is a lock cut and no more is done.

Film and Digitial:
Film was still being used until 4-5 years ago when Avatar was released. Film doesn't wear well and now doing it digitially is much easier. Now on a hard drive the cost savings have been huge. The digitial age is cheaper and easier.

Advice:
Always take creative risks. If you don't take risks your not doing your job properely, because all films have taken creative risks. A big actor = a big bullseye but it's nice to level it out and have a mix of new actors aswell.