Can the internet create a culture of nationality?
While films such as Casino Royale (d. Cambell, 2006), Crash (d. Campbell, 2004) and Slumdog Millionaire (d. Boyle, 2008) encourage transnationality through the use of multicultural cast and crew, some films and directors continue to make films that could be considered national. One film that does this using the Internet are Scenes of a Sexual Nature (d. Blum, 2006).
Scenes of a Sexual Nature (d. Blum, 2006)
This British comedy was made for just £260K, but managed to draw A-List actors such as Ewan McGregor and Sophie Okonedo. It was self-distributed by The Really Honest Little Distribution Company, a branch of Tinpan Films. The makers of the film are "testing a new online distribution model which they say could help independent and low-budget films" (Maven, 2004).
The film used the social networking site Myspace to promote the film and to try and reach its key audience somewhere they were likely to view the trailer. Also, using this free web-space on the internet on a site that reached such a worldwide audience came unlimited resources and reached an audience that would have cost thousands of pounds to interact with if advertising were being paid for.
The film used the social networking site Myspace to promote the film and to try and reach its key audience somewhere they were likely to view the trailer. Also, using this free web-space on the internet on a site that reached such a worldwide audience came unlimited resources and reached an audience that would have cost thousands of pounds to interact with if advertising were being paid for.
In an interview with director Ed Blum, Richard Maven states:
Ed Blum, the film’s director, and Suran Goonatilake, the investor behind Blum’s production firm Tinpanfilms, hope the system will reduce distributors’ control and give private investors more of a say in how movies are marketed and where revenues end up.
Dubbed 'The Really Honest Little Distribution Company', their firm will handle the distribution process, while a collection agency will be used to allocate the film’s takings. If it proves a success, they plan to offer their service to other smaller productions.
Social networking agency Rareface has also been recruited to manage an online PR and marketing campaign using the likes of Myspace and Youtube through which it plans to learn best practices and replicate similar campaigns for other movie releases. (Richard Maven, 2004)
By producing the film this way the production team cut out the 'middle man' and were able to shoot the entire film within just a few days, therefore gaining the interest of big A-List stars who could easily fit the film into their busy schedules.
Ed Blum, the film’s director, and Suran Goonatilake, the investor behind Blum’s production firm Tinpanfilms, hope the system will reduce distributors’ control and give private investors more of a say in how movies are marketed and where revenues end up.
Dubbed 'The Really Honest Little Distribution Company', their firm will handle the distribution process, while a collection agency will be used to allocate the film’s takings. If it proves a success, they plan to offer their service to other smaller productions.
Social networking agency Rareface has also been recruited to manage an online PR and marketing campaign using the likes of Myspace and Youtube through which it plans to learn best practices and replicate similar campaigns for other movie releases. (Richard Maven, 2004)
By producing the film this way the production team cut out the 'middle man' and were able to shoot the entire film within just a few days, therefore gaining the interest of big A-List stars who could easily fit the film into their busy schedules.
Here are a few videos by the director Ed Blum who in the first video pleads with the audience to get on the internet and help promote the film, and in the second, gets excited that he had received his first email from Japan.
By using YouTube to post vodcasts about the film, viewers could follow the progress of the film and understand how the entire process of making, distributing and exhibiting a film really works. The second video shows how much the makers of the film appreciate support from fans and how exciting it is to reach an international audience. As well as reaching a wider audience, by posting all the details of the film and its progress online, fans of the film can send their friends links to the vodcasts and spread the clips like they would a viral video.
Shane Meadows
One director who comes to mind when looking about national cinema is Shane Meadows, director of such films as This Is England (2006) and Dead Man's Shoes (2004). This Is England centers around a group of skinheads in Northern England in 1983. Themes within the film are Thatcherism, the Falklands War and the skinhead culture of Britain, which speaks to a British audience and not necessarily an international one because of the issues it focuses on. While British citizens know a lot about 1980s skinhead culture and the problems that came with the Thatcher years, people from other countries would perhaps not know or understand so much. Also, the Northern accents and slang used in the film may not be understood in other countries. It has also been said to reflect British culture in the present day more than it does the 1980s 'yob' culture; "as the title's present tense implies, perhaps not that much has changed in two decades" (Romney, 2007, p. 12), therefore giving the film cultural relevance today as well as historically. Films such as This Is England show that, while transnationality in film is becoming more common, it is also important to keep producing national films that speak to one nation in particular in order to celebrate or reflect and comment on their history.
