BlockBuster Film (2015)

Cabin in the Woods

American Horror Film
Directedand written by Gerald McMorrow
Known for:

• Cloverfield (2008)
• World War Z (2013)
• Daredevil (TV Series) (2015)
• The Sinister Six (2016)

Box Office

• Budget: $30,000,000
• US Gross: $42,043,633
• Opening Weekend: $14,743,614

Release:

• USA - 9th March 2012 - (South by Southwest Film Festival)
• UK - 13th April 2012

Distribution:

• Lionsgate - UK & USA theatrical releases

Cast:

• Chris Hemsworth (Known for his leading role in Thor (2011)
• Kristen Connolly (Actress in The Happening (2008)
• Richard Jenkins (Known from Step Brothers (2008) and Jack Reacher (2012))
• Fran Kranz (Lesser known actor from Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2011) and Homeland (TV series) (2009)

Facts:

• Plays on the tropes of a conventional horror narrative by implementing a variety of monsters and situations as a form of parody.
• An inter-textual reference to Sin City (2005) is made by one of the monsters on a white board being called Kevin, a monster esque character from Sin CIty.
• Discussions were had about converting the film into 3D despite distaste by Drew Goddard, this led the film's release date to be postponed until the idea was rejected.
• Nobody is killed until 44 minutes into the film, making the film's pace pick u[p rather quickly towards the climax.

USA Independent (Updated 2015)

Whiplash:

American Independent film
Written and directed by Damien Chazelle

• Budget: $3,300,000
• US Gross: $13,092,000
• Opening Weekend: $135,388 (US)
• First-time director

Production Companies:

Bold Films

Right of Way Films

Blumhouse Productions

Release:

• USA - 16th January (2014) - (Sundance Film Festival) (Premiered)
• UK - 15th October (2014) - (London Film Festival)

Distribution:

• Sony Pictures Classics (2014) (USA) (theatrical)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2015) (USA) (Blu-ray) (DVD)
• Sony Pictures Releasing (2015) (UK) (theatrical)

Cast:

• Miles Teller (Known from 21 and Over, Project X and the upcoming Fantastic 4-2015)
• J.K Simmons (Known from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy)
• Paul Reiser (Seasoned actor from Aliens (1986), Mad About You (1992)
• Melissa Benoist (Television actress from The Good Wife, Homeland and Law & Order)

Interesting Facts

• A majority of the scenes were only filmed a couple of times, leading the cast to keep up with the fast-paced nature of the film's narrative.
• Many of the extras in the studio band's reactions were genuine, as they were only hired to play the music and did not read the script.
• The slaps from Simmons to Tellers was a spontaneous gesture from the pair as they grew tired of rehearsing the same section, the slap was kept for the final shot.
• All of the music played in the live sections were actually played during filming.
• During intense drumming sections, after the scene was over, Damien Chazelle would refuse to yell "Cut" so that Teller would continue playing and become more fatigue.

Marketing:
Poster 1:

Accolades:

• Golden Globe Nomination (Golden font)
• Best Supporting Actor (J.K. Simmons)
• Quotes from reviews

Poster 2:

Visuals:

• Theme of the film (drumming) is presented along with a quote; "The road to greatness can take you to the edge" - main character (Andrew) is standing at the edge of the drumstick looking down on everyone from "the top". (Alt-interpretation) He looks like he is about to jump of from the high point due to the personal challenges that he is presented with during the film.

The Interview (USA Blockbuster) (2014)

The Interview:

Written by Dan Sterling (screenplay) and Seth Rogan (Story)
Directed by Evan Goldberg (Known for This is The End (2013), Pineapple Express (2008) and Superbad (2007)
Seth Rogan (Known for This is The End (Alongside Evan (2014)

Box Office:

• Budget: $44,000,000
• US Gross: $6,105,175 (Theatre)
• Opening Weekend: $1,085,515 (USA) (Theatre)

Production Companies:

• Columbia Pictures
• LStar Capital
• Point Grey Pictures

Release:

Released on December 24th 2014 - Through digital and selected art houses theatres

Distribution:

• Columbia Pictures (2014) (USA) (theatrical)
• Xbox Video (2014) (USA) (video) (Video-on-demand)
• Google Play (2014) (USA) (video) (Video-on-demand)
• YouTube (2014) (USA) (video) (Video-on-demand)

Cast:

• James Franco (Known from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, Pineapple Express, The Green Hornet - Dear friends with Seth Rogan)
• Seth Rogan (Known from Pineapple Express, Donnie Darko (debute), Superbad - Stars in most of his own directed films)
• Randall Park (Major acting debute, had small scene in The Office (USA)
• Diana Bang (Television actress from The Killing, Fringe, Bates Motel)

Marketing:

• Gained worldwide attention including death threats towards the stars and the directors of the show
• Was at one point, banned from being released due to fear from North Korea's retaliation until President Obama lifted the ban
• September 11th attacks mentioned during a threat from the hacker community nearing the film's release - many theatres refused to show the film out of fear of a terrorist attack
• Only selected art houses in America would show the film, however, the film was available to rent and buy from digital on demand stores such as Xbox Video and Google Play
• The drama that this film caused since it's announcement created a large amount of hype 

How important are visual effects as the main attraction for audiences?

Fraser McKean
AS Film


Visual effects are implemented to increase the immersion and overall aesthetics of a film, certain genres such as fantasy, sci-fi and other genres that utilize heavy use of this graphical engineering more than not, benefit from it.
Using visual effects can create a great deal of short cuts for the film-maker, including the creation of landscape, impossible architecture, monsters and other aesthetically pleasing sights, this can be used in some good ways to also increase a film's popularity when done correctly, this can also be the case for the complete opposite however, as some films are panned at the box offices for providing and implementing poor visuals which can completely ruin the immersion and the overall experience.




One film that makes a good use of visual effects is The Hobbit franchise, directed by Peter Jackson, as each of the three films use a high range of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) such as the ability to create large battle scenes as well as the dragon that is feature in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The franchise is praised for it's excellent use of visual effects and does not draw any consequences due to how in the franchise's latest entry; The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) had a budget of $250,000,000 and made $255,108,370 in the USA box office, this is noted as a success which also contributes to a well received visual effect effort.





Another film is J.J Abrams' Star Trek (2009), a science-fiction action film that makes use of a large portion of visual effects such as CGI, with a budget of $140,000,000, it is more than likely that a large percentage of this went towards the visual effects as this production. Visuals are a contributing factor to the Sci-fi genre such as the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, this is due to the expectation of space battles and demanding CGI elements that have become to be a standard for many films within this genre, it is arguably the most important asset of this genre.




Other films such A Two-Faced Charade (2015), an American independent short-film by Charlie Anderson uses some visual effects that have been poorly received by critics, one the effects includes colour alteration of a character's eyes, this is an example of when a visual effect that is originally intended for an enhanced viewing for the audience, becomes a "tacky" and "off-putting" experience that distracts from an already positive rating (9.1 - IMBD) from Charlie Anderson, who is a Digital Imaging technician that worked on box office successes such as 22 Jump Street (2014) and Now You See Me (2013).




James Cameron's Avatar (2009), is a film that has gained world renowned fame for it's execution of stereoscopy vision as well as it's animation quality, making $760,505,847 from the USA box office from it's budget of  $237,000,000, it made three times the amount that Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug made, despite a higher budget in the latter. This is a prove of concept that the execution of the visual effects which can justify the immersion that the audience has can greatly impact the success of the film.




Under the Skin, an independent directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlet Johansson, is a sci-fi genre film that again, conforms to the expectation of using a large amount of visual effects that have come to be expected in the genre, however, the visual effects in this feature are more of lighting, hues and cinematography such as the strobe lighting and filtered views from colours ranging from blue, to green, to red as well as editing scenes together but replacing certain items with others, in one instance, a man is deflated and is similar to that of a plastic bag being popped.
This is all an extended element of visual effects and although they do not bear a strong resemblance to the CGI work of Avatar or The Hobbit, they offer an alternative to the recycled visual effects that are included in many modern sci-fi pieces.







As a conclusion, the importance of visual effects in the film industry largely depends of the quality that it is included in the actual film, as it has been proven that a film's rating and success can hinge of the validity of some visual effects, whether it completely hinders the overall film, or if it is it's own greatest asset, the status of visual effects can only be judge on the basis of how it is executed.