Film Industry: A Field In England concluded


Read Beyond Hollywood: Reading Arthouse Cinema. This is in MM45 on page 24 - go to our Media Magazine archive to find the article. 

1) Summarise the article in 50 words.
  • Arthouse films artistic rather than commercial; they are films that are purposely difficult to understand or ‘read’. 
  • Those who think of cinema as being simply entertainment, which is easier to read, are rarely likely to watch an arthouse film.
  • Arthouse is characterised by ‘maximum ambiguity’, where a bizarre turn of events can only be ‘explained’ by characters’ subjectivity, rather than the world of the film. So the producers of art cinema are not in the business of making it easy for audiences to read the film. 
  • The ‘return to the equilibrium’ described by Todorov is often absent in arthouse cinema.
  • it gains its meanings through reference to other texts: Intertextual understanding
  • in our society if you don’t like ‘highbrow’ art, such as opera, you are in some way inferior to those who do.
2) What are some of the suggested audience pleasures for arthouse film?
the more arthouse films that a person watches, the more they gain cultural competences. In itself, it might mean you get more out of existence.

3) Why do some audiences struggle with arthouse film? Refer to some media theory here (there are some important media theories discussed in the article itself).
Bourdieu theorised that having such ‘cultural competences’ to read difficult texts gave the individual cultural capital and is one of the ways in which social class is emphasised (conspicuous consumption is another). In other words, in our society if you don’t like ‘highbrow’ art, such as opera, you are in some way inferior to those who do.

4) To what extent is arthouse film only for the middle classes and older audiences? Why might this be the case?
They would have more of an intertextual understanding than hose who are of a lower class. However the appreciation of art-house films comes to those of a cultural understanding which can come from any class, so art-house films are not limited to just middle classes and older audiences.

5) What type of audience would A Field In England appeal to? What about Chicken?
Highbrow, niche audiences with ABC1 demographics.


A Field In England: BFI report on the release strategy and commercial success

1) Read this BFI Insight report into the release and reception of the film. What was the purpose of the report? 
This report tries to address the key questions about the significance of the release of A Field In England.

2) What was the budget for A Field In England?
£316,879

3) What were the key numbers in terms of cinema box office takings, TV viewers, VOD and DVD sales? 
-The film made £21,399 from 17 cinemas on the opening evening (77% of viewers aware they could watch for free at home)*
-Average of 369,000 viewers during Film4 screening
-total tv viewers were 918,000 (1.8 % of population)
-1462 dvd sales

4) What was the primary target audience for A Field In England? Does this surprise you? How does it contrast with your answer to question 5 in the tasks above?
ABC1 18-25 year olds, and frequent cinema goers in 24-35+ year age bracket.

5) What did the report conclude with regards to social media and the marketing campaign? How does this link to our Chicken case study?
Social media played a massive part in advertising the film

6) Finally, what was the BFI's conclusion with regards to the unusual release strategy for A Field In England? Was it a success? What evidence is provided to argue this point?It had worked to draw in as many viewers and talks about the film for this type of low budget film. It created this buzz around the film from this unusual release strategy. It had drawn in more TV viewers than another film called 'The Future 90k p&a', which had a budget of  £1.127m and had drawn in 200,000 less TV viewers than A Field in England.



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