Case studies

London to Brighton case study

London to Brighton is a 2006 British crime thriller that was directed by Paul Andrew Williams, who also produced the film alongside Ken Marshall using their production company Steel Mill Pictures. The budget for this movie was £80 thousand.

Paul Andrews Williams began his career as an actor, as well as, directing music videos, viral and short films. He began his career as a feature film writer with the critically-acclaimed movie “London to Brighton”. This movie was inspired by a short film he had created before called “Royalty”.

London to Brighton was premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival and won Williams many awards. Due to the success of this movie, he subsequently went on to make the horror-comedy movie, The Cottage, and the art-house terror movie, Cherry Tree Lane.

What does the film "London to Brighton" teach us about:

Funding Film Projects
Methods of Production

London to Brighton teaches us that more smaller film projects should be funded. Williams had a film idea but due to the lack of funds, he decided to make London to Brighton which was inspired on his short film "Royalty".

London to Brighton also teaches us that there are ways of getting around production issues. Williams used locations where he was able to film without a fee, such as friends houses. He did use guerrilla filming which means he quickly filmed in places he might not of been allowed to by hiding the camera he was using.

Ken Marshall

Paul Andrew Williams

The Cottage case study

The Cottage is a 2008 British darkly comic horror film that was also directed by Paul Andrew Williams. Instead of this movie being distributed by the same company as London to Brighton, The Cottage was distributed by a French company named Pathe Distribution.

This movie was created due to the success of London to Brighton, which had made both Ken Marshall and Paul Andrew Williams more popular and known in the film industry. The budget for this movie was £2.5 million, which is a lot more than the previous film they had produced. The difference in the two budgets shows how successful the first movie was as they were able to get more money to make the film.

What does the film "The Cottage" teach us about:

Funding Film Projects
Methods of Production

The Cottage teaches us that more smaller film projects should be funded. This movie was Paul Andrew Williams' original film idea before he discovered that he didn't have the funds needed to create it. The success of London to Brighton opened the pathway for The Cottage to be produced two years later.

The Cottage also teaches us that even with production issues, projects can be produced. London to Brighton ended up winning 6 awards and this gave Williams the chance to produce The Cottage on a budget of £2.5 million.

Shifty case study

Shifty is a 2008 British urban crime thriller that was produced by Rory Atiken and Ben Pugh, using their production company, Between the Eyes, which has now been taken over by another company called 42. The movie was distributed by Metrodome Distribution. The budget for this movie was £100 thousand and was funded by the government in a process called the Microwave Scheme.

Even though this movie is a feature film, it only took 18 days to be completely made and ready to distribute to the public which is very uncommon in feature films. The actors that starred in the movie were also very keen on making the movie seem as realistic as possible and most were known to be method actors, meaning they wanted to feel what it would really be like in that situation.

The movie was shown to the public by using three different trailers that show different parts of the movie. This gives the audience a clearer understanding of what will happen in the film.

Ben Pugh

Rory Aitken

The Microwave Scheme

The microwave scheme is Film London's flagship feature film scheme. This scheme serves to inspire new filmmakers to make bold, compelling features that will surprise and inspire global audiences.

The scheme was the first low budget feature program in Europe and has been responsible for discovering and developing some of the UK's talent.

The Theory of Everything case study

The Theory of Everything is a 2014 biographical drama film that details the life of the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. This moving was produced by Tim Bevan by using the production company Working Title which is responsible for many well-known, popular films. It was also distributed to the public by Universal Films.

This movie came to be after screenwriter, Anthony McCarten read both Hawking’s book and his wife’s book about his life. It took three years for them to convince Jane Hawking to allow them to make a film adaptation from her book.

Due to this movie being a biographical film, the cast members spent a lot of time practicing speech patterns with a dialect coach to ensure that they were making the film as believable as they could for both Hawking and his wife, as well as, the audience that would be watching.

Tim Bevan

Veronica Mars case study

Veronica Mars is a 2014 mystery film that is produced and directed by Rob Thomas, who was also in charge of the 2004 TV series this movie is based on. Although the film was eventually distributed to the public by Warner Bros, it took a lot of effort for Thomas to be able to get them to agree to distribute it.

When Warner Bros denied the idea of distributing a feature film based on the canceled TV show, both Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell launched a fundraising campaign to produce the film through Kickstarter, offering various awards for people who donated $10 or more. Due to the fanbase that the TV show had created, they were able to reach their goal of $2 million in less than eleven hours, making this movie the highest movie from Kickstarter. The Kickstarter campaign ended on April 13, 2013, only a month after it was started and managed to raise nearly $6 million. Due to the success of the campaign and the amount of money that was raised, Warner Bros agreed to distribute the film.

Rob Thomas chose to bring back most of the cast from the TV series as he had developed a close relationship with them all and knew they would be reliable and good for the part. The fact he did this also makes the audience happy because if they watched the original series they won’t have to learn who the new actors are playing.

What does the film "Veronica Mars" teach us about:

Funding Film Project
Methods of Production

Veronica Mars teaches us about that there are other ways to get your film project funded. Veronica Mars was funded by Kickstarter after Rob Thomas set up a crowdfunding page which allowed the fans of the Veronica Mars TV series to donate money. There were also awards and gifts given to the fans who donated and it depended on how much money you put towards the move.

Veronica Mars also teaches us that there are ways to get around production issues. Rob Thomas had issues when he tried to create the feature film due to the fact that when he told his idea to Warner Bros they wouldn't fund him as they believed it would be unsuccessful just like the cancelled TV series.

Rob Thomas

Life in a Day case study

Life in a Day is a crowdsourced documentary film that was produced by Liza Marshall and distributed by National Geographic Films.

This film was made by comprising an arranged series of video clips selected from 80,000 clips submitted onto Youtube, these clips showed respective occurrences from around the world on a single day, 24 July 2010.

The movie debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and the premiere was streamed live onto Youtube. Due to the fact it was made of a variety of Youtube videos, the website announced that Life in a Day was available for viewing on the website for free and would also be released on DVD.

Liza Marshall

What does the film "Life in a Day" teach us about:

Funding Film Project
Methods of Production

Life in a Day teaches us that there are ways of making a film that don't need to be funded. Life in a day wasn't funded by a company as the videos that were included in the movie were entered by people from around the world.

Life in a Day also teaches us that there are ways to get around production issues. The producers of this movie had a large variety of clips sent in from around the world which meant they would have to take a lot of production time to look through all the clips and decide what ones they wanted to add in their film.