Trainspotting case study

Low budget film making tips and advice:

Resource film making - using pre existing resources to make a movie. You would begin with the resources you have available and plan a film and budget from the resources available.

Find budget

List locations - find locations that are free or very easy to use.

Actors - family/friends that will do it for free and have an interest in acting or can act (primary audience), websites that have uni actors that will do it for a low price. Also consider whether or not they have experience.

Equipment - can you borrow/rent gear for free or relatively cheap. Interesting items that you have access to eg. junk yard, stuff in the garage. That can be incorporated into the script for your film.

Writing the script;

• you want to keep locations to a minimum eg. feature film: 4/5 locations and a short film: 1/2 locations. the key is to keep travelling time and costs to a minimum. 

• You also want to keep your characters to a minimum eg. 4/5 - fewer the characters the better. No ensembles ( huge amount of people). This decreases the chances of any actors dropping out. 

• Do not try to write Oscar worthy scripts eg. getting your mum to cry on camera. 

• write roles that cater to their strengths. If your budget allows for extras, then you can add some extras but not many. 

•  Avoid any exterior night scenes as you need the correct lighting to shoot the scenes.If you don't have money for the lighting it's going to show in your film.

• Avoid writing in a lot of cgi and special effects, unless you can do it yourself - because it takes a lot of time and it may not be worth it. You will save a lot of money if you do it yourself, but do not practice on a feature film or something that you are intending to do something with. 

Location scouting - go to the locations you are intending to film at to find the best lighting and best times to shoot- especially if you are relying on someone else timings to use the location if you're not paying for the location. If you are not paying for the location or the actor, you are going to be at the mercy of those people who are responsible- so you will be relying on a few different people.



Trainspotting (1996) movie:

Budget - £3.5 million
Director- Danny Boyle: famous for slum dog millionaire, 2012 olympic ceremony
Writer- Andrew Macdonald
Producer- John hodge

Synopsis- this is a film of Irvine welsh's cult Scottish novel Trainspotting, a series of interlinked stories concentrating on heroin-hooked anti-hero Mark Renton and his attempts to kick the habit, despite a lack of co-operation from his similarly-inclined friends.

The rights to the screenplay- if your'e planning to translate a novel into movie form, you need to snap up the screen rights first.
However, whilst John Hodge starts to bash out the first draft of Trainspotting's screenplay, producer Andrew MacDonald and director Danny Boyle are caught up in what will prove to be the only crisis of the entire project- securing the rights of welsh's book.
the team contacted the author who allowed them to make it into a film, whilst they were doing that a tv producer called noel gay also attempted to get the film rights as well.

When putting a book into a film you must get the rights from the author to do so before pre-production.

Finance- the filmmaking team were badgered by Hollywood mogul Scott Rudin ( producer of Sabrina and the firm), who offers them $250,000 to film whatever project they desire.

The rights are still problematic as channel 4 ( who are financing the film) didn't want to put any money forward until they fixed the issue. However it seemed to be in their favour as the author also wanted them to make the film.

The deal was eventually done for 2% of the film's budget - £30,000 and noel gay backing out of hands-on duties in exchange for a share of the profits and a name check on the credits.

Pre-production- lasted 7 weeks for this film. (usually takes 4-7 weeks depending on budget);
casting
location scouting
working with art department
costumes 
feeding people on set 
storyboarding 
shot lists
risk assessments 

Casting- Ewan McGregor , who played Alex in Shallow Grave, is earmarked for the Renton role from the start, and is first on the cast.
Once you find the protagonists, you make a list of the top talent- quite a few were from the casting for shallow grave (boyles first film). They knew who they wanted for the cast.

Rehearsals- in a rented flat at the top of a Glasgow tower block. You dont need all the actors for the rehearsals because quite a lot of them are only doing 1/2 days filming. 
The film is set in Edinburgh but shot in Glasgow.  A lot of the top film crews in Britain live in Glasgow. They did a few Days in Edinburgh and a few pick-ups ( scene-setting, dialogue-free snatches shot to pad out the action).

Props - are a fundamental part of pre-production and a lot of the Trainspotting props were found In charity shops - which helped with the low budget, a lot of the other props were also donated by cast members. e.g using glucose to represent heroin, dried up pva glue to represent old heroin reminents. 

Costumes- the film doesn't rely heavily on how they were dressed- so a lot of the costumes were that of the casts own clothes.

Risk assessment- have to be completed for each location that is being used. 



Budgeting for Dirty Dancing: 

Budget: $6 million and made $214.6 million in box offices worldwide.

It was the first film to sell more than a million copies for home video, and its soundtrack - two multi- platinum albums and multiple singles, including "I've had the time of my life", which won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for best original song, and a grammy for best duet.

The main cast features 14 actors, including the likes of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.

Production: Took place in Lake Lure, North Carolina, and Mountain Lake, Virginia. Scenes in Lake Lure were filmed at the old Boys Camp, which is now a private, residential community known as Firefly Cove. These scenes included the interior dancing scenes.

The tight schedule allowed only two weeks for rehearsal and 44 days for filming, as it was already the tail end of summer. The cast stayed in the same hotel at Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, Virginia, and at the 1927 Lake Lure Inn & Spa in Lake Lure, N.C. Rehearsals quickly turned into disco parties involving nearly every cast member, even non-dancers such as Jack Weston.

Filming started on September 5, 1986 but was plagued by the weather, which ranged from pouring rain to sweltering heat. The outside temperature rose to 105 °F (41 °C), and with all the additional camera and lighting equipment needed for filming, the temperature inside could be as high as 120 °F (49 °C). According to choreographer Kenny Ortega, on one day 10 people passed out within 25 minutes of shooting. 

Delays in the shooting schedule pushed filming into the autumn, which required the set decorators to spray-paint the autumn leaves green. The uncooperative weather then took a different turn, plunging from oppressive heat to down near 40 °F (4 °C), causing frigid conditions for the famous swimming scene in October. The crew wore warm coats, gloves, and boots. Swayze and Grey stripped down to light summer clothing, to repeatedly dive into the cold water.Despite her character's enjoyment, Grey later described the water as "horrifically" cold, and she might not have gone into the lake, except that she was "young and hungry".

Director Ardolino encouraged the actors to improvise and often kept the cameras rolling, even if actors went "off script". One example of this was the scene where Grey was to stand in front of Swayze with her back to him and put her arm up behind his head while he trailed his fingers down her arm (similar to the pose seen in the movie poster). Though it was written as a serious and tender moment, Grey was exhausted, found the move ticklish, and could not stop giggling each time Swayze tried it, no matter how many takes Ardolino asked for. Swayze was impatient to finish the scene and found Grey's behavior annoying. However, the producers decided the scene worked as it was and put it into the film, complete with Grey's giggling and Swayze's annoyed expression. It became one of the most famous scenes in the movie, turning out, as choreographer Kenny Ortega put it, "as one of the most delicate and honest moments in the film."

Post- production:

The shooting wrapped on October 27, 1986, both on-time and on-budget. No one on the team, however, liked the rough cut that was put together, and Vestron executives were convinced the film was going to be a flop. 39% of people who viewed the film did not realise abortion was the subplot. 

Further disputes arose over whether a corporate sponsor could be found to promote the film. Marketers of the Clearasil acne product liked the film, seeing it as a vehicle to reach a teen target audience. 

However, when they learned the film contained an abortion scene, they asked for that part of the plot to be cut. As Bergstein refused, the Clearasil promotion was dropped. Consequently, Vestron promoted the film themselves and set the premiere on August 16, 1987.

 The Vestron executives had planned to release the film in theatres for a weekend, and then send it to home video, since Vestron had been in the video distribution business before film production. 

Considering how many people disliked the film at that point, producer Gottlieb's recollection of her feelings at the time was, "I would have only been grateful, if when it was released, people didn't yell at me."

Critics response:

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 70% based on reviews from 61 critics and a rating average of 6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Like its winsome characters, Dirty Dancing uses impressive choreography and the power of song to surmount a series of formidable obstacles.

Metacritic another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

 Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

For the film's opening, The New York Times published a review titled "Dirty Dancing Rocks to an Innocent Beat". The Times reviewer called the film "a metaphor for America in the summer of 1963 – orderly, prosperous, bursting with good intentions, a sort of Yiddish-inflected Camelot.

While Roger Ebert gave it "Thumbs Down" due to its "idiot plot",calling it a "tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds."

Abortion rights advocates have called the film the "gold standard" for cinematic portrayals of abortion, which author Yannis Tzioumakis described as offering a "compassionate depiction of abortion in which the woman seeking an abortion was not demonised with the primary concerns being her health and preserving her capacity to bear children at a future time rather than the ethical dilemma that might or might not inform her decision, a portrayal that is not necessarily available in current films.

The film drew adult audiences instead of the expected teens, with viewers rating the film highly. Many filmgoers, after seeing the film once, went back into the theatre to watch it a second time. 

Word-of-mouth promotion took the film to the number one position in the United States, and in 10 days it had broken the $10 million mark. By November, it was also achieving international fame. Within seven months of release, it had brought in $63 million in the US and boosted attendance in dance classes across America. It was one of the highest-grossing films of 1987, earning $170 million worldwide.

DVD:

The film's popularity continued to grow after its initial release. It was the number one video rental of 1988 and became the first film to sell a million copies on video. When the film was re-released in 1997, ten years after its original release, videos were still selling at the rate of over 40,000 per month. As of 2005, it was selling a million DVDs per year, with over ten million copies sold as of 2007.

An April 2008 article in Britain's Daily Mail listed Dirty Dancing as number one on a list of "most romantic movie quotes ever", for Baby's line: "I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you."

Awards: