Film Industry Research Task

Monsters (2010)

Production- people• Monsters was directed

and written by Gareth Edwards who did most of the main jobs such as cinematography and visual effects all from one computer.

• The main actors were Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able who were both fairly unknown at the time of shooting.

• They are both American and had had small parts in big films such as Herbie Fully Loaded (2005) but this was their first major film together as a couple.

Production- technology

• Monsters did not use top of the range equipment as it just didn’t have the budget. Everything was filmed on prosumer cameras to capture digital video instead of more expensive 35mm film.

• Gareth Edwards edited over 100 hours worth of film on his laptop, using common Adobe software called Zbrush and Autodesk 3DS Max.

• The film was produced by Vertigo Films.• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8JpdND--g8

Production- location• The film was shot in several locations such as Belize,

Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Texas in the US. There were no sets actually built for this film and all extras throughout were people who happened to be in the right place at the right time. The crew only included seven people, allowing swift movement from location to location.

• The budget on average was around $500,000. However, only $15,000 of this was spent on equipment.

• A sequel is currently in production called Monsters: Dark Continent which Gareth Edwards and Scoot McNairy will return as executive producers.

Distribution • In the UK, this film was distributed

by Vertigo films whereas in the USA, it was distributed by Magnet Releasing.

• The film was ever released or advertised widely in the UK, but in other countries, it was released theatrically and advertised mainly on the fact the director did all of the visual effects and was new to the scene.

• The film has it’s own official website seen here: http://www.monstersfilm.com/ and has its own Facebook page. There are also many more versions of the site in many different languages.

Distribution- viewing

• The negative format that this film was released in was Digital Video (HDTV) but it’s main format was 35mm (anamorphic) D-Cinema.

• How can you watch this film?

• You can rent the film quite easily, when typing the movie title into the search bar a link to ‘LoveFilm’ came up. You can order it on DVD, at the time in Cinema it was at limited screens but still had a large audience, It occasionally plays on TV on channels such as ‘Film4’.

Distribution- DVD• On the DVD and BluRay of Monsters (2010) these are the

special features: • Audio Commentary with Gareth Edwards, Scoot McNairy, and

Whitney Able • Deleted and Extended Scenes• Behind the Scenes of Monsters• Monsters: The Edit• Visual Effects • Interview with Gareth Edwards• Interview with Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able• New York Comic Con Discussion with Gareth Edwards• HDNet: A Look at Monsters• Also From Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-ray

Distribution- download

• When I typed into Google ‘Monsters (2010) download free’ many websites came up for it. Showing that it can be downloaded or watched illegally quite easily.

• For example:

Exhibition- theatrical release• Monsters did not receive a huge amount of theatrical releases but

took part in many international film festivals, such as: Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Athens, Berlin and others in which they were quite successful.

• They had Limited screenings in the USA (Mongolia Pictures) and Canada (DFilms) on the 29th October and 5th November and a theatrical release in Russia (Volgafilm) on the 30th September.

• In the weeks leading up to the UK release date on the 3rd December 2010 Vue Entertainment and Cineworld Cinemas set up 'infected locations' which gave users access to exclusive Monsters content and the chance to win random on-the-spot prizes. Around Europe they mainly had releases of the film and in some countries went straight to DVD (i.e. Sweden) and Finland had a Blu-ray premier.

Exhibition- box office takings

• Overall in the theatrical release period the UK the film took in a total of £1,891,268. From the 5th- 19th December.

• Total worldwide Box office takings were $1,516,764 in the USA, if we convert that into pounds and plus the UK takings it is £2,816,575.47.

• For the Film’s Opening weekend: $20,505 in the USA on the opening weekend of 31st October 2010 in only three screens.

• In 164 Screens in the UK they got a total of £348,577 on the opening weekend of the 5th December.