Ill Manors Film Research

1) Research all the Institutions involved in the production of Ill Manors. List them with a summary of what their contribution to the film was.

Ill Manors was filmed in Forest Gate. This film has been directed and written by Plan B, distributed by Revolver Entertainment.
Ill Manors was funded by three studios the Film London Microwave, BBC Films, and Aimimage, the film Ill Manors took three years prior to filming, it is based upon actual events and stories that Plan B had heard growing up and living in an estate.
As imaginable, it had been a struggle to arrange the finance for this movie, however he was eventually able to raise enough funding, and started the film producing in 2009.The production is producer by Atif Ghani, cinematography by Gary Shaw, and editors for the film by David Freeman, Hugh Williams, Sortira Kyriacou, and Farah Drabu. The man characters of the film were Riz Ahmed, who played the character Aaron, seen as the main characer. Ed Skrein, played as Ed. Keith Coggins, Lee Allen, Nick Sagar, Ryan De La Cruz, Anouska Mond and Nathalie Press. All these characters had played a core role in the film, their goal was to survive in their own way and find an escape.

2) How much did Ill Manors cost to produce (its budget)?

Ill Manors had a budget of £100,000 (estimated), and the film had ended up raising massive profits due to its popularity, leading to making £453,570 in the UK box office.

3) How was Ill Manors funded?

Ben Drew/Plan B had gone on tour as an attempt to raise sufficient funds to just get the project started, although his first tour - . called "The Defamation of Strickland Banks Tour" was to get out of the £40k debt he was in, him doing other concerts which helped fund the film.

4) What is the target audience for Ill Manors?

The certificate of Ill Manors is 18, therefore the film would have swearing, violence, sexual content. The audience is obvious as it would be aimed a young adults (18-34). The film focuses on eight main characters who have problems in life, living in a rough estate however the audience targeted would relate to the characters as the characters are young adults too (dominant). It appeals to those who are from the socio demogrpahic group of E-C2, as they may be able to relate to these situations (people from E-D), and some will want to learn about these situations - to see tings from other perspectives, this will appeal to those who want to learn more - i.e. those who are reformers in the uses and gratification model.

5) Who is the main distributor of Ill Manors?

The main distributor of Ill Manors is by Revolver Entertainment. In order to raise funds for Ben Drew's film, the distribution rights to Ill Manors were sold to Revolver Entertainment in April 2011. Revolver Entertainment is located in both London and LA. 

6) How was Ill Manors promoted using the broadcast platform?

Online news such as The Guardian's website had unveiled the first Ill Manors trailer on 3rd May 2012, followed by Empire Magazine's website on 8th May 2012, which unveiled the first Ill Manors film poster. Furthermore Digital Spy also promoted Drew's film by two other film posters on the 18th May and 7th June 2012. The premiere of Ill Manors was on the 30th May 2012 in London and wide released to 190 cinemas in the UK and Republic of Ireland.  Ben Drews TED x Talk, was also strategically chosen as it took place on the 10th May 2012, exactly 20 days prior to the premiere of the movie, in order to raise awareness about his values and attract a larger and different (more educated) audience to watch his movie, as he had already targeted deprived/urban areas which were less posh by posters. 

7) Compare this with a big budget blockbuster. What are the main similarities and differences?

‘Skyfall’ is a big budget blockbuster to compare ‘Ill Manors’ which is a low budget film.
‘Skyfall’ is the twenty-third James Bond film to be very successful and known worldwide, alongside theme songs by famous artists such as Adele, Alicia Keys and many more, whereas the music in Ill Manors is featured by the director - Plan B himself.
The film is an action packed adventure film with a budget of $150 - $200 million which raised in the Box office to $951,323,067, on the other hand, British film, ‘Ill Manors’ had a budget of £100,00 which raised to £453,570, in the Box office, both the budget and profit were much less.
The similarities between ‘Skyfall’ and ‘Ill manors’ are that they both contain violence and some of the same props such as a gun, both films connotes danger and realism however ‘Ill Manors’ is a film that highlights lives of individuals who have been brought up in dangerous neglected areas during childhood. Both films create enigma codes which engage the audience and make them think what is going to happen next as they are curious and want to find out.
‘Ill Manors’ was produced with a low budget funding as it was an project by Ben Drew who is a music artist therefore companies didn't want to fund him, as they thought the film would not be successful however ‘Skyfall’ has a big budget due to the mise en scene, as companies know that a Bond film will be successful they funded a lot of money to the film to be very attractive to the audience therefore they would watch it.

The characters featured in ‘Skyfall’ are popular, known actors well known to the industry, the audience are aware of these characters as they have see them before in other blockbusters, the actors maybe educated in the film line and some will play a role completely different to their original character.  However ‘Ill Manors’ have new and natural characters who are new to the film industry giving them an opportunity to show their skills of acting, some of these characters that are younger are chose from a deprived environment as Ben thought that these young people will be more likely to relate to the movie, as they are originally from the environment that is shown in the movie, therefore the audience don’t know these characters very well and would not be aware of the film as much as ‘Skyfall’.

In addition, locations and sets costing excessive amounts of money must have been used for this spectacular SkyFall Movie, whereas Ill Manors was mainly shot in real locations - so what the location was shown as in the movie, was really what it was!

Lastly ‘Ill Manors’ have strong content of drug use, strong swearing, street language and sexual scenes on the other hand in ‘Skyfall’, (although it includes violence) is action packed with car crashes etc.

8) How does the trailer for Ill Manors hook audiences into the narrative and pose questions that the film will answer (Barthes: enigma codes)? Identify 3 ways/techniques. Use your notes on the trailer to help.

Ill Manors hooks the audience attention into the narrative and pose questions that the film will answer is because the Ill Manors trailer uses many techniques to keep the audience assumed and to create enigma codes for them to watch it. The trailer strongly portrays lives of young youths living in council estate whose lives are hard due to living and growing up around violence and drugs. This film relates to normal people lives which connects to the audience making them realise and feel sympathy for young youths also it creates realism of the daily events that happen. Ill Manors trailer uses effective non-diegetic and diegetic music to engage the audience the voice over of Ben Drew (Plan B) is very effective as he explains the narrative of the story by rapping the words, Drew is an artist known for his rapping therefore the audience will be aware it is him and he is promoting the film by his soundtrack, furthermore it lets the audience know that Drew’s life also reflects to him and the film as he was growing up. The rapping of Plan B relates to a much younger audience as they would listen to grime music therefore the target audience I think are teenagers and adults. The text used in the trailer attracts the audience’s attention as it is hard bold, stands out which suggests it is the main focus therefore we would read it. The text also explains the narrative of the film alongside with Plan B’s lyrics, the non-diegetic music matches the fast past edits towards the end creating tension and enigma code to the audience as there are events from the film cut into quick edits into the trailer to make the audience also have an idea of the film would e about. Overall at the end of the trailer the release date was shown in a large white font with a black background to make the audience remember the date it would be coming out and to watch it.

9) Think about the certificate of Ill Manors (18 certificate). Research film certification and outline what is deemed acceptable for this certificate. What is the difference between a 15 certificate and an 18 certificate?

 15 Certificates will only allow the following : 

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking
  
  In an 15 rated movie, there may be occasional uses of the strongest terms (eg 'c***'), although continued or aggressive use will not normally be passed 15.
• 18 works are for adults and can contain strong issues such as: 
• very strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***') and/or very strong language (eg ‘c***’)
• strong portrayals of sexual activity
• scenes of sexual violence
• strong horror
• strong blood and gore
• real sex (in some circumstances)
• discriminatory language and behaviour

In ill manors, the movie has included strong violence for example constant scenes of the girls fighting in the estate, in addition, the f word as well as the c word, along with many other offensive terms had been used frequently, by all the characters at one stage or the other, there was scenes of sexual content, for example when Michelle was being sold by Ed and was shown having sex with shop keepers she had been sold to.