Director Case Study: Ridley Scott

Early Life

Scott was born on 30 November 1937 and raised in South Shields. His father and older brother were in the Royal engineers and his younger brother, Tony, was also a Hollywood director. He studied at the Royal College of art. He then got into television and nearly directed the second series of Doctor Who but was replaced.

Early Work

In 1977 he produced his first movie The Duelists which had a budget of $900,000. It was relatively successful and won the award for best film at the Cannes Film Festival. However his next film Alien announced him on the Hollywood stage and was massively successful with a budget of $11 Million and Box Office revenue of up to $200,000,000. The film was most praised for its "Chestburster" scene which shocked the actors as well as the audience which is seen as one of the most memorable scenes in Film. The film is still seen as one of the best sci-fi horror films of all time and was revolutionary for the genre at the time.

Big Stage Movies

He then directed the film Blade Runner another sci-fi film featuring Harrison Ford in a futuristic world. However due to the release of other sci-fi films at the time such as Star Trek and ET the film was relatively disappointing in box office revenue and seen as a failure. Bizarrely however, the film is now seen as a sic-fi classic and widely respected. In 1985 Scott then released the fantasy film Legend about knights, princesses and magic, filmed entirely in a studio and featured Tom Cruise as the protagonist. The film was a commercial failure again and again the film has now become a cult classic. However at the time, this, along with drama's Someone to Watch over me and Black Rain, caused Scott to lose a lot of his reputation and many critics said that Alien was merely a "Lucky Break" by a mediocre director. In 1991 he made Thelma and Louise which was one of Scott's biggest successes and a revival of his reputation, it also got him his first nomination for The Best Director academy award.

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2000's

This was a successful period for Ridley Scott where he directed films such as Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, Matchstick Men, American Gangster and Body of Lies. However his big film of that decade was Gladiator which won 5 academy awards including a nomination for best director, It grossed over $400 million worldwide and is seen as a modern classic. The film also helped introduce Russell Crowe onto the Hollywood stage and he won an academy award for his performance. Lastly in 2010 he directed Robin Hood which made a $300 million return.

Style and Methods

Scott tends not to dwell on his takes and films his movie's swiftly. He also tends to make films very slow until the action which he has been building up to all film. His movies tend to show a conflict between father and son and a lot of them also involve the son witnessing the fathers death like Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood and Blade Runner. He also has consistency with the composers he uses, his most used being Hans Zimmer. Scott's style is related to my short film because I have a slow build up to the action.

Director Case Study: Peter Jackson

Early Life

Peter Jackson is a New Zealand director who is most famous for directing the revolutionary Lord of the Rings saga in 2001. He has won many awards for his work such as 3 Academy Awards for best director, best picture and best-adapted screenplay. Jackson was born on 31 October 1961 in Wellington and was raised at the nearby coastal town of Pukerua Bay. His parents - Joan, a factory worker and housewife, and William Jackson, a wages clerk - were both immigrants from England. He is married to screenwriter and composer Fran Walsh and has 2 children.

Early Work

Jackson started his directing career by shooting Black Comedy films throughout the 80s such as Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles which were more cult films operating on low budgets (With Bad Taste having a budget of $26,000), they were filmed in many locations around New Zealand and received funding from Japanese and European investors. In 1992 Jackson released Braindead which is seen as a landmark in splatter movies, due to its unconventional nature of keeping zombies in, instead of out.

Increasing popularity

Jackson broke through onto the Hollywood scene in 1994 with his original screenplay Heavenly Creatures which was based on a real life murder case in Christchurch in 1950. The film was well reviewed due to how well it handled the delicate subject matter, it was nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Jackson had established himself as a big budget director. He then signed a contract with the American distributer Mirimax. This allowed him to Direct his first big budget film in 1996, The Frighteners. This growth in popularity allowed Jackson to improve his special effects and props department WETA to expand and gain new uses such as WETA Digital. The Frighteners however was considered a commercial failure and this along with a fall out with the New Zealand Film Commission caused a rough patch in Jacksons career.

   

The Lord of the Rings

Jackson then went on to make the best films the world has ever seen, the masterpiece that is The Lord of the Rings Saga. Production started in 1999 and the films were released in 2001, 2002 and 2003 winning 11 Oscars and grossing nearly $3 Billion. Jackson was praised for his loyalty to the books, brilliant imagery creating Middle Earth, brilliant music by Howard Shore and fantastic acting from the cast. Lord of the Rings is now seen as a landmark in movie making and revolutionized cinema going for the future, a stroke of true genius.

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Inter years between Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

Universal Studios signed Peter Jackson for a second time to remake the 1933 classic King Kong—the film that inspired him to become a film director as a child. It was another cinema hit and grossed $550 million worldwide. Jackson completed an adaptation of Alice Sebold's bestseller, The Lovely Bones we he said was a nice relief from his usual grand epics, the film did well worldwide and Stanely Tucci's performance in it was nominated for an Academy Award.

Current Projects

In December 2011 Peter Jackson collaborated with directors Stephen Spielberg and Edgar Wright to create The Adventures of Tintin which is now turning into a major franchise and a sequel is set to come out in the next few years. The first film was a major success and made of $250 Million profit. He is also working on The Hobbit which is a trilogy epic returning to Middle Earth once again. The first two films have already made approximately $2 Billion and the finale is released in December 2014.

Style and Methods

Jackson is known to be an obsessive perfectionist when shooting his movies, sometimes spending whole days to shoot a single conversation. He does many different takes from a massive variety of angles to get the best options when editing. He also insists on filming most of his movies in his native New Zealand. One of his most common visual trademarks is shooting close-ups of actors with wide-angle lenses. Jackson also cameo's in nearly all his films and has even made cameos in other films such as Hot Fuzz.

Why does Peter Jackson Inspire Me?

Jackson inspires me because of his perfectionist attitude and makes sure that every aspect of his scenes are correct to the most minute detail, this can be seen in The Lord of the Rings where tiny details which he concentrated on made it such a massive success. He doesn't lack ambition and puts his heart into his work instead of being a Hollywood sell out who's only interested in making money.

Initial Ideas for Brief

After deciding to shoot a movie trailer I wrote up potential ideas for what type of trailer I would actually shoot in the mind map form.

Coursework Brief

A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

1. A poster for the film;
2. A radio trailer for the film;
3. A film magazine review page featuring the film.

I have chosen to do Ancillary tasks 1 and 3.