Exam Question: B2 Industry & Audience {June 2014}

B2: How important are high production values to your three main texts? {30}

Within the film industry, high uses of production such as soundtracks performed by well-known artists and a wide range of different locations can make films valuable and stand out against others. They can also have an impact on the turn-out of box office by creating figures in their millions. This is what I am going to discuss with my three media texts; Skyfall (2012) directed by Sam Mendes, Kingsman (2014) directed by Matthew Vaughn and Weekend (2011) directed by Andrew Haigh.

In terms of soundtracks, Skyfall has its' own soundtrack album named 'Skyfall: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' which was released three days after the film itself (29th October 2012). It peaked at number 36 on the UK Albums chart and features the single 'Skyfall' performed by Adele and produced by Paul Epworth. The single itself gained its own success as Adele and Paul were awarded an Oscar in 2013. The release date for the single differs for the album as it was released on October 5th 2012 also known as 'Global James Bond Day'.  Adele, who has won over five grammy awards and brit awards brought the single success as it earned the number two spot on the UK Singles Chart. The fact that Skyfall has a large budget of $200,000,000, they have the capability to hire individuals such as Thomas Newman (writer of the soundtrack album) and well-known artists such as Adele. In terms of budget, this is similar with Kingsman even though their budget is $81,000,000, their soundtrack (which was released on February 9th 2015) and features such as Ellie Goulding, Iggy Azalea and Rudimental. Similar to Skyfall, they have the capabilities to reach out to artists to use their songs within their film and also expand their audiences as fans of Rudimental and Ellie may be interested in the film. This differs from Weekend  

In my opinion, soundtracks have boosted the recognition of Skyfall because it has introduced fans of Adele to potentially watch Skyfall and become fans of the James Bond franchise. I believe Paul Epworth also had an impact on the success of the film and soundtrack album as he has had previous success with other soundtrack albums for well known movies such as 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' (2010) which was nominated for a grammy and 'The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud' (2010). Additonally for Kingsman, the success of Iggy Azalea being on the 'Furious 7' (2015) soundtrack and performing 'Go Hard or Go Home' alongside Wiz Khalifa has had an positive outcome on Kingsman and the song itself 'Heavy Crown'. I believe that as 'Go Hard or Go Home' has earned over 95 million views on youtube, composer of the Kingsman soundtrack Henry Jackson thought that having Iggy Azalea can replicate similar figures, it reached the number 37 spot on the US Billboard Charts.





Need to finish.