An A-Grade FM2 Answer (32/40 marks) Section B A production company often casts the same or similar actors in key

roles, and this contributes to the overall identity of the company over a period of time. How far have you found this to be the case in the films you have studied for this topic? The production company I have studied is Working Title. It was established in 1984 by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcliffe. Radcliffe left in 1991 and made way for Eric Fellner. Working Title is a British production company with American investors such as Universal. The three films I shall be discussing are Four Weddings and a Funeral made in 1994 by Mike Newell, Bridget Jones Diary made in 2001 by Sharon Maguire and Shaun of the Dead a WT2 production made in 2004 by Edgar Wright.
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I have found that in Working Title films they do like to work with the same actors and this has a tendency to make the production company predictable. Hugh Grant plays Charles in Four Weddings and his character started the formulaic structure that Working Title so eagerly follows now. He embodies everything about a British bachelor, with an awkward presence about him and yet with irresistible charm and dapper good looks that many viewers, English and American most likely associate with Brits. This sanitised view of the typical Englishman or woman has been echoes through many of Working Titles films. For example, when Charles is trying to tell Carrie (Andie MacDowell) that he loves her, there is still this reluctance and awkward manner of procrastinating that gets in the way. In Bridget Jones Diary Renee Zellweger plays Bridget and takes over as the cringeworthy, unlucky, lonely main character. Still searching for love, Bridgets character is again very similar in terms of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Zellweger very ably does a female version of what Hugh Grant started back in 1994. For example, Bridgets love interest is Mr Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who she meets at a family Christmas party and instead of selling herself to the man, with her good qualities, she says the wrong things. These

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scenarios are what Working Title has become so well known for; humorous embarrassment at the characters expense. Hugh Grant gives a case for Working Title not typecasting all the time. As Grant is seen in Bridget Jones as a sexist pig who is still very alluring to women, so perhaps Working Title arent a one track record after all. WT2, a smaller, independent branch of Working Title made Shaun of the Dead, creating a new genre that differed from our previous romantic comedies and introducing us to the rom-zom-com (romantic zombie comedy). Shaun, played by Simon Pegg, is a lonely male who cant seem to keep his girlfriend Liz, played by Kate Ashfield. He is trying to tell her that he loves her and show it through the movie, but whilst trying to stay alive. Shaun, like all of the other characters in Working Title film, is trying to sort his life out. For example he wakes up the morning after a heavy night of drinking and sees that he has made a list on his kitchen fridge to try to change his life. This symbolises what Working Title and many of their characters do; they set a target and achieve it in order to reach the typical, fairytale, happy ending. So, in all of the Working Title films that I have studied, each of them has had a similar lead character with the same attributes and characteristics and these reluctant underdogs try to become the hero within their own lives and get the unobtainable love interest. This gives the feel good factor that Working Title have indulged in since the company first started and gives a very enjoyable film experience. The production company has an identity of making typical, romantic comedies set in Britain and have been a pioneer of that genre in the British film industry.

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Good work. Accurate references to films with clear evidence of knowledge and confident understanding. Points of view developed.