Old Films for New
This report will focus on
production context and two films from two different decades. It will explore
the differences and similarities that the original and the re-make of that film
have in terms of their production context.
Production context involved the
social and economic aspects around a film. Under this come different factors
that can affect it such as trends, which will change time and audience’s
preference for something new and unique. This is also the reason why there are
often sequels and remakes to many films. Other things that will affect the
production context are the budget that is assigned to produce the film. This
will be a big factor is it will affect things such as the actors that will be
casted to play in the film, the props and equipment that will be used to
film. Who’s making the film in terms of
the director, production house and actors will also affect the production
context. Other things will include how big the production for the films are,
what are the effect of new technologies when comparing the original and the
remake. It will also include tax incentives, market tends, genres and cycles,
distribution and exhibition as well as the audience in terms of whether the
re-make already has an existing following from the original film.
A good example to portray how
production context has varied over time between two films is by exploring ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’
(1971) and its’ more recent remake ‘Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory’ (2005). The original film was directed by Mel
Stuart and produced by Wolper Ltd., which later became known as Warner Bros
Ltd. that produced the remake, ‘Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory’. Tim Burton directed the re-make of the film.
Although both are musical fantasy
films, they also differ a lot. One of the ways in which they differ is the plot
straying away from the original film in ‘Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory’. An arguably darker story is told through Willy
Wonka’s character and his relationship with his parents, in comparison with the
original, which seems to not focus on parental relationships with his son as
much.
Both films follow a similar plot.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
is set in a world where Willy Wonka who has had his factory closed down for several
years, announces that five lucky people who find a golden ticket in his
chocolate bars will be given the opportunity to see his factory and find all
about the secrets of his sweets, as well as the winner will get a lifetime
supply of the Wonka chocolate. Charlie, the protagonist of this film is given
the chance to visit and unlike the four other children comes from a relatively
poor background where buying even one chocolate bar is somewhat a luxury.
Before setting his foot into the
factory he is faced with a dilemma which Slugworth presents him with. He is a
known opponent of Wonka’s and wants to find out the secrets of Willy Wonka’s
sweets hence why he asks Charlie for help.
As the film progresses all of the
children, but one and that being Charlie get into some sort of trouble.
Augustos Gloop falls into the chocolate river and gets sucked up by one of the
many pipes.
After only Charlie is left, Willy
Wonka unexpectedly congratulates him for winning and announces that he can now
take over the chocolate factory instead of Willy Wonka. The film ends with
Charlie, his grandpa and Willy Wonka entering a glass elevator that then
explodes through the roof of the factory and crashes into Charlie’s house.
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‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, the remake of the 1971 film, follows a relatively similar plot, but elaborates on details like Willy Wonka’s character and the reasons for the way he acts. Here, Charlie is also the main Character and comes from a quite deprives background, so like in the original film his family can only afford to give him the Wonka chocolate bar, once a year on his birthday, which he the savour for several months. With money that he saves up he is able to buy another chocolate bar, which ends up having the golden ticket that then grants him access to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory for a tour. He is joined by four other winners those being, Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregard and Mike Teevee.
Similarly all the kids end up
getting in some sort of trouble, which then results in them being taken out of
the factory and consequently, for Charlie to win out of all the kids. This progresses in the same way as the
original film with Charlie winning the grand prise, the key to the factory;
however, he refuses to take them. If he were to accept the keys it would mean
that he wouldn’t have to lead an isolated lifestyle just like Willy Wonka and
that isn’t right for Charlie. The film doesn’t end there as Wonka realises that
Charlie is still the right person for the factory and allows him to bring all
of his family there where the film then ends.
There are several differences
between the original and the remake of the chocolate factory films. As
previously mentioned in the report, the remake places a greater emphasis on
Willy Wonka’s character development in the sense that the audience gets an
insight into the disfunctionality of his family as well as childhood. This is
represented through different scenes that are demonstrated throughout the film
such as Willy Wonka not being able to pronounce the word ‘parents’ as well as
flashbacks to when his dad didn’t let him eat sweets.
There are several factors that
affect the production context of both the original film and its remake. One of
these factors is the cultural background of the films. These actually make the
films relatively similar because they were both made for English speaking
audiences. However, there is also a difference since the original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ is
from the UK and the remake ‘Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory’ is from the US. The influence of Hollywood here is
really important, as it will impact on the production immensely. The fact that
the remake is produced in Hollywood will also mean that there is likely to be a
difference in the budget, production house and actors that appear in the film.
All of this ties into production context.
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The budget assigned to the films will have a great impact on the production context. Here, ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ had a budget of US $2.9 million and the remake had a whopping US $150 million. This could be down to who made both films as it is up to the production house and the director to be able to assign a budget that can be spent on each film. The original was produced by Wolper Ltd., which later became known as Warner Bros. Ltd. The company has grown over several decades hence why it would be only logical that they are able to invest a larger budget into a single film. The bigger budget, however also means that more and better props as well as sets can be used for film production.
From the pictures demonstrated
above, it clearly be seen that there has been a major makeover for the sets.
The picture on the left is the original film and appears to have duller
lighting as well as somewhat of lower quality props as they can clearly bee
seen as not fitting for the environment. The picture on the right which is of
the remake however, sets a much more harmonious scene for the whole film and
integrates all the details in a much better way.
The directors of both films also
play a big role in the production context. ‘Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ was produced by Mel Stuart who has worked
on several movies, but was not as known in the industry for specifically
focusing on films of the fantasy genre. Tim Burton on the other hand, who was
the director for the remake, is known worldwide for specific cinematic traits
in his movies as well as his focus on fantasy. He has directed films that
gained recognition and praise all over the world throughout the years, these
including ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990), ‘Corpse Bride’ (2005), ‘Alice and the
Wonderland’ (2010), which generated a worldwide gross of over US $1 billion.
The fact
that ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’
was directed by Tim Burton also had an effect on the cast for the film because
he is a well-respected director in the industry. The role of Willy Wonka went
to Burton’s long-time friend, Johnny Depp who has played several roles in his
films previous to this. Johnny Depp is known for being one of the most popular
actors in Hollywood as well as an actor that has starred in tens of worldwide
known movies. He has been praised for his acting on several occasions and even
won awards.
The
emergence of new technology can also have an effect on the film and its
production context. During the 1970’s when the original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ colour TV’s were only
starting to become a common domestic good unlike in the 21st century.
Also films like ‘Willy Wonka and the
Chocolate Factory’ were extremely uncommon only adding to the context. This
would mean that people would be eager to see the film as it is something new
and unprecedented hence why it would captivate a wide audience. In the 70s
there was no access to computer graphic that would enhance the aesthetics of a
film hence why when looking at previous pictures of the sets next to each other
it can be seen that there is a clear difference. When comparing the original to the remake, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ looks
much better thanks to the ever advancing technologies.
There are also
some factors that affect the relationship between the film and its production
context. These include financial determinants; funding bodies; quotas in terms
of whether there was any government imposed trade restriction that caused
limitation for the production of the film; tax incentives; technologies of
production such as the varying special effects, voice, sounds and maybe even
technologies such as 3D; distribution and exhibition relation to where the film
appeared such as on DVDs, cinemas, online streaming and more; market trends;
genres and cycles relating to the genres that were popular and liked or
disliked by the public; actors and stars and finally the audience and whether
the remake had a following from the original film.
This
illustrative report already addressed some of these aspects such as the
importance of stars as well as the financial determinants and different
funding. It has also discusses technologies of production to an extent. As far
as sources claim there were no tax incentives or quotas that could be found,
although it is safe to suggest that the fact that the remake ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ was
partially filmed in Germany meant that there were different laws than the main
place of production and filming and therefore the team might have been faced
with some difficulties and limitation.
At the time when ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’
was produced and released DVDs were not yet used as a way of distributing films
and this was a big difference to its remake ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ as it was distributed on DVDs as
well as the newer Blu-ray unlike its older film. Also, colour TVs were only
starting to emerge at the time when the original was produced meaning that this
also caused limitation to the distribution of the original film unlike the
remake.
Another aspect
of this that is very important to consider is the audience and their
preferences. In the 1970’s there was no a vast variety of films of different
genres due to the still somewhat negative outlook on some films and them being
‘inappropriate’. This meant that it was relatively hard to produce a film that
would catch a large audience as many were critical of film production. However,
because of the fact there were not many different genres it meant that anything
out of the ordinary would spark curiosity, like the original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.’
Compared to the original, the remake ‘Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory’ would be a film that had a much easier time
appealing to a wide audience due to a vast variety of genres that have already
been explored by the film and media industry. However, it also meant that it
had to have a unique point to it because otherwise the film was likely to
receive a backlash from the audience for being somewhat cliché. Furthermore, it
can also be argued that because this was a remake it meant that it most
probably had a following from the original film, or at least the audience had
an awareness of the new film and that could have sparked curiosity and pushed
them to wanting to watch it. It is quite unlikely there was an actual dedicated
following because the two film were produced roughly 35 years apart from each
other meaning that even the youngest audiences who saw the original film had to
be over 35 years old at the point the remake was released. This however,
doesn’t mean that they weren’t interested in the film, it just suggests that
the target audience for both films is slightly younger than adults that are in
their 40s as both films are focused on stories about children and quite frankly
a perfect ‘candy land’.
Finally, this report
has illustrated how the production and the relationship between two films from
different decades compared and differed as well as were similar to an extent. The
different aspects of production context played a major role in how the two
films differed over time. The different factors like the cultural background,
the budget assigned, who made the film, the size of the production of the film
and the available technologies at the time all played a big part in providing
understanding as to how and why the two films were different, although both
followed a very similar plot as evident from the synopsis given for both films.
There were also factors that affected the actual relationship between the films
and their production context there were discussed earlier thus again
demonstrating the similarities and differences between the films ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’
and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Unknown. (2005). Charlie
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accessed 3rd Feb 2016.
Unknown. (Unknown). Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Available:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067992/?ref_=nv_sr_1. Last accessed 3rd Feb 2016.
Roald Dahl. (Unknown). Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory. Available:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/charlie/summary.html. Last accessed 3rd Feb 2016.
Jacob
Wood. (2014). Production Context. Available:
https://prezi.com/8647hiad_wg8/production-context/. Last accessed 5th Jan 2017.
Pete
Turner. (2012). The Relationship between Production Contexts and Films:
Hollywood vs. Britain Part 1. Available:
http://ilovethatfilm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-relationship-between-production.html.
Last accessed 5th Jan 2017.
