Assignment 2 - Old Films for New

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.

‘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.

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 21^st 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 and the Chocolate Factory. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367594/. Last 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.