Compare the Ways in Which ‘This Is England’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ Were Packaged, Marketed, Distributed and Exhibited in the UK

Packaging
The way a film is packaged is crucial in raising finance for the film and attracting an audience. ‘This is England’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ are two very different British films, therefore in order to create success they went about packaging their products in very different ways.
To begin with, the director of This Is England – Shane Meadows is heavily influenced by the ‘Kitchen Sink’ era of film with inspiration from directors such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. But he brings a fresh new take on this style of film with his own style of direction and writing. He directs films that are personal to him and that strongly present issues in society such as the Falklands War and the struggle of living within a working class society. Therefore his films are not ‘light-hearted’ films, they are heavily loaded with meaning and can be hard to watch in places.
Edgar Wright on the other hand has not just stuck with film direction, he has also done his fair share of TV Series’ including the comedy ‘Spaced’ starring Simon Pegg and another comedy with Simon Pegg called ‘Asylum’. It is clear already that he is a different director to Shane Meadows as his résumé is packed with comedy. He directs pieces with a much lighter, less complicated meaning and that are more for the viewers’ entertainment rather than to inform or educate.
Actors are chosen very carefully in the selection process of making any new film, and these two films have gone about selecting their actors for very specific reasons. This is England’s cast is completely unknown, Meadows chose this for a reason though, it brings fresh faces to the screen so that the audience will have no presumptions about them therefore these actors can be completely free in being their character. He also doesn’t want people to be attracted to this film because of the famous faces that are in it; he wants them to see it because of the storyline and nothing else. Meadows aims to make a great film with a point whether it will sell or not, not an average film that’s going to catch like wildfire for the wrong reasons so he isn’t going to use well known actors to capture an audience.
In contrast, Hot Fuzz is a much more commercial film, and as it aims to entertain it needs a cast that will be successful in keeping the audience amused. Simon Pegg is a solid choice for Edgar Wright as he has worked closely with him from the beginning of his career, also, they wrote the story for this film together so Simon Pegg knows every aspect of the film before even beginning to shoot, and he’s the best choice for making the film as smooth as possible. Pegg works regularly with a close circle of actors and in that circle is his co-star Nick Frost who he worked with in Shaun of the Dead and Spaced. The two actors are relatively well known and Shaun of the Dead was a big hit in the UK and brought the two a large fan base along with Edgar Wright who directed the film. Other actors in Hot Fuzz include Bill Bailey who is a well known comedian in the UK, Bill Nighy who has done many successful British comedies and has a large fan base and Martin Freeman who has established a name in comedy through the likes of ‘The Office’ and ‘Love Actually’ (where he starred alongside Bill Nighy). Promoting the combination of these well known comedic actors will attract a large audience without even knowing what the film is about already giving the film a better chance at success and raising finance.
‘This is England’ is produced completely by British production companies including Warp Films, Film4, Optimum Releasing and Screen Yorkshire. Whereas although ‘Hot Fuzz’ is mainly produced by British production companies including Working Title, Studio Canal and Big Talk Productions, it is also produced by the help of the massively successful USA based company Universal Pictures. Like the choice of actors, the production companies involved in the film can attract certain people, for instance This is England is a Warp Films production, which may attract film fanatics that follow Warp productions because they enjoy the style of film they produce. Hot Fuzz being produced by Universal Pictures may show an audience that the film is a good quality film as it can be compared and linked to other Universal Films including massive international successes such as Jaws, Back to the Future, American Pie and Bruce Almighty which will attract a large audience. It will also show potential financiers that if a company as big as Universal will invest in this film then it is more likely to be a success, to the input of Universal will make financiers more confident in being a part of the film.
As soundtracks tend to be released before the films themselves they are key in promoting the film and gaining an audience and giving them a feel of what the film is about. This is England is set in the 80’s during the Falklands war and Thatcher’s position as Prime Minister therefore one of the films main audiences is the people who were the characters age during this time period so it promotes the music they would have listened to at this time including ‘Tainted Love by Soft Cell’, ‘Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners’, and ’54 46 Was My Number by Toots and The Maytals’. These classic 80’s tunes would remind the middle aged audience of their youth and attract and capture their interest in the film. This is - like everything else in This is England – chosen especially to capture as strongly as possible the sound of the time in order to make the film as real as the 80’s was and to keep the quality of the 80’s effect as high as possible ultimately aiming at only a niche audience.
Again, with Hot Fuzz in order to attract as bigger audience as possible they have a range of songs from all era’s including 60’s band ‘The Kinks’ with ‘Village Green Preservation Society’ aiming at the older generation, 80’s glam-rock band ‘Sweet’ with Blockbuster, there’s new romantics band ‘Adam and The Ants with Goody Two Shoes’, these aim at the 30 - 40 year old (middle aged) audience, whereas to appeal to the younger audience there is music from the likes of The Fratellis and Supergrass. They also use intertextual references from soundtracks of other films including Point Break and Bad Boys II hinting that this film will appeal to the same audiences those two films appeal to and that this film has similarities to them.
Packaging is crucial in attracting the proper finance needed for a film and although these two films are very different they both managed to raise enough finance to create a successful film.

Marketing
Films need to be marketed in order to attract a distributor and of course an audience. One of the most commercial forms of marketing used is trailers on both TV, the internet and in cinema before the feature film. Hot Fuzz took this route, they released a trailer on YouTube which is extremely popular and known worldwide therefore anyone who follows Simon Pegg or Edgar Wright would find the trailer easily, a bonus to using YouTube is the advertising is absolutely free. The team also released teaser trailers on the TV and before similar films in cinemas. Within the adverts they heavily push the actors that star in the film as a selling point. They also link the film to previous films including Sean of the Dead and Supercop which will attract the same audience. The fast paced trailers are packed with quick action and quirky comedy clearly showing the genre of the film. Rogue Pictures (a distribution company) also posted the trailers on their website so that anybody who follows Rogue Pictures films will find the trailers. The trailers don’t promote the director, location or particularly the storyline; they focussed heavily on the actors and genre showing that they were confident in these grabbing a big audience.
Hot Fuzz also used posters on bus shelters and billboards to promote the film, the posters mimicked that of Bad Boys II which is a strong influence to the film.
Hot Fuzz is a working title film, therefore it makes sense that the first place to look is on the Working Title website to find out how this film was promoted. Surprisingly there isn't anything on there that shows how it was promoted, although there is a clip of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost at the 'MCM Expo' comic convention promoting the film in London some time before the film was released. They mingled with fans that had seen the trailer and talked about the movie, gave away free merchandise including t-shirts, they did a signing and a Q&A session. There is also 12 video blogs of the actors on set which creates a teaser for the audience leading up to the film release. It also has an interactive website with a link saying 'Join the Fuzz' which when clicked on leads to another website with challenges that give prizes like badges.
This Is England on the other hand, didn’t use mainstream marketing like Hot Fuzz did. Due to the director not having a majorly successful film under his belt like Wright did with Seaun of the Dead, and had a completely unknown cast, and was owned by a relatively small production company, Warp Films along with the film not being released in cinemas there was no need to advertise it in cinema. Instead the film was premiered at various film festivals including London Film Festival, Bradford International Film Festival and the Rome Festival where it grew in reputation as it picked up awards. Once it had won awards including the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 2007 British Academy Film Awards, the Best Film category at the 2006 British Independent Film Awards, and the Most Promising Newcomer award it promoted the film for these awards using them as a selling point, they also use the director, Shane Meadows as a selling point on theatrical posters. Also, due to the film rights being owned by Channel 4 the trailers were only shown on Channel 4 and Film 4 for the TV premiere of the film which was to be aired on Film 4. This attracted approximately 1m viewers, which is the second best numbers a film 4 premiere has ever had. The trailers focussed on using the director, the awards won, the storyline and the strong 80’s skinhead beliefs and relationships as a selling point for the film which proven by ratings was an effective choice to focus on.
The only marketing that both films did the same was having their own interactive websites where people could listen to the music, find out about the actors and their characters, the production companies etc. Although they both had interactive websites they used them to promote different aspects such as This Is England’s website being more based upon showing the viewer about the background to the movie, the directors influences and the music whereas Hot Fuzz’s had interactive games and quizzes making it more about having fun and less about informing.

Distribution and Exhibition
Hot Fuzz was appealing enough to have 11 different distribution companies including Rogue Pictures and Universal Pictures distribute the film in 17 different countries ranging from the USA to Singapore. It was theatrically released in 15 of these countries and released on DVD in 8. This shows how many companies were confident enough in the film to distribute it across the world which shows that this film has the potential to appeal to a very vast audience. This Is England on the other hand, was distributed by 9 companies including IFC Films and Optimum Releasing, this is almost as many distributors as Hot Fuzz but they didn’t distribute to half as many countries, the film was only released theatrically in a total of 7 countries of which it was only followed up with a DVD release in 5. This shows that even though a wide range of distribution companies were confident in the films success they were not as confident in releasing it across the world, this shows that This Is England has a much smaller potential audience than Hot Fuzz, but for a Warp Production it is the most successful film to date which shows that being loyal to the story and not making the film solely for ratings and box office results can make a film successful.