Research into Warp, Universal and Working Title

6 Facts About Warp

• This is England is Warps most successful film to date.


• Warp Films works with the directors: Shane Meadows, Chris Cunningham, Richard Ayoade, David Slade and Lynne Ramsay.


• Warp Films has won numerous plaudits and awards since setting up in 2002.


• Releases: My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117 (Dir: Chris Morris - 2003)
  Dead Man's Shoes (Dir: Shane Meadows - 2004)
  Rubber Johnny (Dir: Chris Cunningham - 2005)
  Scummy Man (Arctic Monkeys short film/music video)
  This Is England (Dir: Shane Meadows - 2006)
  Dog Altogether (Dir: Paddy Considine - 2007)


• Warp Films is an independent film production company which aims to mirror the ethos of its partner music label Warp Records.


• Warp Films aims to create fresh and innovative feature length and short films to be viewed by a wide audience.

6 Facts About Universal

• It was one of the major distributors of the british films Hot Fuzz and Atonement.


• It's a mainstream American company.
• Over the years, Universal has made deals to distribute and/or co-finance films with various small companies, such as Imagine Entertainment, Amblin Entertainment, Morgan Creek Productions, Working Title Films (and DreamWorks), StudioCanal, Shady Acres Entertainment, Marc Platt Productions, and Beacon Communications LLC.
• It was founded in 1912 and since then has grown to become one of the six worldwide major american film studios.
• Since 2007 Universal Pictures has distributed all of Working Titles productions.
• They own 67% of Working Title.

6 Facts About Working Title

• Working title has produced British hit films including Bridget Jones' Diray, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually and Hot Fuzz.
• Working Title was founded in 1984 by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe.
• It's one of the largest British production companies and is based in London.
• It has a filmography of 109 films .
• Working Title has a second company WT2 (Working Title 2) which is a low-budget production company. This has producted films including Billy Elliot and Shaun of the Dead.
• Working Title began as an independant company but looked for financial backing after struggling to find sources of finance for each film. In a quote from a Guardian interview, Mark Bevan said "Before that we had been independent producers, but it was very hand to mouth. We would develop a script, that would take about 5% of our time; we'd find a director, that'd take about 5% of the time and then we'd spend 90% of the time trying to juggle together deals from different sources to finance those films. The films were suffering because there was no real structure and, speaking for myself, my company was always virtually bankrupt."

(A good site for finding out about Working Titles history: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/ )