hard work

1. Kim Goldspink As Media Coursework
12 LEE Mrs Purser
Case Study: Avatar
Institutions
Name of thriller film: Avatar
Director: James Cameron, (Born August
16th 1954) is a Canadian film director,
screen writer, producer, editor and inventor.
His writing and directing work include:-
The Terminator (1984) & Terminator 2:
judgement day (1991), Aliens (1986),
Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009). The last
two are some of the highest grossing films
to date. James Cameron has also made
several feature films, he then turn his focus
to documentary filming and to help co-
develop digital 3D Fusion cinema system.
One of these films that contain the 3D
Fusion Cinema system is the film Avatar.
Production Company:
Or the making of Avatar there was 5 production companies.
• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
• Dune Entertainment
• Giant Studios
• Ingenious Film Partners
• Lightstorm Entertainment
Release date: Avatar was released on the 18th December 2009
Country of Making: Hamakua Coast, Hawaii, USA
Genre: Action, Thriller, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Additional Details: It has a running time of 162 minutes. It was made in the United
States. It had a budget of $237,000,000 and has made hefty $1,439,375,063 Gross revenue.
It was budgeted to cost about $150 million to market the film. It opened two days earlier
internationally and grossed $232 million worldwide in its first five days of
international release. Within the first 3 weeks of its release, with a worldwide gross of

2. Kim Goldspink As Media Coursework
12 LEE Mrs Purser
over $1 billion, Avatar became the second highest grossing film of all time
worldwide.
Awards: Nominated for 4 Golden Globes. 6 wins & 20 nominations. They won: 2 x
Best Cinematography (Mauro Fiore), 2 x Best Art Direction, (James Cameron
John Refoua, Stephen E. Rivkin), Best Production Design (Rick Carter, Robert
Stromberg) and Best Visual Effects
Audience
Intended Target Audience: I think Avatar has a fairly wide range compared to other
films as it has a lot of genres with it, and it think this is one of the reasons it is so
popular, as it isn’t just one genre of film, there is approx 5, this helps it to appeal to
more people.
I think that people between the ages of 15-29 would like the film as it is modern,
more exiting and thrilling, it would keep you on the edge of your see for the whole
duration of the film, to know what is going to happen next, and more also there is
‘video game’ feel to it because the main character is playing this person, you may feel
like you’re playing it too and as the ‘younger’ generation are playing a lot more
console games than the ‘older’ generation would play as the technology wasn’t as
developed as it is today.
Audience Reception:
As you can see at the
bottom of the graph that
Avatar was thoroughly
enjoyed by the audience as
is score an average of 8.9.
This is pretty impressive
for a newly released film.
From what I have said in
the Intended audience you
can see that:- Under 18’s
gave it a 9.0 out of 10 and
that 18-25 gave it 8.8 out o
10 which as you can see it
appeals to the younger
generation more, as i said
it this could be because of
the game likeness in the
film. However the 30-44
and 45+ did not give it a low score as it is still above 8.3 which is good because this
means that it has appeals to most ages and the audiences have enjoyed watching this
film.

3. Kim Goldspink As Media Coursework
12 LEE Mrs Purser
One person who enjoyed the film so much is Balazs Jedovszky from Hungry who
gave the film 10/10. Her review title was ‘Best movie experience of the last 30 years’
from just his title you can see that she has defiantly enjoyed the film. She then goes on
to say how the film that the tailor’s don’t give to much of the story away, it you get
the full impact of the movie and everything when you watch it “I am very happy that
the trailers didn't give the full story away”....... “Cameron was very smart keeping the
teasers as teasers, nothing more... as the full movie will take your breath away.”
However Avatar wasn’t everyone’s favourite movie of the last 30 years as
jerichocane-1 from Germany explains in their review. Their Review title was ‘It's a
Visual Spectacle’ Unfortunately Nothing More. Scoring Avatar and 1/10 shows they
didn’t enjoy it as much as others. But to begin with they say that “I enjoyed Avatar as
the visual spectacle it was” this shows that there was something although very little
they did enjoy something of the move but, this person then goes on saying “I don't
know what Cameron has been smoking while writing this screenplay, but it's easily
his worst-written movie yet.” Which this shows that they may have liked another film
of James Cameron’s but what really brought my attention was that they said. It like
the Cameron was stupid in what he was doing it; this could indicate that this person
may think that James Cameron’s writing could have gotten worse over the years.
Technology
Audience Reception New Technology has
improved audiences knowledge, because all they
have to do is type in the name of a film and it
would come up in something like ‘Wikipedia’ or
you could go on to a reliable movie review
website.
Before the date was set for Avatar to release for
cinema viewing the only posters about was a very
basic looking poster. As you can see it has no
detail in the background
and this makes you focus
on the face, just from
looking at this poster you
don’t know much about
the film apart from it looks
like it about blue
people/animals.
Closer to the time another poster was set about. From looking
at this poster you can see that there is a lot more detail in the
background, there is helicopter and big bird animals flying in
the sky together, are they friends, and work force. Also there is
a human man on the left and a blue man on the right you don’t

4. Kim Goldspink As Media Coursework
12 LEE Mrs Purser
know why this is, they could be best of friends, they could be enemies, you don’t
know until you give the poster a though studying, but it does give some knowledge to
the audience on what going/might happen in the film.
Audiences Access: It has become easier and easier for us to access films via the
cinema, renting a DVD or even buying one. This is because of the newer highly fast
technology which is forever getting better and better.
The cinema use to be cue to get your ticket to let you in to view the movie of which
was playing on a screen. But because of technology changing so much they have now
put touch screen ‘ticket booth’ were you select your ticket(s), slot your debit card in
and pay for it, and out comes your printed ticket. You also can book and do in
advance so you know you won’t miss a newly released movie you go online to the
required site, search for the movie, then pay by entering your card details online and
print off your ticket details to show the people at the cinema that you have them
tickets/ booked the seats.
Also renting a DVD has become easier in the last decade; you use to have to go to a
shop to pick a DVD pay to rent it and have it back by a certain time or you get
charged more. But now there are sites such as ‘Love Film’ where you can rent a DVD
and they send it to you, when your done you send it back, there is also no late fees for
this particular site. You can also buy DVDs off ‘Amazon’ for reasonable prices.
Code/Forms & Conventions of the thriller genre
Conventions: At the Beginning of the film, you don’t actually realise that the film
has begun as it goes straight into the story introduction. It is not until the end that the
title Avatar and the credits come up.
As you can see this is the title
that flies in at the end, it is in a
simple text font, it also looks
old, because if you look closely
at it, you can see that there are
little chunks missing from the text. This could represent the hostile situation
between the Na'vi-s and the marines, and this also connects to the typical thriller
genre, with hostile situations and guns, and war etc which make a thriller. Also
the Title is in capitals, this helps it stand out a lot and it makes a bold imprint
because it is big, bold and blue. The writing being blue could symbolise the blue
species in the film called the Na'vi-s, as they have a light blue colour skin which as
has glowing freckles and the glowing around the letters could represent this.

5. Kim Goldspink As Media Coursework
12 LEE Mrs Purser
Settings: Most of the film is set in a
jungle, which comes to life after the
sun has set. The beginning of the film
is set at a marine’s base; this represents
danger as the marines want to destroy the
Na’vi in search for a vital raw material found
under their home. In the marine’s base there
are different areas, the one with the game
booths being one of the main scenes that the
filming takes place.
The jungle set is very dense in
vegetation this symbolizes
danger at the start of the film for
the humans using the avatars as
they have to fight their way
through the jungle. Once the sun
has gone down the jungle lights up with bright colours
and noise, this shows that the jungle is a place of peace
and life. In the action scenes the jungle is destroyed by
the marines, this shows the audience that destruction
and disaster go hand in hand as one of the main Na’vi
gets killed.
Sound: The Digetic material in Avatar is scenes such as the jungle scene when the
main character is alone with a fire. He can hear creatures of the jungle; this creates a
tense atmosphere between the character and the audience. Another scene which has
Digetic material is when the Na’vi is being attacked by the marines. The characters
and the audience can hear the machines and soldiers approaching the Na’vi home. The
distant rumble of the machines means danger and destruction is approaching.
The non Digetic material in the film would be the music that is played when for
instance the main character is flying on one of the many creates that live in the jungle.
This changes the mood for the audience to match that of the character, when the main
character is flying the music changes to give a sense of freedom and awareness. It also
makes the sense of flying real.

6. Kim Goldspink As Media Coursework
12 LEE Mrs Purser
Representation
Representation of particular social groups: in avatar the representation to particular
social groups isn’t really present in this film as all the characters are equal in what
they do. All the characters play major roles in the film. From the pilot, to the main
character, each character has a vital role to play in the movie.
Cultures ideology: this film gives the message of peace in two different cultures, in
that there could be peace in the cultures if someone didn’t always want something for
nothing. In this film the marines want the expensive raw material that is situated under
the Na’vi’s home. This leads to war and destruction.
Use of stereotypes of subversion of stereotypes: in this film there is not a lot of
stereotyping because the film producers are not allowed to use it anymore, this is due
to people taking offence to something they may relate to. The only stereotype that I
can see in this film would be the man in charge of the marines. Normally the main
person in charge of the army is very tuff and aggressive. This movie uses that
stereotype to create an opinion for the character within the audience. This would lead
to the audience disliking this character.