Working Title Synthesis

Working Title is a British film production company. It was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radycliffe
in 1983. At the time, it was originally an independent production company similar to the other
British production company ‘Warp films’. They released their first film ‘My beautiful laundrette’ in
1986, in which they probably gained most of their funding from government grants, tax schemes
or/and tax shelters. This film received around £650,000 budget, but Working Title weren’t the only
production company involved. It then made around $2,500,000 of gross profit, but not all of that
would have gone to Working Title, but the fact that they were involved with other production
companies such as MGM, will have made them more recognisable and respected by those involved
in the film industry.

1992 was a big year for Working Title, as Sarah Radycliffe left the company and was replaced
by Eric Fellner. As well as this, Polygram became Working Title’s corporate backer, as part of this
relationship Polygram provided funding for Working Title and helped them progress into a better
established production company, and in return, Working Title made films for Polygram Filmed
Entertainment.

Working Title made a big brake through in 1994 when they produced the film ‘Four
Weddings and a Funeral.’ The film received a budget of £3,500,000, which was very high for Working
Title, as they were only a small production company at the time; therefore this shows the
advantages of working with other companies, conglomerates and sharing investments. Another
advantage of sharing investments into a film is that if one company has to drop out from producing a
film, then the film can continue to be developed. A disadvantage of shared investments is that the
profit has to be shared out and everyone has to consider the ideas and proposals of everyone
involved in the production process. The gross profit made from ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ was
around $52 million. This was a huge profit and due to this Working Title then had a lot more money
to invest in future films, and due to it being so successful, a much larger audience want to go see
Working Title productions. After this film was made, Working Title focused a lot more on the
romantic comedy genre, and is now famous for making romantic comedies with all-star casts, such
as Notting Hill and Love Actually.

Then, in 1999, PolyGram merged with MCA Music Entertainment to form Universal Music
Group. This then became part of Universal Studios who are now the parent company of the
conglomerate between Universal studios and Working Title. This was a huge advantage for Working
Title as it meant they could have much higher budgets for their films and involve major Hollywood
actors. This could make the films more appealing to the target audiences. ‘Notting Hill’ is a perfect
example of this. It was made in 1999, following the merge between Universal and Working Title. The
film had a budget of over $42 million; however a third of this went on securing the leading actress,
Julia Roberts. This was a good investment, because if less well known actors and actresses were used
then the film wouldn’t have encouraged as much audience interest. The film went on to make a
profit of over $116 million, whereas if the budget was lower, then Working Title wouldn’t have been
able to secure A-list actors like: Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and therefore wouldn’t have made
such a high profit.
 Bevan and Fellner then introduced Working Title 2, an independent sister company of
Working Title, who were introduced so that a different type of filming could be used for their films,
because they obviously still wanted the creative and artistic types of films that they made prior to
their join with Universal Studios. Working Title 2 have produced well known films such as Billy Elliot;
Shaun of the Dead and the Calcium kid, and have made a reasonable profit from these.

During the following ten years, Working Title went through phases where they focused on
making films for specific genres. For example, a lot of Working Title’s recent films are adaptations of
novels, from both pre-1900’s and from more recent films, such as ‘Pride and Prejudice,’
‘Atonement,’ ‘High fidelity’ and ‘About a Boy.’ Another example is Working Title’s most recent films,
which, since 2006, have started to fall under the genre action. Hot Fuzz, Smokin’ Aces 1 and 2, and
Green Zone, can all be classed as action films. As Working Title making a large variety of films, this
suggests that they are trying to target a larger range of audiences. They have made films for both
male and female, old and young. This is known as a ‘Four Quadrant’ audience, as they do not
specifically target 1 genre, but a range of genres, to get larger audiences in general. The large variety
of films created by Working Title also means that they can target all 6 categories of audience. These
categories are: A (doctors, businessmen etc); B (teachers etc); C1 (office supervisors, nurses etc); C2
(skilled workers, tradesmen etc); D (semi skilled and un-skilled workers) and E (unemployed people).
By targeting such a large range of audiences by creating films of many different genres, Working Title
attract more and a wider range of audiences and therefore create more profit for future
investments.

In 2010, Working Title made large progress in the film industry. The release of ‘Nanny
McPhee and the Big Bang’ was a giant step for the production company. This was important because
it was the first Working Title film to be released in 3D. Although released as 3D film, the movie was
not actually filmed with 3D cameras to get the effect but instead just added the effect in as a post-
production enhancement. Although this is the case, this step was important to Working Title as they
are starting to create more 3D films in the future, and this will lead to filming with 3D cameras to get
a larger audience.

Also in this year, Working Title released the film Green Zone. A film based in the Iraq war in
2003. Due to the film being based on a real life situation, it can plant an idea into the audiences
mind. This is known as the ‘Hypodermic needle theory;’ a theory which suggests that a message can
be sent from the film into the viewers mind, and in some cases, causes a panic amongst the
audience. An example of this is the film 2012, in which the audience believed what happened in the
film would happen in the year 2012. Green Zone is based in the Iraq war, and therefore plants an
idea into the audiences mind relevant to what’s happening in Iraq at this moment. This film received
a budget of around $100,000,000. This shows how much Working Title has progressed since their
break through with 4 weddings and a funeral. They can afford to invest more than 10 times the
budget of ‘4 Weddings’ now into their new films, because of the large profits that they make from
their previous films.

Since Working Title started as a production company is 1983, they have made massive
progression in the films they make, the audiences they attract, and the investments they can afford
to pay. We can see this if we compare ‘Green Zone’, one of their most recent films to ‘4 Weddings
and a funeral.’ There is a huge gulf in the size of the budget that the two films received. Green Zone
has a much larger budget than 4 weddings and a funeral and shows that Working Title are constantly
getting bigger, and developing into a worldwide company. They have relied majorly on the
conglomerate between them and Universal over the years, as this is where a large proportion of
their money comes from. The help of Universal has resulted in better financing for films, and has
resulted in larger profits for both the films and Working Title, helping them to develop into a bigger
company. The progress in 3D technology is further evidence to show that Working Title are
progressing as a company, and the fact that they are continuing to make films in 3D suggests that it
was a success. Putting everything together suggests that being part of the conglomerate with
Universal is a major advantage for Working Title, and will help them develop into a major production
company in the future.