The Trailer.

Slumdog Statists and Research

Amazon gave the film 4 out of 5, by 385 customer reviews, 195 of those gave the film 5 stars.
One of their customers said 'It's fresh, it's magical and horrific.'

IMDB gave the film 8.4/10.

'Feel good film of the decade, 5 stars' News of the World

'An Exhilirating ride' The Independent

'Brilliant in many different ways' Daily Mail

Box Office

'The film was released in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009, and opened at #2 at the UK box office. The film reached #1 in its second weekend and set a UK box office record, as the film's takings increased by 47%. This is the "biggest ever increase for a UK saturation release," breaking "the record previously held by Billy Elliot's 13%." This record-breaking "ticket surge" in the second weekend came after Slumdog Millionaire won four Golden Globes and received eleven BAFTA nominations. The film grossed £6.1 million in its first eleven days of release in the UK. The takings increased by another 7% the following weekend, bringing the film's gross up to £10.24 million for its first seventeen days in the UK, and up to £14.2 million in its third week'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slumdog_Millionaire#Release_and_box_office_performance


Controversial Issues

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/24/oscars-india-slumdog-millionaire-ian-jack
http://orvillelloyddouglas.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/did-director-danny-boyle-exploit-the-child-actors-in-the-film-slumdog-millionaire/

Firstly: Some Indians are offended by to the term “slum dog”. Some Indians feel the movie is exploiting the poor.

Secondly: Many media forms worldwide have accused Danny Boyle as exploiting the young Indian actors in the movie. According to these news reports the parents of child actors Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail claim their children weren't compensated properly. After alligations and controversy over the child slum actors and actresses, Danny Boyle himself released a statement saying that 'the money earned from this film would be used for helping and reforming the life of various Slum children in Mumbai'

Production issues & British Film industry issues

Apart from all the success recently, Channel Four still has a few problems. Firstly, channel four will always have a problem with competing with the cinema space with multinational production/film companies. Secondly the film 'Charlotte Gray' - a film that channel four gambled £5.7 million (the most expensive film channel four has ever made) flopped dramatically. It is well known that this flop has made huge financial difficulties for film four, however the financial problems weren't the only problem left by it. In 'Slumdog Millionaire' the production team came across problems with the location of India, they were worried that the filming would disrupt the normal living situation, so they had to use hand-held cameras and spend more time editing to get the final product.

Slumdog Millionaire Marketing

The Poster

This was the main film poster for 'Slumdog Millionaire', it doesn't give away much of the plot, in fact the only information is given is the small question at the bottom of the image. The question is in the style of 'Who wants to be a millionaire' therefore people can relate to the poster and connect to their everyday lives. Moreover, this depicts the plot to the audience. The director is shown in bold letters, which will open up to appeal to another audience.

The colors of the poster are bright, loud colours, the writing in bold - 'feel good' - and the coloured paper falling over the actors, gives the imagery of a celebration and happiness - which juxtaposes the plot. However the celebration seen in the poster allows the

audience to understand the film isn't all serious and there may be a happy ending. Orange is known to be vibrant and full of energy, it has the calm cheerfulness of yellow and the aggression of red combined. The pink is obviously noted for it's connotation with romance (as it is a toned down passionate red, with the purity of white), however as it is a dull tone the connotation is changed and it is a description of a childhood, which is so important to the film. The background is completely white expressing purity, innocence and cleanliness, however it also keeps the image clear, and is used to keep the other objects and figures the most important.

The actress is portrayed in the arms of the male actor, and she is slightly turned towards him, showing her connection with him and maybe her dependence on him. The male (lead) is an English actor known for a television production (on channel four) of 'Skins' therefore the young population of United Kingdom will be able to relate to this actor and depicts another audience who will want to watch this film. Moreover, the way they're standing suggests a relationship, and the question at the bottom of the screen says 'Love' as an option; these suggestions conveys another genre of the film - Romance.

The layout of the poster is the main manipulation of how we see the film; the font and size of the film title are the biggest words shown on the poster. This draws attention to the film title, and the actors are shown first, for being the lead actors, and having the biggest roles in the film. They are young and hopeful - by the way they're standing looking up to the future, conveying a positive emotion on the audience, impacting the feeling of the film.

In contrast, Slumdog Millionaire released another poster. The impact is completely different. The layout is portrait, and the first thing to catch the eye is the 'Who Wants To Be a Millionaire' styled question, which gives an insight to the film itself. The main colour is Black symbolising the dark, grim emotion throughout the film, the complete opposite to the white-washed previous poster. Colours are still used, however the colours are much darker, instead of pale, bright colours, the shades are much deeper reflecting on a flamboyant yet contrasted unsettling story. Here, even the title of the film is filled with colour; starting with a deep red - symbolising pain and fear, and ending with the simple yellow - creating an almost pure and lighter tone. This can portray the themes of the story as well as the layout of it.

The actors are still used, symbolising their necessary roles within the film, however the lighting and facial expression are different. The man is almost just a silhouette and the emotion pouring out of the expression is fear and worry. Red blazes his skin, and this colour can even mean death/pain or romance. In watching this film it conveys both pain and romance, showing it is a fitting colour to portray the film. The woman is placed in the opposite direction, meaning that she has either lost him or running away. She is contrasted with the darkness - the lighting is bright, making her look angelic and pure.

www.desktoppub.about.com/cs/colorsection/p/orange.htm

British Film Production

Channel 4 Productions

Channel Four became popular in 1982, known for it's individual style of shows and cutting-edge programmes, even today it prides itself on going "somewhere we haven't seem British film go". Channel Four started to produce British films that appealed to a wide range of
audiences, it's first production was 'Walter' in 1982, which was directed by Stephen Frears. By 1984 Channel Four had co-produced over 20 feature films for the special slot 'Film
on Four' (now called Film Four). Channel Four films include 'Ghosts', 'Venus', 'Deep Water', and 'The Last King of Scotlan which won 35 awards including 1 Oscar. However, one of the most known films, channel four has co-produced, is in fact, Slumdog Millionaire; which one 8 Oscars and cost roughly £8.7 million. The institution has a couple of television channels and therefore can advertise their film productions on these channels without cost worries, moreover the television channels have websites which can also advertise films. These synergies will help distribution massively, there is even a programme on channel four which had chat show with a few members of the cast from the film 'Slumdog Millionaire' before it was shown. Things like this helps sell the production to it's audience.

Production of Slumdog Millionaire:

The original idea for Slumdog Millionaire first came about when the Head of Film and Drama at Channel Four read the proof of the book, which was called 'Q&A' by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. 'Slumdog' was produced by a British production called Celador Films as well as Film Four, and directed by Danny Boyle previously directed 'Trainspotting' and '28 Days Later'. However, Danny Boyle only read the script when realising the scriptwriter was Beaufoy - the writer of 'The Full Monty' and one of the Boyle's favourite British film directors (as well as being a popular director throughout the business).

Gail Stevens, was also brought onto the cast, as he is well-known of finding new talent, and therefore helped find the cast of this film. The cast wasn't well-known and the children were picked from real-life slums themselves, which set controversy across the world. The music was a mixed soundtrack of an indian culture music and popular music, an add to advertising the film was the dance done by the main characters at the end of the film titled 'Jai Ho' which added to the excitement of the film and is a way of remembering the film.

The genre of the film is a hybrid - romance, crime and drama, this makes the film appear to a range of people as it includes many ideas and convections that go with the genres and therefore, will influence people to see the film. Christian Colson, is the producer of the film; the producer deals with the ideas, finance and organisation of the product. Usually the producers have to be able to take risks and have a good charisma (because they have to deal with many people).