Production Research

I am looking at films on which to model ours in terms of production. I am beginning by looking at Film4 Production's production list to find films similar to our one i.e. low budget, British, gritty, thrilling. Film4 don't appear to made a lot of thrillers but have made many dramas so I will look at those as well.

One of the thrillers that Film4 have made is Dead Man's Shoes, a psychological thriller starring Paddy Considine and directed by Shane Meadows (who went on to direct This is England). It had a very small budget - £723,000 and was all shot in England. Although it seems a bit darker than our film and is rated an 18, it seems similar to to our film in some ways and thus I think Film4 could be a good company to produce our film.

Film4 also made the drama This is England which had a medium budget of £1,500,000. It was all filmed in England, although not in London where our film will be filmed. It did well in the box office, grossing $8,176,544.

Clearly Film4 specialise in films that are low-mid budget and are not averse to thrillers. I think they would do a good job with our film if they were to produce it and that they would be a strong choice if we were to look for a production company.



BBC Films produce and co-produce around 7 or 8 films a year. Previous projects include Eastern Promises (2007), a British thriller about the secrets surrounding a Russian mob family, and Brighton Rock (2010), another British thriller about small-town gang violence. And more recently, We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011), a psychological thriller based on the novel by Lionel Shriver, and The Awakening (2011), a World War I thriller depicting a woman who is haunted by a child ghost.


BBC Films aims to showcase the best of British talent and British independant films. They commit themselves to finding and developing new talent. I think they would be a good company to produce our thriller, as we are still fairly new to the process and they could help bring publicity to our film as they already so well established in the production industry. Their films also tend to be low to mid budgeted, and I believe our film falls comfortably into that bracket. Although they don't limit themselves to thrillers, they seem to specialise in them, therefore they would have the capacity, resources, and expertise to produce our film, as it will be a thriller.



Film London are a film and television production company whose credits mainly include low budget British films such as Shifty. They have also been involved in the production of films such as My Week With Marylin, a popular Oscar contender, and Is Anybody There?, starring Michael Caine.


Aside from being involved in films as producers, Film London also offer resources to aspiring or independent film makers. They can offer application or permission forms for directors to film in certain parts of London and help independent film makers with advice on and what to film in London.


We would most likely aim for this production company as many of it's resources would most likely be of use to us. Half of our film is set on the Docklands Light Railway and the stations surrounding it, meaning that we would be able to use Film London to secure permission to film on it. Furthermore, some of the films it has produced seem to be of a similar budget and style to the one we are currently making, meaning it would be a useful production company for our film.


We have decided to use BBC Films as our production company, in partnership with Film London and another independent production company. This is because we feel like we would be in safe hands with BBC Films as they have a lot of experience with making the type of film we want to make. We think Film London would be a safe bet because they have helped many independent British Films in the past and we feel like our film could be successful with their help. An independent film company would be useful as they would know a lot about producing independent films and be experienced with it.