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Representation of ethnicity

Representation of ethnicity

At the beginning of the clip, in the city office, the people are predominantly white Americans, showing that they are employed, and suggesting they are well-educated, a stereotype of white people. 
The next scene shows a white American woman trying to buy a car off a stranger and arranging to meet up with him to have a test drive of the car. Her actions make it seem as though she is very gullible, which is a less common stereotype for white people. 
After this scene, we see middle-class white Americans in a bedroom discussing baby names for their future child. This gives the impression that white people always have money and, on a whole, are organised people, which is a positive stereotype but is just that: a stereotype.  
The following scene is in a bar where friends of various ethnicities are testing each others knowledge. They are all clearly very intelligent and they act and dress in the same kind of way, not conforming to the stereotypes of their individual ethnicities e.g. the Indian woman is dressed in conventional 'white women's' clothes and all characters are working high ranking jobs, showing that their ethnicity does not mean they are unequal. 

Dredd Research Task

Dredd Research Task

  

Producer: The film was produced by Alex Garland and it was given the green light in 2008.

Distributor: Dredd was distributed by Lionsgate and Entertainment Film Distributors. 

Script writer: Alex Garland wrote the film's script. 

Budget: The budget was $45 million. 

Box office gross: The film made $36.5 million in the box office. 

Director and Actors: Karl Urban, Olivia Thurlby, Wood Harris and Lena Headey starred in Dredd, directed by Pete Travis.

Marketing: The website Dredd report was set up to promote the film and a motion poster was released, along with trailers and a tie-in comic. An exclusive movie poster was released at the Fantastic Fest . 

Critical reception: 
Rotten Tomatoes: 
"While not for the squeamish, Dredd 3D is an effectively gritty B movie accentuated by stylish visuals and irreverent humor" ~ Claudia Puig, USA Today. 

"Proves a surprisingly unimaginative cops vs. drug lord story, complete with the weathered veteran forced to take a rookie under his wing" ~Frank Lovece, Newsday.

Metacritic:
"Dredd, a second attempt at making Judge Dredd a movie star, overcorrects, veering in the opposite direction with a dark - literally and otherwise - nearly humorless bit of ultraviolence distinguished largely by a fondness for spurting CGI blood" ~ Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club.

"Dredd works because it's an action flick with wide appeal that takes risks it doesn't need to - in its delightfully off-putting violence and daring style - and those choices pay off in a singular and exhilarating movie experience. It's savage, beautiful and loads of fun" ~ Joel Arnold, NPR.

Reasons for lack of success: Despite its positive critical response, Dredd only earned $36 million at the box office. The reasons for this were due to the marketing, the 'remake factor', the lack of mainstream appeal, and the R rating. 

The marketing did not convey the film's concept of a Batman style 'dark future city' enough, which could have attracted a wider audience. Lionsgate did not invest enough into the prints and marketing to push the film hard enough and get it seen by the public. 

The remake factor left Dredd in the shadow of the 1995 Judge Dredd. The message that this film is not a remake was not clear, so it was left to audience's assumption. 

The lack of mainstream appeal highlighted that, in order to be successful, film adaptations of comics must appeal to more than just the fans of the comic.

The R rating limited the audience; while the comic's main audience consists of younger people (early teens), the film's rating meant it was not suitable for them, so a lot of potential viewers were lost. 

Awards: Dredd won the Empire award for best 3D, and the Golden Trailer award for Best Thriller TV Spot. 

Technology used: Dredd used a 3D camera and VFX was used to show the blood and gore when people are shot. The slo-mo 'look' was achieved by separating out the colours and objects in the scene, then taking them in different directions with hue and saturation . This was developed over a period of time.

Tie-ins: Tie-ins included a comic, the first frames of a motion comic, a soundtrack, and posters that are available for purchase.  

Personal opinion: In my opinion Dredd was not a particularly bad film, but there are a lot of things that could be improved. 
While I can appreciate that fans of the comic would enjoy the film and how it is true to the comics, I can see why other people would not like the film at all. 
The CGI in the film has been praised by many critics, but I found it to be too prominent. In scenes showing 'Mega City One', the use of CGI was blatant, which took my attention away from the focus of each scene.
Most of the acting in the film was good and Karl Urban's portrayal of Dredd was very accurate, but the script was very tongue-in-cheek. It was predictable, cheesy, and poorly-written, making it very annoying and made Dredd seem like no more than a B movie. 
When people weren't being blown to bits, the film was quite boring, simply because there was no atmosphere being created. Scenes where speech was the only sound were the most boring; the diegetic sounds you would expect to hear in the scene were not there and it did not seem to be selective sound as the lack of background noise did not create any effect at all.

Tony Stonem analysis

Tony Stonem analysis 

Tony is presented as a confident character; he exercises every morning and admires his appearance in the mirror. The audience would expect this from a teenage boy as teenagers are often associated with being 'full of themselves' or vain. 

He seems to be very intelligent, reading a 'challenging' book whilst on the toilet and outsmarting his own father on a daily basis. This is not what is expected of a teenage boy as the stereotype is often that teenagers are delinquents and incapable of outsmarting adults.

Tony's bedroom is minimalistic and tidy with everything in the correct place, this parallels his morning routine- very organised. Teenagers are stereotyped as being unorganized individuals, so Tony's traits are not what you would expect from someone his age. 

Tony's room is bright and the colour pallet consists of natural colours, which contrasts greatly with the stereotypes for the bedrooms of teenagers, which are normally depicted to look more like caves- dark and dingy. The colours and lighting used in presenting Tony's room have the connotation of being adult-like, suggesting he is a mature person. 

The walls of Tony's room feature the posters of serious films, again hinting that he is mature and he does not live up to the stereotype for teenage boys. The only real clue that suggests the room belongs to a teenager is the comical bedspread, showing a naked man and woman lying side by side. This represents how teenagers stereotypically have a love for anything humorous, and an interest in sex. 

Tony is shown pulling pranks on his dad, such as tricking his dad into thinking he's in the bathroom when he is really in the kitchen. This makes Tony seem mischievous, which is another conventional stereotype of teenagers. The planning Tony puts into each prank makes him seem very devious too, again, conforming to the teenage boy stereotype. 

An audience would expect a teenager's bed to be messy and for the duvet to to be crumpled when they wake up, however Tony's duvet is in the perfect place and isn't creased at all, which seems unnatural and gives the impression that he is a very level headed person.

When Tony finishes on the toilet, he washes his hands, then brushes his teeth, showing that he is a hygienic person, which is not typical of the stereotype, which is that teenagers are unhygienic.  

Tony's clothing is not what the audience would expect. Clothing stereotypes for teenage boys are mainly scruffy or indecent clothes, maybe jogging bottoms. Tony, however, wears smarter, more mature clothing- a plain shirt with a v-neck jumper and trousers that do not show his underwear. Along with his tidy haircut, Tony comes appears to be quite a presentable person.