Warp Records

Warp Records was founded by Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell in 1989 in Sheffield who had original experience working at a record store. They produce music for Drum and Bass, Electronic, Indie Rock, IDM and Hip Hop.

Artists on their label are:

Born Ruffians

Alexander's Annexe

Chris Clarke

Jamie Lidell

Maximo Park and many more!

The first release was by Forgemasters which was financed by an enterprise allowance and distributed in a foreign car. Their follow up was Nightmare on 'Waxes Dextrous' which sold over 30 000 copies even though there was limited promotion.

In 1992 they where called Artificial Intelligence and released singles by Aphex Twin and B12. Since then the label has evolved and in 1999 released a remix compilation spanning 6 discs featuring Acid house and Techno which helped influence the label and artists.

Then in 2000 the company moved to London to expand their buisness.

In 2004 the launched an online store known as bleep which avoids all digital rights management features in downloadable tracks. They also now have a music video compilation known as Warpvision.

Warp has now been going for 20 years

What is the balance of realism and drama in particular soaps?

In most soap there is a general 50% balance of realism and drama. Writers will try to make soap as realistic as possible so the audience can engage with the events that are occurring but an element of drama is also included to keep an audience engaged with the events and make the soap more enticing to watch.

Hollyoaks tries to tackle realistic problems that concern young teenagers for example the couple Newt and Lauren. There was a story where they where debating whether or not to have sex and showed Newt trying to make up excuses as he was worried about it but was too scared to tell Lauren this. For their age group of 15-18 year olds this is a common issue, which occurs, and therefore teenagers can relate to Newts character and compare his issues to their own. However a slightly un realistic love story of Hollyoaks is Nancy, Chris and Ravvy. Nancy and Ravvy where originally together but he’s gone behind Nancy’s back and seeing Chris who is Bi-sexual who is also seeing Nancy. They’ve now found out about what is happening and are scheduling when they can see each other. This love triangle is more un-realistic to regular life and shows Hollyoak’s making the story line into a drama. Soaps will often do something like this to regain the interest within the soap and it’s clear that Hollyoaks is losing some their viewers and are trying to spice up their storyline.

Another soap, which mixes realism and drama, is Eastenders. A recent episode showed the Trumans sitting round the table eating pancakes. This episode was aired on Pancake day so it gave the impression that the viewers where watching a live family, as it wasn’t just the Trumans on pancake day it was also showing the mum coming in stressed after work wanting a drink and the daughter trying to cheer everyone up by cooking. This episode also showed the daughter out on a date and pulling techniques, which men try to use on woman. Eastenders will often show these sorts of episodes before or after a dramatic event is about to happen. If they where to show this type of viewing every day then the attention of the audience would be lost as viewers rely on drama to make their lives appear easier to handle than the ones they are watching. Therefore the audience can see an storyline progressing in the character the daughter has gone on a date with as he asks a lot about the background of Patrick an elderly man she lives with. He’s very impersonal about what he asks and is insisting on seeing him. It is clear that a plot twist is about to occur from this. For example in past stories of Kat shouting and Zoe in the street that she was her mother. A dramatic event realised after a long period of storyline.

It is this contrast of realism and drama which makes the events that the audience relate to appear more dramatic than their own and therefore feel that their life is easier to handle and the problems which they are dealing with can now be resolved easily as they are able to gain ideas relate to experiences of characters.

Discuss the issues raised by media ownership within the industry you have studied

Discuss the issues raised by media ownership within the industry you have studied

Five major distributors dominate Media ownership of the Film Industry within the UK. They are United International Pictures, Warner Bros, Buena Vista, 20th Century Fox and Sony. These distribution companies have an alliance with larger Hollywood production companies. They help give funding towards the films, which are being distributed in the UK and allow the film to be exhibited in box office cinemas such as Vue and Odeon.
These main exhibitors will often prioritise the Hollywood films over UK due to their larger audience and higher budget. This means more of the UK produced films have to go to independent exhibitors such as Cinema City.
Working Title is a UK based film company who originally began independent. The began mainly targeting an art house audience but due to their alliance with Universal Studios, are now making mainstream films such as Burn After Reading which is considered to be an American film, this is showing how they are having to diverse into mainstream to appeal to a wider target audience. This is so that they appeal to the major exhibitors who prefer the high quality films. Their earlier works such as My Beautiful Laundrette wouldn’t be able to make it to the major exhibitors and would go straight to independent companies such as Cinema City due to the lack of budget and the audience the major exhibitors are trying to appeal to.
This highlights how the dominance of the media ownership of American based film companies and how some people are arguing that it is corrupting the traditional British quality found within a UK film such as Four Weddings and a Funeral as Working Title now need The Americans to help back their films making it seem as though they are dominating the UK Film Industry. This is known as Horizontal Integration where a company is being merged with a firm in the same industry. This helps the film company to sell their media product to numerous markets.
Working Title is keep with their British roots by starting Working Title 2 which focuses on Art-house production. In doing this they are trying to open up the UK film industry by only producing independent British films such as Billy Elliot, which tackles the controversial history of Britain.

The way Hollywood films are distributed is a method called ‘blanket release.’ This means that it is more likely for an independent film to be able to make it to the larger exhibitors but would have to compete with the major box office releases. This creates problems for independent distributors, as it is harder for them to make a profit when up against the bigger releases and therefore is less likely to succeed. The new technologies being used by the larger Hollywood produced films is also having a large effect on independent companies as they will already be at a disadvantage when up against the bigger releases before their film has been released. One of these new technologies is being able to produce more prints of the film, which allow the major companies to distribute their film to more exhibitors. This means that their film can be viewed in box office and independent cinemas allowing the major studios to be able to afford to take the risk of spending the money for the extra prints, which the independent companies cannot. The UK film council is trying to improve the situation of non-mainstream films by making audiences aware of where the films can be screened by developing an audience development scheme. This goes by the strategy that, ‘The more choice audiences have, the more likely they are to choose a non-mainstream film,’ they work to constantly improve the effects that the American industry has on the UK by developing new strategies and ideas to try and make the non-mainstream films more appealing. One of their methods is addressing the Digital Screen Network by allowing cinemas to receive the financial support they require a providing digital facilities to enable independent companies to distribute their films to more exhibitors.

A major factor today which is having an effect on the film industry is piracy. Due to un-authorised re-production and distribution of films, it is having an effect on the overall profit the films are producing meaning the distributors are not getting enough funding. Piracy is now easily available to anyone with access to the internet and means films can be downloaded within 24 hours of the film’s release. This is due to the internet becoming more developed because of the advanced software known as Broadband. Before Broadband films were still being bought illegally as ‘bootleg’ copies but now with the internet the film industry is falling as piracy’s getting bigger.
However the film industry is trying to solve this problem by embracing the new technology. The company ‘Love Film’ offers a subscription download service of films which allow the customer to download a film which they can have for a week at a low cost. This targets the main audience who would be downloading illegally which is young people and students due to them being more likely to have a low income.
There are several companies which are also beginning to offer this service such as I-tunes which originally began as music Download Company.
It is independent companies which have the worst effect from piracy as they don’t have as much distribution funding as the mainstream films to begin with therefore rely heavily on the public paying to go see their films.
The Film Industry know that legal downloads won’t combat the problem of Piracy due to the cost involved but it will hopefully decrease the amount of illegal downloads which are happening, which will keep the film industry alive.

Today the Film Industry is changing due to new alliances with different firms and audiences decreasing. However the Film is still heavily popular amongst everyone and even in the credit crunch is making a profit. Therefore even though film is different to how it used to be and may be considered to British companies an easy way to make money, the companies are trying to not let this effect the films being made and are using the new ownership required for their films to their advantage.