1. AND THE KINGS SPEECH

2. According to the House of Commons Culture,
Cultural definition
Media and Sport committee -2003 a ‘British • The British Council runs ‘britfilms.com’ which
film’ is : contains its directory of British films. The council
A film with reference to obvious cultural elements regards a British film as on where the film had a
such as: a setting in the UK or focus on British minimum of three of the following six criteria:
people abroad; a predominantly British cast; a 1 . A British producer
storyline about some aspect of British life, or 2. A British production team
based on a work by, a British author. 3. A British Director
• Recent examples of this are –Billy Elliott and 4. A predominantly British cast
Bend it Like Beckham
5. A subject matter that informs the British experience
6. A British identity as defined by the bfi in the release
review in sight and sound

3. Statutory definition - 1. THE MAKER TEST
According to the House of commons Culture, • The MakerTest is where the film must
Media and Sport Committee – 2oo3
be made by a company that is
• There are two ways that a film may qualify
registered and centrally managed and
as ‘British’ – either under Schedule 1 to the
controlled in the UK, in another state
Films Act 1985, examples include the Bond
and Harry Potter films, or by satisfying the of the European Union/European
terms of an international co-production Economic Area or in a country with
agreement to which the UK is a party. Under the European Community has signed
the films Act, for a film to be certified as an Association Agreement.
‘British’ a number of tests must be met.

4. 2. THE PRODUCTION 3. THE LABOUR COST TEST
COST TEST
1. 70% of the total cost must have been
paid to citizens or ordinary residents of
the Commonwealth, EU/EEA or a
• 70% of the production costs
country with which the European
of the film must be spent on Community has signed an agreement
film-making activity in the 2. 75% of the total labour cost – after
deducting the necessary – must have been
UK paid to citizens or ordinary residents of the
Commonwealth, EU/EEA or a country with
with a signed agreement

5. 4. PREVIOUSLY FILMED
MATERIAL
• No more than 10% of the
playing time of the film should
comprise a sequence of visual
images from a previously
certified film or from a film by a
different maker.

6. The King’s Speech
• ‘The Kings Speech’ is the story of King George VI of Britain,
his impromptu ascension to the throne and the speech
therapist who helped the unsure monarch become worthy of
it.
• It has done really well with 12 nominations for this year’s
Oscars, and 14 nominations for the Baftas 2011 and 7
Golden Globe nominations with a win for best performance.

7. The King’s Speech
• Production year: 2010
• Runtime: 118 minutes
• Directors: Tom Hooper
• Writer: David Seidler
• Release Date: 7 January 2011
• Production Companies: Weinstein Company, UK Film Council,
Momentum Pictures, Aegis Film Fund, Molinare Investment, Film Nation
Entertainment , See-Saw Films, Bedlem Productions
• Stars: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter

8. UK Box Office
• Even distributor Momentum Pictures wildest expectations were exceeded with a
£3.52m opening weekend, including modest previews of £227,000.
• Grossing over £40,000 at London's Chelsea cinema, and breaking house records
at the capital's Curzon Renoir and Richmond!!
• The top six sites were all in London, led by Odeon Leicester Square (£106,000),
Vue Westfield (£51,000) and Vue Islington (£45,000). Top regional site was Odeon
Guildford, with £28,000.

9. The King’s Speech
Reviews
• The film was a major achievement , with Colin Firth presenting us with a great profile in
courage, a portrait of the recurrent figure, the stammerer as a hero.
• This is a film of small, precise, perfectly judged moments: while the historical backdrop could
easily have made for epic overstatement and hand-wringing melodrama, Seidler and
Hooper’s decision to focus their attention on the characters and on their relationships and
insecurities, makes ‘The King’s Speech’ feel intimate and wholly convincing.
• For all its period trappings and occasionally heavy-handed Freudian psychodrama, ‘The
King’s Speech’ always comes back to the unlikely friendship between two superbly
sketched, immaculately played characters.

10. Criticisms on The
King’s Speech
• It perpetrates a gross falsification of history.
• I found this movie to be formulaic in the worst way. There's no
deviating from your typical biopic machinations, and you can
probably figure out what's going to happen after the first 20 minutes
• It just felt like an over acted, staged, Oscar Hungry play, not a movie

11. Production
• The $15m project shot on a tight schedule of
39 days in and around London at the end of
2009. One tough obstacle.
• Canning says, was the “mind-bending”
scheduling of the cast: Firth was doing
awards promotions for A Single Man, while
Helena Bonham Carter, playing his wife
Elizabeth, could only shoot on weekends
since she was making Harry Potter And The
Deathly Hallows.

12. Production
• Amy Merry, who worked on the production • The stands were filled with an inflatable
design. "When we were shooting exteriors crowd. According to Amy Merry, these
we threw dirty water over everything. We blow-up people – actually only blow-up
filmed in Harley Street on a Sunday so we upper bodies – are much more convincing
closed the road in the early hours and a than CGI
gritting van came along at 5am and • Despite the royal settings, The King's
covered the ground with dirt. Then we Speech is a remarkably brown film. The
pumped out so much smog that we set off palaces are intimidatingly, rather than
the fire alarms in John Lewis." comfortably, luxurious. The production
design plays into the sense of Firth's
character struggling to be a king, which,
for him, means struggling to be himself.

13. Finance
• The Weinstein Co has received • The UK Film Council awarded The
most of the PR bonanza for King’s Speech £1,021,080 of Lottery
funding. The UK Film Council stands
backing Oscar-touted The to recoup 100% of its investment plus
King’s Speech. But it’s really a significant net profits
British film financing
• London’s Prescience Film Finance
company aptly
stepped in to provide two-thirds of the
named Prescience that first film’s £9 million ($14.5 million) budget
recognized the film’s potential. using its £25 million Aegis Film Fund.

14. Extra Facts
• Errors in geography: In the • The script had to be posted
Wembley Stadium scene we through Geoffrey Rush’s letter -
see the famous twin towers on box
the far side of the field. But
• The script had to be posted
they were actually on the same
through Geoffrey Rush’s letter -
side as the royal box, and in
box
the 1920s there was just open
• The script began as a stage
terracing on that far side.
performance

15. Bibliography
• http://film-english.com/2011/02/19/the-kings-speech-lesson-plan/
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504320/
• http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/01/churchill_did
nt_say_that.html
• http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-kings-speech
• http://www.screendaily.com/home/awards/the-kings-speech/5022661.article
• http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/the-uk-financier-behind-the-kings-speech/
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/02/the-kings-speech-period-sets
• http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/89059/the-kings-speech.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/09/kings-speech-philip-french-review