The Day After Tomorrow vs. Flood

'The Day After Tomorrow' is about when global warming strikes by triggering a new ice age, tornadoes and floods run through major cities of America. The Northern Hemisphere freezes over leaving people to be left vulnerable to such extreme temperatures that if caught in the 'eye of the storm' would be frozen on the spot, therefore left for dead. As a leading climatologist 'Jack Hall' pushes through this disaster to try and save his son. This movie was produced by 20th Century Fox along with other producers like Lions Gate. With a budget of a massive $125,000,000.

'Flood' is about when a raging storm hits the UK, but more focused the affect on London. It overwhelms the Thames Barrier therefore flooding the whole of London creating a natural disaster never seen before. Its down to the barrier engineers to save millions of Londoners from such a devastating event. It is no longer a question of if london will flood, but when. This Movie was produced by Independent companies like Power, A Muse Productions, Flood Productions and Muse Entertainment Enterprises. This movie is seen as a 'low budget american disaster movie'.

These movies are similar due to genre of action/ disaster and thriller. I picked these movies because there is a clear comparison between these movies considering the stories are similar yet they have differences like location etc. Flood is an independent film which is also a british movie, which is not unseen before as the 'Big 6' are located in Hollywood, USA.

The Actors/Actress' and characters usually vary depending on institutional factors of a movie. In Hollywood movies character are usually based by the Protagonist and Antagonist, this is good because it makes the audience easily understand which character is the likable one and which is the one that is disliked. In 'The Day After Tomorrow' the protagonist is 'Jack Hall' (the climatologist, but in this movie there is no antagonist, but instead the problem, in this case being the Ice age storm. Also in Hollywood movies we see the characters to be brave and heroic, unlike independent movies where the characters are usually normal everyday life people. For example Jack Hall is a heroic characters as he travels through the storm to save his son. Also the actors and actress' will vary depending on the institution, for example in 'The Day After Tomorrow' well known actors like Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal are part of the movie as main characters, whereas in 'Flood' actors/ actress' like Rob Carlyle Jessalyn Gilsig are involved, who are only known by a british audience due to there part in british films.

In 'Flood' there are many times of sounds, from dialogue to music. But in 'Flood' as it has a smaller budget it cannot include as much music and sound effects as a hollywood movies therefore more dialogue is used instead, but this is not a bad thing because in some cases more dialogue can further the narrative of the film. For example in 'Flood' the movie focuses on the main characters lives before getting into the action of the flood, this is done by dialogue, in this movie the story line is focusing on the bad relationship between the father and son, which later on in the story is resolved. Unlike 'The Day After Tomorrow' where the story line is focusing on the strong relationship between father and son and how they will get through the storm as survivors. But where 'The Day After Tomorrow' is superior in comparison to 'Flood' is where the movie contains more suspenseful and dramatic sounds compared to 'Flood'. As producers of 'Flood' have to be more aware of copyright it is reflected by the fact that they have no soundtracks throughout the movie.

In both movies camera work was used well, but you can tell which one is the hollywood movie and which is independent. This is through different ways like the variety of shots used during one scene, the frequency of tracks and pans, and the use of expensive shots like Crane shots which require more expensive equipment on site to film with. In 'The Day After Tomorrow' you can notice that there is more coverage of a location, this means that the focus of the scene would be filmed from many different angles to show different perspectives of the scene, whereas in 'Flood' you can see that there is coverage but less than a typical hollywood movie.

Editing is a huge aesthetic factor in both these movies. This is because both movies use visual effects in this movie to create the sense of realism about the natural disaster, in 'The Day After Tomorrow' they use editing and visual effects to freeze over the whole Liberty statue, which would cost a lot which is a reason why this movie was made by 20th Century Fox. Along with this, 'The Day After Tomorrow' has other visual effects including tornadoes and other aspects of a major storm. The image beside is an example of one of 'The Day After Tomorrow' effects.

'Flood' uses a lot of visual effects in their movie but we can notice that it is not as frequent as 'The Day After Tomorrow' because of institutional factors such as budgeting. In 'Flood' there is an effect of a major tourist attraction: The London Eye being swallowed by raging barrages of water which have come from the storm and through the Thames. Here is an example of the effect to show how it would seem realistic towards an audience.

Other editing includes transitions e.g. Cuts, fades and dissolves etc. Hollywood movies have frequent cuts and usually do not have a frame that lasts longer than a few seconds depending on dialogue, if there is long dialogue than the camera will usually move to a different location to increase coverage and keep the viewer interested so they don't get bored of the same frame for a long period of time. 'The Day After Tomorrow' cuts frequently and uses different frames to make sure the audience don't get bored. 'Flood' does this but it lower frequency as cuts and more coverage are expensive which cannot be budgeted by a independent production company.

Mise-en-scene focuses on everything within the frame apart from the characters. This can include locations, props and costumes. The locations of these movies are important as they relate to the narrative of the film. Also the independent production company that is based outside of hollywood and in England decided to do so as they could not afford to make a film in the USA, therefore this was made as a british film. Whereas 'The Day After Tomorrow' is set in Los Angeles and New York are major cities in America, which would cost a lot more to film in. 'The Day After Tomorrow' films in more locations compared to 'Flood', for example New York, Los Angeles, the library in New York and even on a Boat. Whereas 'Flood' films in locations within the known areas of London and inside the Thames Barrier etc.

Both movies are differently styled, British films and American Hollywood films are very different types of movies yet they both work well. There are basic differences between them, for example in British Films like there aren't superheroes or extreme characters, there are basic normal characters with normal flaws. 'Flood' shows this as we learn that the main male and female characters are divorced but eventually realize that there is still love in their relationship, and get back together. We can see this happening in a real life situation.

From all these comparisons we can tell that Independent movies will not be as popular as Hollywood films due to the lack of resources, the main resource being money which can be budgeted towards the production of the film. But an independent film can also have some advantages over hollywood movies, for example they appeal more to a certain audience therefore the certain type of audience will enjoy the movie a lot and another type wont, but compared to a hollywood movies audience which is usually aiming to be a wide range of audiences therefore it will not be appreciated by all types of audiences but instead more from some and less from the other. By from this, Hollywood films would still make more movies because they gain more viewers as they target the wider range of audiences, also because these production companies can afford to have a larger range of exhibition locations, e.g. Vue, Cineworld and Odeon.

These are all reasons why Hollywood Movies are more Successful that Independent Films.