SSC Film Studies

Clerk and Wolf of Wall Street comparison essay There are many comparisons and differences between these two films; with one film being an independent film and the other being a mainstream film. The first real difference between the two is the budget sizes that they each have to work with. Independent films generally work with really low budgets in the tens of thousands or less; where as mainstream films can have budgets ranging from a million dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. This has it obvious effects, such as the cast and stars lining up, however this isn’t the same for the directors as some independent films are a chance for start up directors to showcase their skills or sometimes directors that specifically choose the independent cinema route. Other differences can include everything to do with the films creation; such as director, special effects, marketing etc. Clerks was set with a budget of 27,000 dollars in comparison to a budget of 100 million for WOWS. WOWS starred many huge stars including Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah hill were as clerks starred unknown actors. Star actors can effect whether people go and see a film, especially DiCaprio who has a huge fan base and a pulling power when he stars in a film. This in the long term results in more ticket sales. Another factor about both films was the marketing they used, with WOWS having more money in which they could use to market and make more people aware of the film, this has its obvious benefits, such that the film would have been in the public eye constantly throughout the build up to the films release therefore overall making people aware of it. Where as Clerks on the other hand barely marketed their film at all and mainly relied upon word of mouth to generate awareness. Word of mouth played a big part in both films as they were both successes at the box office initially which resulted in good press and word of mouth which resulted in the continued ticket sales and popularity of the films, A common occurrence with independent films is that it goes against the generic conventions, where as mainstream typically follows the same conventions in all films. Clerks seems to challenge the generic conventions and focuses more on characters and how they portray real life people, this relates to WOWS which is a mainstream however yet still follows the typical mainstream conventions. WOWS is seen as a biographical genre type as it is centred around one character which relates to clerks how it focuses on the characters more than specific conventions. A huge difference in the films was the how availability, with WOWS street being available in cinemas all over the world where as Clerks was never on in over a 100 screens at any one time. However still in terms of success in comparison to their initial budget Clerks was as a huge success as was WOTS too. This point highlights how Clerks was able to use little marketing yet still able to succeed. Another comparison to both films was the brilliance from both directors with Scorsese being extremely well known, which was another was pulling power to the public; and Kevin Smith being under the radar. Yet both had the chance to showcase their directing skills and end up with two both very successful films.