1. Film Industry Research Task
Monsters (2010)

2. Production- people
• The main actors were
Scoot McNairy and
Whitney Able who were
both fairly unknown at
the time of shooting.
• They are both American
and had had small parts
in big films such as Herbie
Fully Loaded (2005) but
this was their first major
film together as a couple.
• Monsters was directed
and written by Gareth
Edwards who did most of
the main jobs such as
cinematography and
visual effects all from one
computer.

4. Production- technology
• Monsters did not use top of the range equipment
as it just didn’t have the budget. Everything was
filmed on prosumer cameras to capture digital
video instead of more expensive 35mm film.
• Gareth Edwards edited over 100 hours worth of
film on his laptop, using common Adobe software
called Zbrush and Autodesk 3DS Max.
• The film was produced by Vertigo Films.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8JpdND--g8

6. Production- location
• The film was shot in several locations such as Belize,
Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Texas in the US. There
were no sets actually built for this film and all extras
throughout were people who happened to be in the right
place at the right time. The crew only included seven
people, allowing swift movement from location to location.
• The budget on average was around $500,000. However,
only $15,000 of this was spent on equipment.
• A sequel is currently in production called Monsters: Dark
Continent which Gareth Edwards and Scoot McNairy will
return as executive producers.

7. Distribution
•
•
In the UK, this film was distributed
by Vertigo films whereas in the USA,
it was distributed by Magnet
Releasing.
The film was ever released or
advertised widely in the UK, but in
other countries, it was released
theatrically and advertised mainly
on the fact the director did all of the
visual effects and was new to the
scene.
• The film has it’s own official
website seen here:
http://www.monstersfilm.com/
and has its own Facebook
page. There are also many
more versions of the site in
many different languages.

9. Distribution- viewing
• The negative format
that this film was
released in was Digital
Video (HDTV) but it’s
main format was 35mm
(anamorphic) DCinema.
• How can you watch this
film?
• You can rent the film quite
easily, when typing the
movie title into the search
bar a link to ‘LoveFilm’
came up. You can order it
on DVD, at the time in
Cinema it was at limited
screens but still had a large
audience, It occasionally
plays on TV on channels
such as ‘Film4’.

10. Distribution- DVD
• On the DVD and BluRay of Monsters (2010) these are the
special features:
• Audio Commentary with Gareth Edwards, Scoot McNairy, and
Whitney Able
• Deleted and Extended Scenes
• Behind the Scenes of Monsters
• Monsters: The Edit
• Visual Effects
• Interview with Gareth Edwards
• Interview with Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able
• New York Comic Con Discussion with Gareth Edwards
• HDNet: A Look at Monsters
• Also From Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-ray

11. Distribution- download
• When I typed into Google ‘Monsters (2010)
download free’ many websites came up for it.
Showing that it can be downloaded or watched
illegally quite easily.
• For example:

14. Exhibition- theatrical release
• Monsters did not receive a huge amount of theatrical releases but
took part in many international film festivals, such as: Los Angeles,
Rio de Janeiro, Athens, Berlin and others in which they were quite
successful.
• They had Limited screenings in the USA (Mongolia Pictures) and
Canada (DFilms) on the 29th October and 5th November and a
theatrical release in Russia (Volgafilm) on the 30th September.
• In the weeks leading up to the UK release date on the 3rd
December 2010 Vue Entertainment and Cineworld Cinemas set up
'infected locations' which gave users access to exclusive Monsters
content and the chance to win random on-the-spot prizes. Around
Europe they mainly had releases of the film and in some countries
went straight to DVD (i.e. Sweden) and Finland had a Blu-ray
premier.

15. Exhibition- box office takings
• Overall in the theatrical release period the UK the film took in
a total of £1,891,268. From the 5th- 19th December.
• Total worldwide Box office takings were $1,516,764 in the
USA, if we convert that into pounds and plus the UK takings it
is £2,816,575.47.
• For the Film’s Opening weekend: $20,505 in the USA on the
opening weekend of 31st October 2010 in only three screens.
• In 164 Screens in the UK they got a total of £348,577 on the
opening weekend of the 5th December.