Film4, Warp Films and This Is England (2006)

Indie is short for independent. An indie company is any independent company that is not part of conglomerate. Independent companies often ( but not necessarily) work at the margins of a business, specializing in less mainstream products that cater for specialist interest of niche audiences.

One of the major differences between a multination, vertically integrated, cross media conglomerate such as Sony Pictures Entertainment who have international backing, and an independent production company is that indies generally make films that cater more specifically for niche audiences.

The lower budgets of British films often dictate that they may not have internationally recognisable stars and as the film is targeted to British audiences, the choice of locations (mise-en-scene) are British and narrative themes (racism, class difference, abuse) are more challenging and controversial. The historical and cultural references are also specifically British and rely on audiences historical knowledge of British history.

Film4 Productions is a British Film production company owned by Channel 4 Television. According to Channels 4's website, 'Film4 is both a production house and a channel with a respective purpose of producing and broadcasting alternative feature film'.

Channel 4's reasons for producing feature films is that it provides them with content to be screened on their various channels, initially the FilmFour digital TV channel and later on the parent channel or other digital channels such as More4. They can also gain revenue from releasing the film theatrically as well as from ancillary sales such as DVD and Blu-Ray

Warp Films is a film production company set up in 2002, which makes music videos for bands such as The Arctic Monkeys (Scummy Man) and short films such as Chris Cunningham's Rubber johnny (2005). Although it was originally a Sheffield company, Warp Films is now based in London.