evaluation - question three

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Due to the fact that our film will be a low budget production made by students, it is highly unlikely that it will have a prominent feature in large chain cinemas such as Vue, Cineworld and Odeon. This is mainly because it will be hard for a low budget production to compete with mainstream blockbusters that are able to afford well known actors & actresses. For example, Warner Bros would be unlikely to distribute our film because they very rarely produce films that aren't accessible to a large target audience because of the lack of cast members that are household names. The quality of the movies associated to blockbuster films and large media institutions are far superior to our film because they have the funds to shoot the movies with advanced technology and can implement impressive effects such as CGI. This means that our film would have to be distributed on a significantly smaller scale through independent distributors.

Vertical integration is when the production, distribution and exhibition of a film are all processed by one large company, however, independent cinema works contrastingly whereby producers may not be directly connected to distributors or exhibitors. The distribution of a film is essential in exhibiting your work to people and ensuring that people actually see it. In the film industry this is a crucial part of post-production as it aids in making the film accessible to the target audience and exposing it to a wider audience to improve it's chances of success. Distributors communicate with exhibitors and using preplanned release strategies and dates, they negotiate with the exhibitors in efforts to have the film screened in their cinemas. The strategies usually take factors such as the target audience, cast, and season into consideration. For example, if a blockbuster has an all star cast, although isn't predicted to withstand long term success, then the distributors attempt to plug it into as many cinemas as possible so that the intial screenings can be profitable. Similarly, the season is also considered as a romance film would be more successful during spring and around the time of Valentines Day, so a distributor would intend to release it around that time. Once a contract has been agreed upon, the films are marketed and advertised to the target audience through various mediums such as digital distribution to give a film global exposure, as well as trailers seen on tv and the internet, newspaper and magazine advertisements and posters.

A media institution that we feel would consider distributing our film is Guerilla Films. The company makes it clear that they are entirely supportive of British films, and since 1999 have mainly concentrated on distributing films British and Irish films. Despite being an independent institution, they have distributed films to large chain cinemas as well as independant ones, which means that if our film were to be distributed by them then it would gain more exposure and therefore be more successful. They also license films to familiar TV broadcasters such as BBC, Sky, and Channel 4. Having our film shown on TV would also attract a larger target audience as people who may not necessarily go out of their way to pay to watch it in a cinema can still view it at home. Guerilla Films also has intentions to further raise production and finishing funds for low budget British films, which would allow our film to expand to a wider target audience by gaining exposure in several ways through this distributor.

Another media institution that specialises in supporting independent films is Dogwoof. Dogwoof Indie recognises that "whilst filmmaking is getting easier, getting your film a decent release is a still a challenge." In order to combat this, they ensure that they give emerging filmmakers the chance to exhibit their films. In addition to ensuring film bookings in cinemas, they also provide services such as publicity, TV sales, DVD sales, online distribution and relationships with dsitributors in other territories including Europe and USA. This means that Dogwoof would allow us to exhibit our film at a larger scale whilst still being cost effective.

Alongside media institutions, there are various other outlets that would allow us to exhibit our film to our target audience. Internet sites that offer video hosting services such as YouTube and Veoh specifically offer people to be able to view videos of their preference. YouTube is a site that is familiar to a huge audience, and utilising as an outlet for our film would allow us to expose it to audiences internationally in a cheap and easily accessible way. Hype for the movie can be created through word of mouth, and viewing counts are a useful way to determine how successful it is. People have the ability to browse through videos in the four main categories of "Videos, Music, Shows, Films", and anyone searching for a free film to watch can access ours in this way. However, YouTube also has limitations due to this feature. Because of the fact it is cheap, there is an excessive amount of competition and large numbers of hits will be necessary to propel it into being a significant success. Other websites that can be used to distribute our film are social networking sites such as facebook and twitter. Facebook also allows for video uploading, and the film can gain recognition through the creation of 'groups' which allow people to 'like' it. A greater number of people 'liking' it will signify that it is getting a positive reception. On Twitter, video content can not be directly uploaded, but if a certain subject is popular amongst users, then it will often appear in the 'Trending topics' of the site. This means that if we are able to get people to tweet about the film, the possibility of it becoming a trending topic increases which would give the film more exposure as people all over the world can view the topics. These methods of distribution would be appropriate to use as they are cheap and conveniant, whilst still targeting a large audience as the internet allows people from all over the world to view our film.

Another alternative outlet could be film festivals. Screening at festivals that specifically cater to exhibiting the work of students would be ideal as it can attract a varied audience, often consisting of other students, film enthusiasts and even scouts for young filmmakers. Examples of festivals are Screentest Festival and FilmLab Festival, both of which are based in London and solely focus on exhibiting student films. These film festivals in particular would be more likely to exhibit our films as it is clear they would be more interested in screening films made by students such as ourselves. The people that attend these festivals will be aware of the fact that they will be watching students films on low budgets.