Task 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A distributor is an organisation who handles the distribution of a film in a country as well as the marketing for home-viewing e.g. Digital Versatile Disk's (DVD's), television (T.V.) or download. The distributor handles the advertisement of a movie, e.g. through press releases.
Examples of distributors are 20th Century Fox, Arrow Films, Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures UK.

Distribution companies logo's

                 

              

For our thriller opening we needed logo's for a production company and a distribution company to be placed at the start of the opening. We needed to create our own production and distribution company, so we created the logos using Microsoft Power-Point. The production company we created for our thriller opening is called Baseline Productions and the distribution company we created is called Screen Shot Entertainment.


The logo's of these company's are presented below:

                     

Our thriller opening is similar to the movie American Psycho (Harron, 2000). American Psycho opens with a normal white male called Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale) and he is going about a normal morning routine, but later on in the film it is discovered that the man is a 'psycho' and he kills people. The distributor of the film American Psycho is Lions Gate Films.

American Psycho film poster

Our thriller opening: 'More Than Meets The Eye.'

The name of our thriller opening is 'More Than Meets The Eye.' Our opening is similar to American Psycho as it starts of with a white male (played by Ben Conway) going about a normal morning routine and is getting ready. They both have concepts of a white male, who is wealthy and most likely works at a business related workplace. However, the difference between our thriller opening and American Psycho is that our character reveals that he is a 'psycho killer' much earlier than the film American Psycho. Also, the dead body (played by Morgan Noel) is placed near to the end of the opening, rather than later on in the film.

          

Would your film be a UK Independent of Hollywood film?

Our groups opening to a thriller film, would most likely be a UK independent film. The movie would be distributed as a UK independent film as it would be very difficult to attract a major US distributor. Also, our main focus would be to distribute the films in the UK.
Example of UK independent films are Pride (Warchus, 2014) and Sixteen (Brown, 2013).

                   

Our film would most likely be distributed on an internet release, and this will allow the film to be steamed and be downloaded. Also, it can be distributed to a few local cinemas that are willing to view them, such as Cineworld. The film would be distributed on the internet as it would be most successful there, and as its success grows, it will attract bigger distributors, which would allow it to be distributed on T.V., DVD's and in more cinemas.

The Marketing Campaign for our Thriller Opening


One marketing campaign we can do are posters. The posters can be shown in magazines to advertise our film. The posters can also be shown at bus stops and can be placed on the buses, this will allow us to advertise to people using the transport. Bill boards can be useful in this as it will allow us to further increase our advertisement of our film.

Poster

Another effective marketing campaign is the use of the internet. We can have official websites for our film to show release dates and where the film is available e.g. James Bond official website. Also, unofficial websites are helpful as it allows us to advertise our film freely as unofficial websites are created by fans to spread news of a film. Social media sites can be used to increase awareness of our film as it can be used to update people regularly about news of the film.

A final effective marketing campaign is using television (TV). Television can be used to show adverts of our film to a large audience. Also trailers can be shown to interest the people and get them engaged to watch the film. TV spots are similar to Trailers as these only show about 30 seconds of footage to engage the audience and to make them watch the movie as they are only seeing a tiny glimpse of it.

Where and when would your film be shown?

Our film, 'More Than Meets The Eye' would be screened first at popular film festivals e.g. BFI film festival. The film would be screened during the week-ends, during holidays e.g. school holidays. As this would allow an increase in audiences as they can watch the film during their free time. This would also have the effect of increasing the profits. The film can also be put on the internet to allow audiences to watch it on film sites such as Netflix in their computers at home, and this would increase profits as well.