3. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

I studied the whole issue of distribution and I learn a lot about it through the research I had done which you can see below. Due to my visit to the British Film Institute on Wednesday 11th February 2015, presented by Matthew Hall, on the subject of UK cinema, Audiences and Institutions,  we decided to pick Vertigo as our ideal distributor. 

On Vertigo's website at http://www.vertigofilms.com/about.php#.VRUiqmcfzIU they published their mission statement: " the company's mission is to create and distribute commercial driven independent cinema and since inception, it has produced 28 films and distributed a further 35".

As a small, independent, British  production company, we thought they would be ideal for us. Vertigo is also well known for bringing in new talent allowing for up and coming film makers and actors to get a start in their career. The website itself says  "it continues to pride itself on being at the forefront of breaking new talent, including Tom Hardy (Bronson), Scoot McNairy (Monsters), Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist), Gareth Edwards (Monsters), Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton), Ben Gregor (All Stars) and Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson)". As seen here, many cult movies such as Monsters and Bronson have been created under the Vertigo Brand. Their movie StreetDance 3d was the biggest independent UK DVD of all time. It also displays their diversity as a company. They can from making gritty crime dramas aimed at an adult audience such as Bronson, a low budget science fiction movie such as Monsters and a movie aimed at a teenage demographic such as StreetDance.

Here is a prezi on who I believe should distribute my film for certain reasons as well as what my understanding of distribution actually is http://prezi.com/y_ot3ex4q-ru/present/?auth_key=9y7nxp3&follow=pttkbzl5adq3&kw=present-y_ot3ex4q-ru&rc=ref-129767404

What do distributors do? 

The main function of distributors is that they're responsible for the marketing of the movie. They're the companies that set out the release date of a movie, where the film is going to be shown (e.g. whether it will be a national or worldwide release). They also handle a large majority of the box office revenue, as well as the home media rights e.g. DVD/ Blu Ray. They allow for the movie to be reached out to the public. Ultimately if they movie's a success,  they're the ones who make the production budget back to the cast and crew of a particular movie. They're also the ones who can decide if a certain movie deserves to be turned into some form of franchise e.g. 20th Century Fox thought Star Wars was going to be a "box office bomb" back in 1977 but after it made over $700 million at the box office, a whole franchise was created just out of that one movie. 




I also studied the FDA (Film Distributor's association ) which explains the film, distribution and marketing. I decided to study three presentations on the website. In the videos, they explain that the ultimate aims of distributors is to "put people into cinemas" and they help advertisers deciding  who is actually going to see a particular film . They refer the industry as highly co

mpetitive due to the enormous amounts of competition on the market. They also can help with putting the crew together. This is because a director and writer can help apply creative ideas and can ultimately help make a film better if they're suited to a particular genre e.g. most distributors would like someone like Martin Scorsese or Guy Ritchie if some sort of crime drama was being made.

http://launchingfilms.info/furtherdiscussions/

How do distributors raise awareness?

Distributors can raise awareness for movies in a number of different ways. The main way of raising awareness for movies is through the internet. Websites such as Facebook and YouTube are able to distribute information about the movie. Facebook's primary use is to tell people about the cast, release date as well as to promote other media surrounding the movie e.g comic books, toys ect. Distributors mainly use YouTube when showing off the movie trailer. The trailer shows off roughly 2-3 minutes worth of footage that will encourage audiences to go to the cinema and see the movie. It can be an extremely effective and well viewed technique. For instance, the Star Wars episode 7 trailer was viewed over 50 million times within the first week of it's release onto the internet. They can also raise awareness through creating a movie website, much like what we did with our movie. This contains every little bit of information that the movie has e.g. casting info, release dates, trailers.

Research: To track how distributors publicized the Hunger Games (directed by Gary Ross in 2012).


The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 was distributed in a number of different ways by Lionsgate. As a result of it being both a book and movie franchise, the movie has been a long going plan of distribution. After each movie, they start planning ways to distribute the next way until they finally reached Mockingjay.

Calendars,  the books, toys and posters were a massive way in helping advertising the film. These were massive influences in getting people to watch the movie. These were non digital ways of trying to get people to see the movie as they didn't require people to go online to find out about the movie's existence. The Lionsgate website and forms of social media such as Facebook and Twitter also managed were digital ways of getting people to see the film. These were probably the most likely forms of advertisement that would've helped due to social media being such a popular use in life.

Here is a slideshare that gives more ideas about the distribution of the film and a few of the problems that went along with it. 
http://www.slideshare.net/olliemac678/hunger-games-mockingjay-part-1

Independent distribution case study: Tortoise in Love 

An example of how a smaller film was distributed was the British indie film Tortoise in Love. This sort of movie is very reflective of my movie due to the fact that they're both British, independent movies. Whilst they are directed at different target audiences, they both could be possibly distributed in very similar ways. 


The movie was filmed on a very small budget of £500,000 in which most of it was donated by the residents of the village. Despite it being an incredibly small movie, it in fact had its first showing at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. As well as that, it received its world premiere at Leicester Square in 2012 in which the cast and crew came in on tractors. The premiere did help the publicity of the movie because of the inclusion of the tractors. The movie was mainly shown in many different village halls across the country where it actually gained quite a bit of money. It in fact made profits from those than where it was shown in actual cinemas.

If our movie was real, I think Kickstarter could be an effective way of getting the movie funded. It's had a lot of success in funding a lot of small, independent movies. The highest film related project ever was the Veronica Mars movie with over $5 million raised for the movie. It's use of film festivals is also perhaps a great way of getting the movie out to distributors. Tortoise in Love was particularly successful due to the fact that it got to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the most prestigious movie festival in the world. 

Recent digital distribution of a major Hollywood movie 

However, there have been more recent examples where movies are starting to be distributed elsewhere. After the controversy that arose under the Seth Rogen 2014 comedy the Interview, the movie was originally cancelled by Sony Productions. However, due to high demand and pressure from Obama, the film was given a limited theatrical release. It was also made available for online rental on 24th December on platforms such as Youtube, Google Play and Xbox Video. Within four days of its online release, The Interview earned over $15 million through online rentals and purchases. This could perhaps be a trend in recent movies. Whilst the Interview's success was partially due to its controversy, it does show that markets such as this might be considered in the future. Many find that  downloading movies off the internet is far more convenient and a lot easier, rather than  going out to the cinema instead. Due to box office returns being down as a whole  in 2014, ( 5% decrease from 2013)  digital releases could be a way of the future for distribution of movies.