1. Evaluation: Question 3
A film distributor is a company or even an individual that takes management for the marketing of
the media product (For example advertising the product). I have researched into a number of
different film distributors that would fit with our thriller opening; the main distributor that I could
find was ‘Entertainment Film’, the range in marketing a number of different genres of films from
comedy to horrors on a global scale. When browsing through the titles they have been involved in
marketing it soon became clear to me that, this film distributor is on its prime, having marketed a
number of big name blockbusters, here are a few:
‘A history of violence’
‘Final Destination 2’

2. The two films featured above are under the genre category of thriller/horror, both these films did
extremely well in becoming well known and in terms of sales. Therefore I feel that ‘Entertainment
Films’ would be a perfect distributor for our media product, I also feel that with their global
reputation, if we were going to pay for our thriller opening to be marketed we would get ‘our
money’s worth’, having represented so many different genres of film throughout the years and know
what has been successful and what has been less successful they would be able to navigate through
conventions to achieve the best look and finish for a product ensuring it appealed to the particular
target audience of the film and also the genre (For example the artwork on the front of a thriller film
conventionally consists of duller colours and looking more ‘jam packed’ and fast paced, this is visible
in the artwork on the front cover of the film ‘Taken’ , as seen below the dark colour scheme ensures
that it has stayed conventional, and the dark greys appeal more to the stereotypical audience of
thrillers, males. The snapshots from behind the
main image are taken from high energy scenes
in the film, and this transfers this energy onto
the front cover, which puts a lot of the fast pace
into the cover as well, all these aspects help to
appeal to the target audience of the genre).
From looking at a number of existing thrillers
that are similar to our thriller opening
(Existence), I soon realised that they all usually
consisted of one main image, which was
commonly a portrait of the main
characters/protagonist, for example in the
cover featured above (A History of Violence), there is a main portrait of the protagonist, this draws
in certain audience groups, in particular women as if there is a attractive male they are drawn to the
film more, also women often keep up to date on the celebrity cultures and gossip, the main stars of
higher budget thrillers will often be well known celebrities and this is another factor that draws in
more of a female audience. In the artwork for ‘A History of Violence’ the action is shown through the
emotion of the protagonist, by having full eye contact with the viewer a certain amount of tension is
already built, this draws in more of a male and younger target audience, a it creates a sense of
expectation already. I think that the cover art work for ‘A History of Violence’ would work well with
our thriller because having the protagonist staring at the viewer already create suspense something
we hoped to have done with our thriller, but also we could use the emotions to portray the key
themes of our thriller, which are confusion and in a way self discovery, the darker colour scheme
would also fit in with the gruesome and in some points gothic atmosphere that we would use as a
reoccurrence if we were making the whole of the thriller (e.g. the television sequence). All in all I
have learnt that having a good film distributor is essential when making a thriller as it is how the
thriller is perceived and communicated to the public and therefore in time the target audience,
which ultimately determine the successfulness of the product.