This document discusses strategies for independent film distribution. It provides examples of how the films "Bait" and "Sorry We Missed You" utilized websites and social media campaigns to promote themselves. Websites acted as hubs for information on screenings and festivals, as well as selling merchandise. Hashtags on social media helped generate buzz. While film festivals can further promote films that already found success, the best way to initially build hype is through social media clips and conversations to drive people to the website. Pitching films to production companies that support independent films is also a potential distribution pathway.

1. 04/03/21
Film Distribution
Sam de Bruin

2. What a film distributor actually does
• Deciphers:
• Who the target audience is and the best way to reach them through advertising
• What the USP’s of the film are and how to positively exploit them to reach a
wider audience
• When the best time to release the film is; at what times of the year will it give the
most “bums in seats” and if successful, when to release the film onto other
media platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or releasing it on DVD
• How they will market the film and how much of their budget they will allocate to
different forms of advertising
According to the contents of the FDA educational resource

3. Hollywood distribution
Tenet was one film that I looked at. It consisted of a social
media campaign. They published to Instagram, Twitter, a
series of Snapchat adverts and Youtube. These adverts
showed exciting, action packed fight sequences and car
chase scenes. This gets the viewer tense and may make
them want to watch the full movie after watching snippets of
it. Additionally, the movie attempted to showcase its best
actors in these short clips, allowing the viewer the recognise
these actors and giving the viewer a sense of how big of a
budget it had and how the producers put a lot of effort into
making this movie the best it could.

4. Tenet - continued
In addition to this global social media advertisement
campaign, Tenet placed posters of their movie around the
world. These posters showed the main, recognisable
actors, including John David Washington, alongside the
title, punch line, producer and director. In addition, they
would advertise where to watch Tenet, making sure people
are informed on how to access the film.
Warner Bros, the producer of Tenet, tactically placed these
billboards in large cities around the world. For example, the
picture shown in the bottom right hand side of the screen is
in Florida, while the one above it is in Hollywood, the centre
of cinematography for the world. Advertising in these huge
cities would increase the amount of people who know about
Tenet, additionally creating a word-of-mouth conversation-
like hype around the movie.

5. Independent film distribution
Independent films don’t have the financial support to launch a global distribution
campaign like Tenet, for example, did. Small, independent film companies would
utilise social media, however, most importantly a website in an attempt to create
hype for a movie.

6. Example one - Bait
Bait is a mysterious and eerie film, made in black and
white, about a fisherman without a boat. This dilemma
in this film is that the fisherman’s brother, Steven, had
found his father’s old boat. This drove a wedge
between the two, constantly arguing about who should
get the boat. Throughout the film, the fisherman is
attempting to restore his relationship with his brother to
the traditional way it was, whilst he similtaneously has
friction with locals and tourists in the area.
Because there are no well known actors in the film, the
viewer finds it easy to relate with the characters in the
film, as they are not Hollywood movie stars, who, in
reality, live such a lavish and different lifestyle to the
regular viewer.

7. Bait - continued
Bait has a website and acts as a hub for its whole
advertising campaign. The website consists of 9
sub-tabs with notable ones being festivals,
screenings and shop. The festivals tab displays a
list of previous festivals where the film Bait has
been showcased. At these festivals sometimes
they show screenings of the film, however, mostly
they have a section of the festival to themselves.
This is where they can talk about their film, show
short clips of it, sell merchandise and generally
just spread the word about it. The screenings tab
shows where the film will be shown nearby to the
viewer and the shop tab allows the producer to
sell merchandise. This is a large source of income
for the movie if it goes mainstream, as more and
more people will want to own a Bait t-shirt or a
Bait hat.
Bait also had an Instagram account. On this account
they show achievements that Bait had achieved,
such as how the director of Bait won “outstanding
debut by a British writer, director or producer”
However, this Instagram account wasn’t as widely
recognised as the website was, due to how it had
significantly less features than the website.

8. Example two - Sorry We Missed You
Sorry We Missed You is a film about a
man who works as a delivery driver for a
large postal corporation. It illustrates the
troubles that he has to go through; from
struggling to put food on a plate for his
children; to dealing with his son’s poor
behaviour in school. Like Bait, the actors
in Sorry We Missed You were not known
of prior to the film. This creates a strong
connection between the character and
the viewer as the viewer can put
themselves in the characters shoes.

9. Sorry We Missed You - continued
Sorry We Missed you has a website which assisted them
to the attention this movie had acquired. The website is
similar to that of the film Bait, in that it has a list of
screenings, a shop for merchandise etc. However, on this
website, there is a hashtag at the top left
“#sorrywemissedyou”. This is the producers trying to get
people all over social media talking about their movie.
The hashtag allows people to talk with others interested in
the film, creating a community like feeling amongst the
movie. Another interesting feature of this website is how it
has a tab called “join the impact campaign”. I resarched
this and it is a charity, taking donations against abusive
delivery companies, creating tense scenarios for their
employees, and making them work inhumane amounts of
hours for an unjustified amount of pay.

10. Independent film website conclusion
As I have shown, film websites can be extremely
effective when done well, however, in initially gaining
that hype around a film, not many people will be
looking at their website. Social media campaigns, I
believe, are the most effective at doing this. If the film
caught onto social media, it would have people talking
about it for days, creating hype around the film and in
effect would increase the amount of people watching
the film.

11. Film festivals
The film “Sorry We Missed You” was featured in the
famous Cannes Film Festival after its success after
release. This brought even more attention to the
film, and increased word of mouth conversation, as
the people attending the Cannes Film Festival are
artisan viewers who appreciate good film.
Journalists also attend it, possibly giving the film
media attention. However, the film was only at
Cannes Film Festival because of how well it did
after release. I believe film festivals are a good way
of further distributing a film after it has shown signs
of success and promise. Sorry We Missed You is
one of the few examples of independent grassroots
films making it to mainstream audiences and large
festivals like Cannes Film Festival

12. Verve and Warp
Verve and Warp are two examples of production
companies, shedding light to small, independent film
producers. They give them a platform to show their
media on, as they are two of the most upcoming,
exciting and respected production companies in the UK.
Pitching our idea to these production companies is
definitely a route my team and I are considering, as if it
passes through, the distribution is mostly done by them.
However, the chances of our film concept being
accepted by companies of these calibre, despite them
saying they support individual producers, are very slim.
Nevertheless, what do we have to lose.

13. Final conclusion
There are endless amounts of ways to distribute an independent film and my
group and I will definitely be exploring them. I believe a social media campaign
would be best to start off with, uploading clips of our movie to streaming sites
such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook to build up hype and conversation for
our film. Then, if the film gets attention, we could explore the possibility of
pitching to a company such as Verve or Warp who specialise in giving the lime
light to small producers. If accepted, these companies would give us a platform
for our film to be released on, alongside a distribution campaign done by them,
meaning the responsibility would be taken out of our hands, and into the trained
professionals.