1. Task 3
What kind of media
institution might
distribute your media
product and why?
By Cameron Putt
2. What is Distribution?
Film distribution is ‘the process of making a movie available for
viewing by an audience.’
The distribution side of film making is harder than actually making
the film itself. This is because of the amount of time and money it
costs. The distributor must be confident the film is going to make
them a profit for their investment. The distributor will ask for a
percentage of the profits made which can be anywhere between
10 and 50 percent.
3. Examples of Distribution
Companies
Examples of film distribution companies in the
United Kingdom are:
20th Century Fox Film Co. Ltd.
Columbia Pictures
Paramount Pictures UK
Universal Pictures UK
The Walt Disney Company Ltd.
4. Film distribution companies
that would be interested in our
film
Hammer Films would be interested in distributing
our film because they focus on psychological
thrillers which is the genre of our film. We would
have a better chance working with a film
distributor that has released psychological
thrillers successfully before as they would have
more belief in our film doing well. Hammer films
have distributed films such as the women in
black which is similar to our film as they are both
psychological thrillers.
5. Will our film only appeal to UK
audiences? Or does it have a
wider appeal?
I believe our film will have a global interest.
Psychological thrillers appeal to people all over
the world and this is why I do not think our film is
restricted people in the UK only. For example the
psychological thriller Se7en is American and it
was popular in the states as well as many other
countries. I don’t see our film being any different
to this as it has a good story line with good acting
and that is what people want to see, not just
Brits.
6. Thoughts about possible marketing
strategies, release strategies and exhibition
options
We knew marketing strategies are important in building a relationship with
our customers. Firstly we identified our target audience, (young adults).
We have a clear brand identity which is Nightshade Productions with a
logo which helps customers differentiate us from other brands. We
decided to promote our film through social media pages, TV
advertisements and posters. This way people will be aware of our film
therefore making sales more realistic.
Our release strategy is to start of with the film being shown in 10 cinemas.
If this is successful then we will show the film in 100 cinemas across the
country and keep progressing in this manner and see if we can take the
film global. After a few months and if the film went down well in the
cinema, we will release it on DVD.
Our exhibition strategy was so originally show the film in Surrey and then
progress to the more populated areas such as London, Manchester,
Liverpool etc.
7. Self Distribution
Self distribution could be positive if the film was
successful because you would not have to share
the profits with another distributor.
However if the film was not successful then you
would have no one to share the losses with and
you could lose a lot of money.
For this reason we have decided not to self
distribute our film.
