AS Media STUDIES

1. EVALUATION QUESTION 3:
What kind of media institution might
distribute your product and why?
Jessica Underwood

2. Distributors:
• Media distributors are responsible for marketing a film and making the
product available to its audience.
• Distributors typically buy the rights to a film and decide if they want to
release it to either a global, tent-pole or to a local independent audience,
as well as deciding the method by which the film is to be exhibited or
made available for viewing. For example, they may decide to make their
film available to the public theatrically through cinema release, or for
home viewing (which includes making the content accessible through
DVDs, video-on-demand and downloads). They may also set the release
date of a film, and are usually responsible for marketing the product.
• The importance of media distributors is their responsibility to make a
profit on a film; they aim to make more money from the film than the
initial budget which was used in order to produce it. Consequently, if we
were intending to distribute our final film, we would need to use a
company which has had experience distributing films of the horror/thriller
genre with a successful financial outcome – a company which has been
responsible for successfully making a profit comparable to its budget.

3. LIONSGATE
• Lionsgate is a Canadian production and distribution studio founded in
Vancouver in 1997.
• They have been responsible for distributing numerous successful films
such as the blockbuster Hunger Games and Divergent franchises, as well
as a range of horror films including Insidious (grossing at $97million in the
box office in comparison to its budget of an estimated $1,500,000),
American Psycho, and the Saw franchise.
• This particular company would be a suitable choice for when considering
distributors to use in order to distribute our film to the general public. This
is because they have experience distributing and producing radical profits
for legitimate films which are of the same genre as our own. However, it is
unlikely that they would want to distribute our independent production
which is less foreseeable to create a substantial financial gain (in terms of
creating a multi-million profit). The majority of Hollywood films
distributed by Lionsgate were of a big initial budget, and are therefore
incomparable to our own low budget film.

4. FILM4PRODUCTIONS
• Film4 is a British film production and distribution company owned by the
Channel4 television corporation.
• They are responsible for backing a large number of films made in the
United Kingdom. Some majorly successful films include 12 Years a Slave
which grossed $187.7million in the box office, as well as a spin off film
based on the (also Channel 4 owned) E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, named
The Inbetweeners Movie grossing at £83million in the box office.
• Although Film4 is very supportive of British Independent films and are
more willing to back small independent films like our own, we found that
there was little evidence of Film4 distributing any majorly successful films
within the horror/thriller genre like our own. For example, a Film4 film the
Kill List grossed $462,206 at the box office in comparison to its budget of
$800,000.
• Therefore, we did not think Film4 as being the best choice when
distributing our film in terms of creating substantial profit.

5. Funding
• When researching different distributing companies, I found that some small
independent films can get funding in order to create and distribute their own
films through numerous agencies and companies.
• One company offering funding and development opportunities for filmmakers is
Creative England.
• Another agency is the British Film Institute which aims to encourage filmmakers
to continue making their films. They award National Lottery funding to the
filmmakers to support the production and distribution of the film, as well as to
help provide film education and audience development.
• Using film funding companies would be the best option when distributing our
film as we would be able to use the funds to produce as well as to distribute our
own films. Film4 would also be a suitable choice as they support independent
British filmmakers, would be trusted when distributing our film and support
films with a range of different genres. We would potentially choose funding
overall due to the fact that Film4’s productions of the horror genre are not
majorly successful in the box office. However, by distributing our film on our
own, we cannot ensure a successful profitable outcome.

6. Our Own Distribution Company
• We had to include an ident into the opening of our film, and due to the
fact that we had not done any distributing research before the production
of our film, we therefore had to create our own company name and logo
in order to do this.
• We named our company “J&M Productions” in order to present the
people responsible for production – Molly and myself, as well add to the
overall mood of the film through the colours and logo used when creating
our ident.