Major film distributors play a crucial role in marketing and circulating films through theaters and home video platforms. They decide the film's advertising strategy, which is important for generating interest. For independent films, distributors are even more important because the films are less well known and don't usually have big stars. Film festivals like Sundance are important for independent films to get noticed by distributors. The filmmaker believes their film could be distributed by major Hollywood studios like New Line Cinema, Sony, Lionsgate, or Universal, as it is a thriller centered on a female protagonist - a genre that has found success. They propose primarily releasing it online via Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube to target their audience of 15-25 year olds who

1. Evan – Broken Evaluation 3
What kind of media institution
might distribute your media product
and why?

2. What is the distributor’s role?
• Distributors control the marketing and
circulation of movies in theatres and also
home viewing (DVD, pay-per-view, television
rights, etc.). Distributors decide how much the
film should be advertised (TV commercials,
internet, magazine, posters, trailers, special
promos, etc.) - this is crucial for the film
because it gets the word out there and gets
people interested in it.

3. What do they do for Major Film
Studios?
• The distributor usually arranges industry
screenings for exhibitors, and uses other
marketing techniques that will make the
exhibitor believe they will profit financially by
showing the film.

4. What about Independent film’s?
• Film distributors are even more important for
small, independent films because they are less
known and usually don’t contain the big name
stars that studio pictures do therefore it is
crucial for the word to get out on them. This is
why film festivals like Sundance are so
important because that is where these films
are bought by distributors.

5. Is your film made for Hollywood or
Independent
• I can see our film being produced by major US studios such as; New line
cinema, Sony, Lionsgate, MGM etc. I particularly think that New line
cinema, Lionsgate and Universal would pick up our film as they have
distributed major thriller blockbusters in the past such as Se7en, The
Hunger Games and Lucy. Following this, The Hunger Games and Lucy both
revolve around a female lead protagonist much similar to ours and have
seen very fruitful results in terms of their box office return.

6. Target audience and how it would be
distributed
• Our film would primarily be released on the
internet due to our target audience being aged
15-25 would be more likely to go online and
watch our film than spend money in the cinema.
Furthermore, we are currently in the age where
most people watch films online as it is more
accessible to the target population. The film
would be distributed on sites such as Netflix,
Amazon Prime and Youtube as people would
have easier access to these sites allowing more of
our target audience to watch the film.

7. How would the film be marketed?
• Our film would have teasers posted on the
distributors website with examples of the tagline
or the title being continuously shown on the
website. This would slowly draw in our audience’s
interest and our audience would start tweeting
about the film. Slowly our film would gain a
substantial audience with the release of a poster
or trailer and the anticipation of the film would
keep building until it is released. On the other
hand, if there marketing is bad, the audience who
would see this film would dramatically decrease.

8. Examples of marketing posters:
Actors’ name
Relevant quote or tagline
Title has the biggest font to
draw in attention from audience
Film Certificate and
Director’s name
Promotional Image

9. Billboard Poster
Release Date
Production & Distribution
companies
Wider set of credentials
Film
certificate
Title and Main
characters