This document discusses different options for distributing an independent thriller film targeted at teenagers and young adults. It considers film festivals, YouTube, social media, and partnerships with smaller independent film companies as viable low-budget distribution strategies. While conglomerates want elements like big stars and marketing, smaller companies like Warp Films that distributed films with modest budgets could be a good fit. The document concludes that Warp Films or a similar small independent distributor, combined with free pre-release streaming on YouTube, are suitable distribution strategies for a low-budget independent film.

1. By Alex Harris

2. An institution is an organisation or company, public or privately owned that
produces and/or distributes media products. In media, a conglomerate is a
massive multinational media company who own: Film studies, TV stations,
record labels, magazines, newspapers, books. A conglomerate are examples
of vertical and horizontal integration. Vertical integration is when the
production company has the ownership of the means of production,
distribution and exhibition by the same company. Horizontal integration is
where a production company expands into other areas of one industry. This
means that the company can develop in a particular area of production.
Film distribution is the process of making a movie available for viewing by
an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who
would determine the marketing strategy for the film, the media by which a
film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing, and how may set the
release date. To distribute our thriller we will be using digital distribution.
Digital distribution is the delivery of media content such as a films over an
online delivery medium, thus bypassing physical distribution methods such
as DVDs.

3.  The killer washes his hands, with blood, in the sink.
He then walks slowly to the lunch hall, when he gets
there are around 30 people in the room. He kills them
all using his pump action shotgun. Then the killer
walks back to the toilet to wash his hands, this is a
non-linear narrative trajectory. The killer escapes and
as he is wearing a mask the audience doesn't see his
face. After the introduction it cuts to a police
department in Virginia as they are working tirelessly
to work out who the killer. The killer turns out to be
one of the officers at the station, Mike Warner but it
takes the police enough time to find out which officer
it is. Will the police work out it's Mike and stop him
from running away before it's too late. The plot is
based on the shootings at Virginia Tech and is going to
be called Blacksburg 32.
 An example of a movie similar is Elephant and it
was produced by HBO. It had a budget of $3 million
and made over $10 million in the box office.
 Another example of a similar movie is called We Need
To Talk About Kevin released by Fox searchlight for
$7 million. It made $7.5 million in the box office

4.  A big Hollywood conglomerate such as Time Warner would not
make our film or a number of reasons. Firstly, We are first time
filmmakers. This means that we have never made a film before
and are rather new to the technology and techniques used in
films today. Furthermore, we are making our film on no budget
and in a school so we can only use the facilities that the school
can provide us with. As we are teenagers and in school we have
no pre-sold elements which help to market the film. We cannot
get merchandise made nor can we make soundtracks etc.
 As we have no budget we cannot employ big name actors. We are
confined to teachers, school friends, relatives and friends
therefore a big time conglomerate will not be interested in
creating our film because part of what attracts people to see
films is the cast. A good thing about having a big budget for a
film is that you can create a set to look exactly how you want it.
As we are students we cannot create a set, we have to use
settings that are already open. The school has a green screen but
due to how new we are to the technology we don’t know how to
use it to give a maximum effect.

5.  For our thriller, we aren’t trying to make lots of
money. We merely want to distribute our thriller
so that a wide variety of people see it. At film
festivals you get a number of people coming to
see smaller films from a number of different
genres. Another way we can distribute our thriller
is on YouTube. This would be a great way to get
people to see our thriller as they have one-million
active users each month. We could put our thriller
on our own website however, this would not be
very viable because it would then be an added
task to get people to go on our website. If we
posted our thriller to social networking sites such
as Twitter, we could could get friends and
relatives to also tweet about it to bring in a wider
audience so more people can see our thriller.

6.  The film company Vertigo Films produce films from
a wide array of genres.
 One film they produced that has similar genres to
ours is Pusher. The film was rated an 18 which is
above the age range that we were looking at. For
our target audience we were looking at 15+ so that
it is open to a wider aged audience. Based on this
though, I think Vertigo would be a good fit for our
film because they have lots of experience in
making crime thrillers which means they would
have lots of ideas on how to better our film.
 A different type of thriller that Vertigo Films
produced is Shotgun Stories. It was rated a PG.
This just shows even further that Vertigo would be
a good choice to promote our films. Not only does
this further emphasise their experience in making
thrillers but it also shows they have an
understanding in making thrillers for a slightly
younger audience.
 This means that they would be great in helping us
produce our thriller because they have experience
in crime thrillers but also they have a familiarity in
all different ranges of audiences.

7.  Pusher (2012)
 Genre – Crime Thriller
 Rating – 18
 Budget - £2,300,000
 Box Office - £186,500
From these details you can see the two films made a loss. I think Pusher did so badly is because
of the rating. A lot of teenagers go to see films and enjoy the thriller crime genre. If Vertigo
produced the film to suit a slightly younger audience I believe they would have at done better.
Furthermore, the budget suggest they put a lot of money into it perhaps with CGI. From previous
experiences, some films have too much CGI and it can ruin it. I think this may be the case in
Pusher.
In contrast, Shotgun Stories had a much smaller budget. I think Vertigo made a mistake making a
drama thriller a PG. This is because children of a PG age aren’t interested by dramas. I think
they should’ve made the film slightly more mature by making it for 15 and over. As well as this, I
think that when adults see a drama thriller they are interested however, when they see that the
rating is only a PG they automatically assume it’s going to be boring. These details have
somewhat encouraged our idea even more to make our film for a target audience of 15 and
above.
 Shotgun Stories (2007)
 Genre – Drama Thriller
 Rating – PG
 Budget - £250,000
 Box Office - £168,240

8.  One way I could distribute my film to my target audience or create
awareness is through social networking site such as Facebook. By
creating a Facebook page for the thriller, people would be able to
click on the page what the thriller and if they like it, share it to
others friends. This is a quick and efficient way of marketing your
film.
 Another way is uploading the thriller to YouTube. By doing this I could
allow anyone to watch it for free for 24/48 hours just to gain
publicity before releasing it into the cinema. This way, the people
that have seen the thriller can tell their friends and go and see it on
a bigger screen.
 Similarly, you could offer free screening in local coffee shops such as
Costa. A great number of people order coffees everyday so it would
be a great way to market a film that no one has heard of with a
minimal budget.
 Another way you could attract a target audience of teenage ages is
with graffiti. By creating a graffiti design to spray onto walls it will
help to promote the thriller through word of mouth hype. I would
spray the design onto local shopping centres, skate parks and high up
on walls that could be seen from a distance. The more attractive the
design is, the more appealing the thriller will seem, attracting a
greater audience.

9.  Based on all notes and findings previous to this, I have
decided our film will be released through the traditional
release pattern. Based on Pusher and Shotgun Stories, you
can see neither did very well in the box office. Our film
isn’t too far but too similar to either of them which I
believe is a big bonus and I think that our idea is one which
will do very well.
 If our film was to be distributed in the USA, I would let HBO
Films distribute it for a number of reasons. Firstly, they
have made a number of films for a variety of audiences and
budgets. This means they will most likely have experience in
crime thrillers. Also, I know in 2003 they released a high
school massacre film called ‘Elephant’ which wasn’t overly
successful. I believe that if our film did really well in the UK
they may believe that our high school massacre has a
chance of doing much better than Elephant. Furthermore, a
lot of HBO’s films have been very successful and award
winning. An example of one is ‘12 Years A Slave’, which won
3 Oscars in 2014.

10.  HBO is owned by Time Warner
and therefore prioritizes releases
by the conglomerate, however
they also have HBO On Demand
and for TV and HBO Go for
devices. I believe our film would
be more likely to be picked up
for a limited cinematic release
and make most of its money
through PPV sales and DVD sales.
HBO will be able to make their
money back through subscription
fees and advertising rights in the
breaks during the film . However
being a TV company they will be
unable to show it at the cinemas.

11.  In conclusion, as our thriller is targeted at a
niche market of males aged between 15-30 and
our secondary audience of females aged
between 15-25 I believe our film would be suited
to a small time film company such as Warp
Films. We did not have the experience to work
with anyone of such a high level or the contacts
to find them as we are just starting out in the
industry. Instead of using famous and well known
people, we used our friends to play the two
parts we needed, this worked really well for us
as they listened to our instructions and tried
their hardest for us as they want us to create a
successful film.

12.  Also many conglomerate rely on pre sold elements. As
well as small time film companies we don’t have pre
sold elements. Warp could be a potential distributor
for our film and they work with Film 4 who could play
our film on TV and have the ability to attract a larger
audience than we would alone. Warp films
distributed ‘Dead man’s shoes’, directed by Shane
Meadows in 2004 which was shot in 22 days and on a
tight budget. It earned a BAFTA nomination proving
its success.
 We could also put the film on YouTube for a week or
two to encourage as many people as possible to
watch it who will then spread the word by word of
mouth so that when the DVD comes out or it is being
shown somewhere with a fee, they will be desperate
to watch it. Also there is a chance that a film
distributor may see it and ask to take it on.