Optimum Releasing would be a suitable distributor for the independent British thriller film. As an independent UK film company, Optimum specializes in distributing similar low-budget, British independent films and thrillers. They have had success distributing films with small budgets that appeal to younger audiences. Their marketing strategies, like using social media, would be a cost-effective way to promote the film to its target teen-adult demographic. Optimum also has experience distributing similar thriller genres to the one in the film, so they understand how to market and release that type of film.

2. Real Production/Distribution companies: UK & US

3. Distribution
Film distribution describes everything that happens in between production (making the film) and exhibition
(people watching the film in cinemas ,DVD/UMD, TV, through the internet or on a plane or anywhere else).
Distribution involves all of the deals done to get films shown and just as importantly promoted. There has to
be release cycles e.g. 0 months- Theatrical release & then 36 months- free- TV (BBC1). They have to
decide which date to release the film and take into consideration when is the right time to release seasonal
films. Take for instance Paranormal activity 3 which was released in October on the 21st around Halloween.
The key players, the big companies who control much of the industry, control distribution of their own products
and of others e.g. 20th Century Fox & Avatar.
Five major distributors dominate the UK film industry which are
1. United international pictures which Universal is a part of)
2. Warner bros
3. Buena vista
4. Twentieth century fox
5. Sony
They deal with exhibitors who are no longer owned by the same Hollywood companies but for reasons of profit,
prioritise Hollywood films over others. Usually the blockbuster films we are familiar with are distributed
through ‘blanket release’. This means that even if a small UK independent company manages to get its
product into cinemas, it is usually competing for attention with one or more films that take on the status of
an ‘event’. One of the outcomes of the distribution agreement outlined above is that half of the films
released in Britain do not reach the whole country.

4. Marketing & Advertising
Marketing Advertising
To market a film you’ll have to think about There are many ways your film can be distributed
• Finding the hook of the film when marketing it. Distributors might go for a
• genre of the film, range depending on the budget they have. To
advertise a film there are a range of things you
• Who? What? When? where? And why? ( could use to do so.
audience/target audience-teens or family?),
Three key things in advertising-
• The unique selling point
• Advertising
• Try attract as many people to watch the film.
• Cost of production
Distributors will then need to
• Promotion/third party e.g. Radio
• Create a market campaign for the film to stand
out Also they could use Billboards, Official websites,
flyers, Buses, TV or cinema adverts.
• Build up a reservoir of information
• Campaign ways include: Print/poster, internet,
mobile e.g. an image of Spiderman which is a
global image
Teaser campaigns are made to keep people aware of
the film coming to screen, ad sells and most
importantly create a trailer. There's three
types: Teaser trailer, Main trailer & Shorter
main trailer. The trailer is important because it’s
the first exposure to what the film will be about
therefore it has to be portrayed well.

5. Type of distributors that might want distribute
our film

6. StudioCanal UK (formerly Optimum Releasing/Home Entertainment/Classics) is a film
distributor company working in the UK and Ireland. They are vertically integrated and the
company releases many films, including foreign language films, anime releases such as Studio
Ghibli's films and independent British, Irish and American films in the UK and sometimes
Ireland.
Optimum was acquired by StudioCanal, a subsidiary of Vivendi
SA, in 2006. Since StudioCanal bought Optimum, the French
company distribute their large back catalogue of classic
British films (many from the Cannon and EMI catalogues)
through Optimum releasing under the strand 'Optimum
Classic'. When named Optimum, the company's image was that
of a modern, independent new release and back catalogue
distributor.
Films were released under four strands: Optimum Releasing (Theatrical New
Releases), Optimum Home Entertainment (DVD, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD
New Releases), Optimum Classic (DVD Re-releases of back catalogue films)
and Optimum World (New and Back Catalogue World Cinema). The latter
three appear to be still being used, despite the company's name change.
They released over 200 films a year and were one of the most prominent
distributors in the UK independent film and world cinema market since the
closure of Tartan Films in 2008.

7. Optimums distributions
The genre of films they distribute vary from comedy, Horror, Romance and thrillers. Some of
the thrillers they have distributed are:
• Orphan
• The Hurt Locker
• The Loved Ones
Films they have distributed which have done well include Vicky Cristina Barcelona a Drama
Romance film which had a budget of $15,500,000 estimated. It managed to gross a total of
$23,213,577 which is a fair amount. Another film is The Last Exorcism which had a budget
of $2,000,000 estimated and on opening weekend made over $20,366,813 but in total overall
it grossed $40,990,055. This is more than triple the amount of the budget which just shows
how a low budget film can do extremely well.

9. • Universal Pictures a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is
one of the six major movie studios. They are
horizontally integrated and on May 11, 2004, the
controlling stake in the company was sold by Vivendi
Universal to General Electric, parent of NBC. The
resulting media super-conglomerate was renamed
NBC Universal, while Universal Studios Inc. UNIVERSAL
remained the name of the production subsidiary. In PICTURES
addition to owning a sizable film library spanning the INTRO
earliest decades of cinema to more contemporary
works, it also owns a sizable collection of TV shows
through its subsidiary NBCUniversal Television
Distribution. It also acquired rights to several
prominent filmmakers' works originally released by
other studios through its subsidiaries over the
years.
• One of the pros of Universal Pictures is that they
would be able to distribute a film internationally
without any outside help because they can afford to
do so and the majority of their films do successfully http://youtu.be/
well in the cinema and eventually go to DVD which WFa_Lbqgun4
also sell well. Unfortunately they don’t have their
own TV channel which they can show their films on
but most of their films et shown on various channels
after 12-18 months so its still quite good.
• If I’m honest I don’t think they would be a good
option for us to distribute our film because they
have high budgets and since our film is an amateur
independent film I feel that its best for us to have
our film distributed by an British Independent film
company.

10. Universals distributions
• Just like Optimum releasing they
distribute a wide range of films and the
genres vary from Romance, Comedy,
Action and thrillers. Examples of
thrillers they have distributed are Stay
Alive, Drag me to hell and The Unborn
which have done pretty well. Other films
they have distributed which have done
successfully well was King Kong which had
a high budget of $207 million but made
$550.5million at box office which became
the fourth highest grossing movie in
Universal pictures history.
• DVD sales contributed over $100million
towards the grosses. Another example of
a film they have distributed which has
done extremely well at box office is the
1999 movie The Mummy. The Mummy had
a budget of $80million and grossed total
of $415,933,406 at the box office, this
led to sequels and TV shows. It was
nominated for Best Sound at the
academy awards & Best Visual Effects at
the BAFTAs and in 2004 Universal
pictures and Amblin Entertainment
decided to open a roller coaster called
Revenge of the Mummy.

11. • Founded in 1991 by film producers Bernd Eichinger, Arnon Milchan, and
Andrew G. Vajna, initially to handle film sales in foreign countries. Summit
later expanded into producing and co-financing films in 1995, and started fully
financing films by 1997.Summit officially launched in 1993 by Patrick
Wachsberger, Bob Hayward and David Garrett under the name Summit
Entertainment LP as a production, distribution, and sales organization, thus
making them vertically integrated.
Among the company's early successes was American Pie, which Summit
distributed outside of English-speaking territories. In 2006, it became a
fully independent film studio, Summit Entertainment, with the addition of
Rob Friedman a former executive at Paramount Pictures. The new company
added major development, production, acquisitions, marketing and
distribution branches with a financing deal led by Merrill Lynch and other
investors giving it access to over $1 billion in financing. With that, Summit
now releases their own films on DVD with the help of Universal Studios and
Sony Pictures.
Summit is also distributed theatrically and on DVD in Europe and in Canada
by Entertainment One. Without doubt they would be able to distribute their
films internationally as stated before" distributed theatrically and on DVD in
Europe and Canada but they do need the help of other conglomerates such as
Universal Studios and Sony pictures to release their films on DVD. They do
not have any links with TV channels but again this is not a major problem
because people can still consume their films elsewhere.

12. Summits distributions
They finally found success in November 2008 with the release of Twilight, a teen romance that made
$408,773,703 worldwide. In the spring of 2009, Summit released Knowing, the company's second movie to
open at number one at the box office and made $182,492,056 worldwide.
Other films they have distributed include thriller ‘The Hurt Locker’ grossing $16,400,000 at box office which
gave Summit its first Oscar-winning for Best Picture, the animated film Astro Boy, the teenage horror
thriller Sorority Row which made $11,965,282 at box office, the low-budget Action thriller Push and the
2010 hit ‘RED’ also grossing a high amount of $87,940,198 at box office and nominated for a 2010 Golden
Globe in the Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical category.

13. Distributors for our film continued…
Our thriller film, called ‘Live To Tell’, is an
independent thriller film and the group and I
discussed the sort of media institution which
would distribute our media product and realised
that our thriller film is of non-mainstream
culture. Our film, I believe, would not appeal to
the likes of Universal Pictures because such a
huge media conglomerate would require our film
to have a high budget and use better
technology. Also it would mean that our film
would have to include mainstream
actors/actresses which Universal Pictures
nearly almost always have in their films. Popular
‘Universal Pictures’ actors and actresses would
include names like Denzel Washington & Russell
Crowe from the 2007 crime film American
Gangster.

14. • Fox searchlight pictures It had a budget around $600,000
established in 1994, may and lead to a worldwide gross of
be a Distributor we could over $248.3million which is good
use as they specialise considering the fact they used a
particularly in handheld camera and the woods to
independent and British create such a film. But while most
films. They’re a film low budget films are backed by
division of Fox Filmed distributors, it’s common for low
Entertainment alongside
Fox Studio 20th Century budget films to be produced without
Fox. They’ve distributed one and this results in producers
many low budget films much like me and my group to rely on
which have done audience reactions at film festivals.
extremely well at box So maybe if we show our film at a
office e.g. Napoleon film festival it would help in terms
Dynamite, Juno and of pre-promotion and help us gain
Slumdog Millionaire as acclaim and attention for the film
mentioned before. and might lead to a limited release in
Napoleon Dynamite had a
budget of $400,000 but theatres. In terms of advertising
its gross revenue was our film and gaining recognition many
almost $50million. people sign up to sites such as
Although the above films Facebook, Twitter, and even You
which have been low Tube to view and watch online
budget have done well, I activity. If we publicly broadcast
think the best low budget our thriller film across these
media product which websites, we can engage with the
resembles our thriller is general public to get insight into
the 1999 film, The Blair
Witch Project. what they think of our media
production.

15. Distributor I think would want to distribute our film
• After doing research into different
media institutions I’ve thought about Our film will be low budget due
the type of distributors that I think to the camera equipment we
is best suitable to distribute our will use and the type of
thriller and have settled for Optimum actors/actresses we will use
Release. The reason I have chose
them is because they are an British along with the locations. They
film distribution & production don’t have their own TV channel
company who release independent but that’s not that much of a
British films which is what our problem as they have their own
thriller is. Leading on from the point
I made earlier, they do thriller DVD company which our
genres too and because they audience can watch from their
distribute independent films and they TVs at home. Although they
are an independent film company distribute in the UK they’ll be
based in the UK it comes as an
advantage for us because out film is able to distribute
of British heritage and will appeal internationally under one of
more to a British audience. Films they their four strands Optimum
have distributed which have done well Releasing (theatrical new
include Vicky Cristina Barcelona a
Drama Romance film which had a releases) as well as he other
budget of $15,500,000 estimated. It three strands. With the
managed to gross a total of marketing process that would
$23,213,577 which is a fair amount. be cheap too as we could use
Another film is The Last Exorcism
which had a budget of $2,000,000 social networking sites such as
estimated and on opening weekend Twitter & Facebook which
made over $20,366,813 but in total many young people are signed
overall it grossed $40,990,055. This up to. This in return will be of
is more than triple the amount of the
budget which just shows how a low much benefit to our film
budget film can do extremely well. because our thriller is aimed at
young teens and adults ages 15-
24.

16. • I think our thriller film ‘Live To Tell’ and optimum
releasing films such as Orphan and The Last
exorcism, all create suspense which is effective in
a good thriller film. They all appeal to a young
teen- adult audience and centre around that
target audience. And last but not least they’re all
thrillers which is also why I believe Optimum
releasing will be the best choice for distributing
our film.
• This is the trailer for orphan
• And the trailer for The last exorcism
http://youtu.be/2ywOPNNii9w
http://youtu.be/9NcYXzZCQsE