The document discusses various methods for exhibiting a film, including uploading it online, showing it in cinemas, film festivals, online streaming services, and on DVD. It analyzes the pros and cons of each option. The conclusion is that for a low-budget film targeting a young audience, the best exhibition methods are to upload it online for free viewing, or partner with an online streaming service, as these options match the target demographic and budget constraints. Cinema and film festivals are also discussed but will likely be too costly.

1. Exhibition
By Chris Wotton

2. Introduction
The exhibition stage of the film process is to sell your film to the final
consumer. There are a number of ways to sell your film, and I will be
going through those today, and evaluating the pros and cons of each
method of the exhibition process.
It is very important that I pick the correct type of way to exhibit my
film, otherwise the final product will not reach the correct target
audience.

3. Uploading Online
Pros
 Uploading our film online will give us the capabilities of sharing it worldwide in an instant.
 The film could go viral, which would initiate recognition of our content on a large scale of people.
 The costs involved to get the film online are much less than the potential profitability which could be made.
Cons
 The film may not take off as it doesn't connect with the consumer in a way that makes them want to share it
with the world.
 The success which is made online may be considerably less than showing the same film in a cinema for
example or even an online streaming service.
Summary
So uploading our film online has it benefits and it’s negatives. If we were to share the film free of charge and rely on
ad revenue to cover our costs we would likely get more views, but only if the film connected with the audience in a
very strategic way would they be likely to share the film, which is key to online success. The costs involved for getting
our film online are very little, and this is definitely a big positive to a production like ours where we have a very little
budget.
However even if our film was successful the revenue produced would be considerably less to if we exhibited the film
in the cinema for example, which makes the effort and hard-work we put in less worthwhile.

4. Cinema
Pros
 Aims the film at a very large audience.
 This will increase the amount of revenue the film produces.
 Upsell's will be made on other products such as food/drinks which assists the film's success
Cons
 The distribution of films in the cinema costs significantly more than other forms of exhibiting the film.
 Audiences cannot necessarily afford watching the film in the cinema, and they would prefer watching it online
for example.
Summary
So to summarize, exhibiting a film in the cinema would be beneficial for our film. There are many benefits with
showing our film in the cinema, one being that the target audience of our film is young people, who are likely to go
to the cinema with friends or family. However due to our limited budget, the likelihood of exhibiting our film in the
cinema is very thin. Other forms of exhibition such as online streaming may be a better option as we can showcase
our film to the whole world at very minimal costs.

5. Film Festivals
Pros
 If the film gets good feedback, this could build connections with large distributors that are willing to connect
the audience and the film together.
 Gaining a good reputation right of the back can help our films success later on, e.g. press.
Cons
 The audience viewing the film may not be our target audience, which could make any feedback worthless.
 Our film may not be selected for screening, which will make the process of exhibiting the film much more
difficult and costly as we have now got to raise further funds in the hope that we can get consumers to watch it
in another format.
Summary
So film festivals can be a great way of showing your film to those interested in watching smaller productions.
However the audience watching the film may not be the correct target audience and they could from a different
demographic, making all the feedback pointless and any reviews biased as the viewer may be of a completely
different age bracket, the audience watching our film may therefore not understand the plot or idea and they could
potentially post a bad review, which would effect the selling capabilities of our film. However there are also benefits
to people seeing the film at ‘film-festivals’ as there may be press which could promote our film and get it seen by
more people around the world.

6. Online streaming
Pros
 Quick and easy to set-up
 Can be viewed on a variety of different devices.
 Can be viewed at any time, by any person with an internet connection.
Cons
 Some people prefer going to the cinema with friends as they find it a good social activity to do with friends.
 The audience need to have a reliable internet connection, that can allow them to watch the film without
disruptions.
 Piracy could be an issue as films can be easily uploaded elsewhere, when purchased online.
Summary
So to summarize exhibiting a film through online streaming services has many benefits that would make it
considerably cheaper to do initially, which is a very important for a film like ours.
Getting your film onto streaming services like Netflix can be considerably harder as these sites tend to focus on the
highest end content for their viewers.
Our target audience are also using these services considerably more than audiences of other age groups, making
this a perfect match for our film, however we need to rectify the issue of getting our content on there in the first
place, which involves recording and producing our film in the highest quality possible (6K).

7. DVD
Pros
 This allows the consumer to purchase the film, and watch is whenever they want and however many times they want.
 This can be used in co-ordination with cinema distribution, so therefore the firm can target the film to the audience over and
over again e.g. for instance films for Christmas can be re-marketed and sold every year as DVD's.
Cons
 DVD's may be seen from our target audience as outdated.
 Online streaming/purchasing websites can offer cheaper services and it's more practical.
 Copyright issues.
Summary
Exhibiting our film on DVD may have some success as some members of the public may be interested in consuming a different type of
film, however it is likely to be only a very small success as the film is aimed at young audiences who are less likely to purchase the film in
DVD format. I would say that for our film we are better of selling our film in a similar way through the internet as our audience are likely
to use online services rather than buying DVD’s in store. There are various reasons why I would recommend using an online film site, a
few reasons being that less money has to be invested, less time and less labor. DVD's are an older format of viewing films, but they are
not redundant; the problem is they just don’t apply to our target audience.
One of the biggest problems with selling our film in DVD format is getting people to buy the film. The audience is generally attracted
by famous actors, well known institutions and many more USP’s, but for a film like ours we cannot afford to make it stand out to other
films; there are other ways of making the DVD stand out one being relatable themes for our audience, as this will stand out more than
anything; however further audience research would need to be completed to know the most popular themes are audience would be
intrigued by.

8. Conclusion
Summary
So to conclude this task I can say that the most effective methods of film exhibition are cinema & online
streaming. These methods of exhibiting are used by the most successful film institutions and they have had
a lot of success there are numerous reasons for these methods being successful, but the main one is that
the audiences targeted find these methods of consuming the film to be the best for them.
For our production I have got to consider both our target audience, but also our limited budget and
therefore our film has to be exhibited by uploading it online, this will keep our outgoings very low, but it
will also work very well for our target audience as they are young people, who are more likely to be online.
Using a method of exhibition such this also works well for our target audience as they can watch the film
for free, and this intrigue further viewers as they have not got to debate about purchasing it, but instead
they can watch the first couple of minutes to see if it is something they are interested In.
Also if we make our film open to a large audience at no cost we are following the diversion/enterainment
part of the “Uses & Gratifications Theory” which is to fulfil a need for the consumer that entices them to
watch the film.