A film distributor is a company that releases films to theaters, TV, and online platforms. They promote the film and arrange showings. For a low budget independent film, a smaller, more independent distributor would be more affordable and could still successfully promote and distribute the film. Examples given of low budget films that did well with smaller distributors include Paranormal Activity and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Fox Searchlight Pictures is mentioned as a distributor that specializes in independent and British films and has had successes with low budget films.

1. Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?

2. What is a Film Distributor?
A film distributer is a company that
releases films to the public over
cinema, TV, internet, Blu-ray's, etc.
Then once the film is shown in the
TV, they decide when or where they
are going to show it next.
Distributors will make a 'want to
see' buzz among the target
audience and they will release the
film. This is when film prints/disks
as well as the BBFC certificate are
delivered to the cinemas a few days
before opening and they also
arrange a film marketing.

3. Would our film need a major distributor
or a smaller, more independent one?
Why?
My idea is to have a major distributor and more independent one
so our film product is advertised and released in magazines, trailers
in TV and cinemas successfully. However, by using a major
distributor costs a lot therefore I might as well just use a small
distributor because it’s cheaper. According to my research, there
are small budget films used a small distributor have successfully
advertised and went really far.
The fact is we only have a small budget to make our film and get
release to the public and it isn’t really that big as the actors on ours
are not celebrities. We just hope that it is advertised well by our
small distributor.

4. Examples of small budget films that have
become major successes?
• 'Paranormal Activity' was made on a
very limited budget film with few
cameras, few crew, and a small
distributor called 'Wild Bunch' and
still made it to he cinemas and went
very far.
• 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' is a
film distributed by a smaller,
independent company. This was
distributed by 'Gramercey pictures'
and 'Rank film distributors' with a
relatively small budget of $4.4million
and still managed to make it big.

5. Which real-life distributor might you use if
you had the choice?
If I had chance to use a real life distributor, it would be Warner Bros.
Entertainment, Inc., Summit Entertainment LLC or Universal Studio because
they are most well known companies.
Slumdog Millionaire film is a romantic drama and it is the genre that we are
doing. They were supported by Fox Searchlight Pictures which is a company
that distributes many low budget films and many of which have performed
very well at the worldwide box office. It specializes in independent and
British films. This is a kind of business that we would like to distribute our
film.

6. Where would you expect your film to go?
I would expect my media product would go to a multiplex and
mainstream one as most of these days, the teenagers like reading
magazines and watching TV’s. Therefore, the target audience we are
aiming for would see it.
Our film would be released on YouTube and advertised on TV as
trailers so that everyone would see a brief video of the film we made.
And then distribute the whole film to the cinemas like Odeon.