Evaluation: Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In order to find our what company should distribute our film, the first thing I did was find out what a distribution company was as I thought that was a good starting point: 'A distribution company, as a distributor and marketer, is expected to raise awareness of the film through varying marketing campaigns as well as forming deals with other conglomerate's such as Sony in order to aid the DVD, TV and internet release'. 

This then leads on to who would distribute our film? We looked at several different production companies from a range of distribution scales, starting at the smaller independent British companies, that primarily work in a audience situated in Britain and moving on to the larger companies that release films world-wide. 

• The Independent British Companies stand out to us mainly because of the quirky style of our film; not a traditional ident, enhanced colouring, strange soundtrack. The company 'Vertigo' seems like one of the more likely candidates.They have previously worked on micro-budget productions such as 'Monsters' by Gareth Edwards. As our film is similar in genre to Monsters, being a science fiction film, this seems like a viable option. Like other smaller independent British companies they only release their films in Britain, this however will not be a problem for us as we can follow the same style as 'Monsters' and later get another production company, in 'Monsters' case 'Magnolia Pictures' which then takes the film worldwide.

• Another option is the British Film Institute like other production companies such as Film4, they finance stylised and unique British films. Recently Film4 have distributed 'Inbetweeners 2', '12 Years A Slave' and '71'. These companies can help finance and bring your film to a wider international audience. I feel as if our film may not overly suit this style of distributors however because although both the BFI and Film4 have worked on a wide variety of different films, from comedy's, to biopics in a lot of different genres, I feel our film would be overlooked by them. This is due to the style of our film, because it may not be viewed by them as being as stylised as they would perhaps want,which would mean our film would be most likely ignored by these companies.

• I have also looked at various other larger studios, such as Lionsgate, StudioCanal and Icon. Lionsgate particularly stood out as it has distributed 'The Hunger Games'. These companies are three of the biggest distributors in the UK and also on a larger scale the world, and hence all of these companies would be brilliant at taking our film to the next level by bringing it to a massive audience both in Britain and overseas but I feel as if our film would be too strange for them, meaning they would not want to take it on to avoid the risk. This is mainly due to the genre we have placed it in, the low budget feel to the film and because it is not based off any already existing novel, eg 'The Hunger Games', this means that those companies have a far smaller indication of whether our film would be successful and therefore would not choose to take it on, as those companies are looking for the best way to make money and in that respect don't take many risks.

Thinking about which production companies would be interested in distributing our film, taking into account all aspects of each, the British indie production companies stood out. This was mainly due to the style of our film, with the soundtrack and enhanced colouring giving the audience an eerie feeling of something not quite right, it also lends itself to the style of film that they tend to release. As we have classed our media product as a sci-fi thriller, this also gives our film a slight edge as it isn't your typical big Hollywood blockbuster as it's in a slightly unusual genre. Another reason we feel that our film won't fit the big Hollywood studios and lend more towards the smaller independent companies is because of our ident, which shows our not-so professional side and shows us as being not your ordinary filmmakers lending us towards the small British production companies.

AF