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

Oliver Hurditch

Causation by FBO pictures is a low budget film with a relatively lowly regarded cast and a low production cost allowing to establish that it's an independent production thus would be picked up by a smaller distribution company with a slate that is much like our own.

Overall the use of Vertigo films would help us take the movie to the next level and try to establish our movie amongst the greatest horror productions in the market. Also Vertigo Films has connections to which it releases all of its content onto home video via Entertainment One, this would be useful for causation as Entertainment One has links with key cinemas and VOD platforms allowing Causation to reach out to the widest possibly market to advertise our film by creating an imaginative marketing campaign

Distributor?

The productions characteristics of low amounts of CGI, horror and low budget allow to conclude that a company such as Vertigo films would distribute it. This is because, looking at previous media productions that they have already distributed are similar to our own production and have been responsible for the distribution of many successful films in the past decade such as Football Factory, Street Dance and Monsters.

One of many successful films distributed by Vertigo Films

Monsters (Edwards, 2010) was distributed by Vertigo Films on a budget less than $500,000 but went on to take $4.2 million at box office, proving its successfulness under Vertigo Films. It has certain characteristics that are mutual in our piece too. These are: • Skeleton crew• Low budget • Unknown cast • UK produced

Vertigo films distributed Monster

Over the shoulder shot of the map of the ‘infected zone’

CGI effect on set to show it burning down

Film cover for Monsters

One of the key components of a marketing campaign that we need to take advantage of is the platform web 2.0. As Web 2.0 is accessible to both independent and industrial companies its one of the only times that productions such as our own are able to challenge the hegemonic status of the ‘Big Six’ distribution companies. This could be done through a viral campaign

An example of a film that used staggered release would be Prometheus (Scott, 2011), even though this was an industrial production it still had elements of an independent productions distribution campaign. It had the traditional marketing campaign aspects such as the print(posters, billboards and bus shelters), radio and TV(spots and trailers).The innovative promotional technique was the viral campaign, where they created a futuristic TED talk by character ‘Peter Weyland’ to create buzz amongst white collar workers and create the water cooler effect. Also synergistic promotional activity took place when Fox created a video about robot ‘David’ who understands human emotion.All of this created buzz for the film increasing potential revenue for the film and personally I believe that we should use similar techniques in the marketing of our product.

How should we release it?

The production needs to choose its type of production very carefully, do we go for a staggered release or simultaneous release depending what will create the most buzz for the film thus the most revenue.

Peter Weylans TED Talk

A field in England (Wheatley, 2013) was distributed over a simultaneous release, by not only releasing in the cinema, at the same time the film was released onto a Film4 screening attracting 357,000 viewers, over 9,000 over the Film4 average. However to attract more people to pay for the cinema screening Wheatley aired a live Q&A before the screening to create a more immersive experience. Overall A field in England made £21,399 in the opening weekend, to which some key inner city venues were even sold out.This is a key example to compare our film to as both are low budget independent films with limited locations and unknown cast. So possibly this could be advantageous for our production

Ancillary products for A field In England

P&A advertising used by Wheatley

During production in A Field In England

Exhibition?

Wheatley would have contracted with a cinema chain that offers more than just the stand alone limited leg room and cushioned chair experience, which is what we would do with Causation to create an experience with the film. To create this experience we could even do a live Q&A in the showing with actors and directors to give it a feel of an immersive experience.

As mentioned in a previous slide, A field in England (Wheatley, 2013) was, not only released into cinema but VOD and linear viewing via Film4 all at the same time. Thus is a good example of a type of production that challenges the hegemonic processes of blanket release. Picture house’s theatres were used to screen the viewings, however there isn't anything outstanding about these cinemas besides their stunning architecture.

To create an immersive experience we plan to release the film to a larger cinema chain such as Vue Entertainment who pride themselves in their luxury and dominant position in the market. Ultimately by establishing a contract with such a large exhibitioner would attract a larger core audience of 18-29 year olds.However it would be good if we could try to get our product into a film festival first to see if we could get picked up by one of the bigger cinemas or even get into one of the following indie cinemas in London.Another way we could exhibit the film if we weren’t able to get into the market place with a big distributer would be to show it on VOD or through technologically converged content.

VOD platform Here we have a film festival in London

An example of an industrial exhibitor