Distribution Companies

What is Distribution?

Distribution is about releasing and sustaining films in the market place. Vertical Integration - the three stages are seen as part of the same larger process,

under the control of one company Horizontal - distribution is necessarily a collaborative process, requiring the materials

and rights of the producer and the cooperation of the exhibitor to promote and show the film in the best way possible

A film distributor is responsible for the marketing, setting release date and deciding whether a film should be shown in cinemas or other platforms such as DVD.

A studio or production company have to make a licensing agreement with a distribution company, they do this by either a sales agent acting on the behalf of parent studio, a deal with a studio or production company to distribute all of their movies or a single title where a deal was made at any stage.

They then prepare a distribution plan, this plan is used to decide how and when to release the film and through market research they will find a audience for the film.

The distribution company then screens the film to buyers from cinema companies, but only if the distribution company doesn't already own a chain of cinemas.

The distribution company and cinema company then make a deal on the terms of the lease agreement.

Distribution Companies

Unsurprisingly, the major Hollywood studios dominate the film distribution business. Momentum pictures Lionsgate Paramount Warner bros Walt Disney 20th century fox Universal Sony

Our FilmMajorNewline cinema is a popular distributor for psychological thriller films due to it’s films popularity. This distributor has released films such as The Butterfly Effect and the successful film Se7en. This would be a good distributor to use for our film, even though we aren’t producing a high budget filmParamount is another possible mainstream distributor for our film as it has distributed popular endorsed films such as shutter island. Due to its release of a film such as this it could be a distributor for our films because we follow a similar idea as the main character suffers from flashbacks and hallucinations. Because of this these distribution companies will be most effective in the releasing and marketing of our film. IndependentWarp films are a small British institution. This would be a more realistic distributor for our film as it doesn’t distribute high budget films and targets British audiences. Due to our film having only British actors/actresses and being a low budgeted film Warp films could distribute our thriller as they have released films similar to our own

Target audience

Uk audiences only or wider appeal?Due to the actors and actresses in our film being primarily British, this will have an effect on the audience it attracts, in addition our film will only be low budget, meaning it will only really reach a wholly British audience. However thrillers tend to have a wider appeal and attract a large audience due to the genres exciting themes of suspense, mystery etc these are relatble to a wider, international audience who enjoy the thrill and tension they get from this genre.

Marketing strategies, Release strategies and Exhibition options

Marketing strategies for our film due to the low budget will mainly be based on social media, this means we will have to have a lot of advertisement purely on social media such as teaser trailers, trailers, previews on YouTube and promoted on Twitter, Facebook etc

In addition to this we will have publicity stunts on big social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook in which the actors/actresses get involved and characters within the film this will keep the audience excited and in anticipation. We will also create pages on these sites to advertise and promote the film with spoilers and updates on the film.

We will also use other methods of marketing to promote our film such as posters and features in TV magazines, we will make the design of these eye catching and appeal to our target audience. In addition to this we will use typical strategies of marketing such as TV advertisements in between programs of similar genre and story, meaning it will attract audiences who enjoy films of the thriller genre. Also will include advertisements on billboards and on sides of buses this will mean we will be able to attract a wider audience.

For the release of our film we will mainly use online strategies such as Netflix and other popular sites this is due to our low budget, however through popular demand on thriller films and the major promotion of our film our film may gain popularity meaning there could be a chance to release it in cinemas etc.

Self distribution

When self distributing your own film it allows you to gain full control and responsibility of your film this means you deal with all the distribution and promotion yourself, due to the fact there is no third party involved means you will save money as the expenses aren’t taken out of your budget to share with the film distributor

However self distribution is very time consuming and means you have the responsibility of dealing with the legal rights of the film causing some difficulties to where and when you can distribute your film decreasing the amount of sales made on the film