The Function Of A Film Distribution Company

The Function Of A Film Distribution Company

A film distributor is responsible for the marketing of a film. The distribution company is usually different from the production company. Distribution deals are an important part of financing a film.

The distributor may set the release date of a film and the method by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing; for example, directly to the public either theatrically or for home viewing, such as, DVD, video-on-demand and download. A distributor may do this directly, if the distributor owns the theatres or film distribution networks, or through theatrical exhibitors and other su-distributors. A limited distributor may deal only with particular products, such as DVDS or Blu-ray, or may act in a particular country or market. The primary distributor will often receive credit in the film's credits, one sheet or other marketing material. 

There are many different ways of distributing a film:

Theatrical Distribution
If a distributor is working with a theatrical exhibitor, the distributor secures a written contract stipulating the amount of the gross ticket sales the exhibitor will be allowed to retain, usually a percentage of the gross. The distributor collects the amount due, audits the exhibitors ticket sales as necessary to ensure the gross reported by the exhibitor is accurate, secures the distributors share of these proceeds, surrenders the exhibitor's portion to it, and transmits the remainder to the production company, or to any other intermediary, such as a film release agent.

The distributor is also responsible for ensuring a full line of advertising material is available for each film which it believes will help the exhibitor attract the largest possible audience, create such advertising if it is not provided by the production company, and arrange for the physical delivery of the advertising items selected by the exhibitor at intervals prior to the opening day. 

International Distribution
If the distributor is handling an imported or foreign film, it may also be responsible for securing dubbing or subtitling for the film, and securing censorship or other legal or organisational 'approval' for the country in which it does business, prior to approaching the exhibitors for booking. Depending on which studio that is distributing the film, the studio will either have offices around the world, by themselves or partnered with another studio, to distribute films in other countries. If a studio decides to partner with a native distributor, upon release both names will appear. The foreign distributor may license the film for a certain amount of time, but the studio will retain the copyright of the film. 

There is also a wide variety of different film distribution companies available:

Evaluation Question Four

 How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Research, Planning, Construction And Evaluation Stages?

When creating our trailer we relied heavily on things such as premiere pro to edit our trailer. Premiere Pro was one of the main technologies we used when creating our trailer, we used it for all of our editing. 

Youtube and Blogger were our main sources of publishing our work. Both of these websites allowed us to post our work online, we used blogger to post all of our planning and written work. We uploaded our completed trailer to Youtube.

Throughout the process of making our trailer we also used a lot of other web based programmes, such as DaFont, which we used to find the fonts we wanted to include in our trailer and also individually for our magazine covers and posters. 

I used photoshop a lot when it came to making my magazine cover and film poster, I found that that was the best way to make them.

Programmes like Prezi and Flipsnack also helped me post my work onto my blog.

When filming our trailer mostly used a camcorder to record all of our footage. We also occasionally used a tripod and dolly, especially when filming certain supermarket scenes, but a lot of the time we used a lot of hand held shots to make it seem more natural and to add to the suspense of the trailer.

I got on with a lot of the technology we used throughout the making and editing of our trailer, however, I did find Premiere Pro quite difficult to use because I had never used it before and didn't really know what I was doing to start with. But, eventually I learnt how to use it and could do a few basic things on it. 

I found using photoshop when making my magazine cover and film poster a lot easier as I had used it before last year when we made magazines. I found it a lot easier to use as this time I knew a bit more about what I was doing and how to use it. 

I found programmes like Blogger, Prezi and Flipsnack easy to use as they were quite straight forward and again, programmes I had used before last year whilst making our magazines and also in other subjects.

I think through using the different technologies involved with making a film trailer, I have improved and developed my creativity, skills and knowledge. I got to use all different programmes I had never used before, and I gained more experience and knowledge when working with web based technologies I had used before.However, having previous experience with some of the things we were using definitely helped, especially things like Photoshop, even though I had never used Premiere Pro I could spot the similarities with how the two programmes worked, which did make parts of the editing process easier.

Evaluation Question Three

Evaluation Question Two

How Effective Is The Combination of My Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

Final Products

Film Distribution

A film distributor is responsible for the marketing of a film. The distribution company is usually different from the production company. distribution deals are an important part of financing a film. 
The distributor may set the release date of a film and the method by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing; for example, directly to the public either theatrically or for home viewing (DVD, video on demand, download, television programs through broadcast syndication). A distributor may do this directly, if the distributor owns the theatres or film distribution networks, or through theatrical exhibitors and other sub-distributors. A limited distributor may deal only with particular products, such as DVDs or Blu-ray, or may act in a particular country or market. The primary distributor will often receive credit in the film's credits, one sheet or other marketing material. 

There are many ways in which a film can be advertised, such as trailers, posters, billboards, radio ads. The type of advertising used for the film will also depend on who the target audience is, it is important to advertise where the target audience will see it, this is why audience research is so important. 

It is important for a film to have an unified identity carried through all the advertising as that way it makes the film easily recognisable, if all the advertising for the film has a similar design then people will immediately recognise it and know where it is from. This will also offer a small clue as to the narrative of the film, all the advertising has to signify the genre of the film and give and idea about what the film is about. 

Poster

When designing my poster I took inspiration from quite a lot of other horror film posters. Lots of posters for horror films have similar layouts, they mainly have the title towards the bottom of the page and all the other important writing underneath. I knew before making my poster I wanted mine to be played out that way, I also thought that using that layout wouldn't take anything away from the image on the poster.



We decided to make our trailer a 15, which is the certificate I put on the poster. We made it a 15 because our trailer does include hints of violence, especially towards the middle and end. We also chose a 15 as when we were looking at other trailers the ones that were most similar to ours were all 15s. We also thought 15 suited the film, and gave enough warning as to what was included.

Magazine Cover

Before making my magazine cover I looked at a lot of other magazine covers, horror and other genre types. One thing I noticed was the layout, like with the posters, they all have a similar layout. I wanted to keep my magazine cover traditional so I followed the layout of the other magazines very closely. 
I made sure the main image is in the centre of the page, framed by all the writing on the page. 
A lot of the magazines I looked at used a lot of colours but I knew when I was designing mine I only wanted to use a few main colours, so I chose red, black,white and grey. 
Having a film be on the cover of a magazine is very valuable for a film, it can bring in even more of an audience, not just the target audience. Being on the cover of a magazine will help the film reach a wider audience as it means more people are likely to see to and be interested enough to watch the film. 

My magazine cover relates to the poster and trailer as they all use similar colours, they are all advertising the same thing. When designing the cover I kept in mind my poster and trailer as I knew it was important for advertising that they all looked similar. 

Magazine and Poster
When making both my magazine and poster I made sure that you could tell they were both advertising the both product. They are specifically linked by the colour scheme, they both only use four colours- red, grey, white and black. They also have very similar images on them, they images used are both taken in the same location using the same person. 

Trailer
There are elements of both my magazine cover and poster in the trailer, for example, colours, the theme, lighting, and text. I wanted to make sure they all had things in common to create the unified identity need with a film and the advertising of a film. However, I think the film poster has a lot more similar elements with the trailer than the magazine cover does. This is because i specifically related the poster to the trailer whereas when making the magazine cover I made that more like other covers rather than specifically for the film trailer.

Film Poster

Magazine Cover

Evaluation Question One

The Perfect Family Finished Trailer

Production Schedule

How Research Has Affected Our Proposed Idea

How Research Has Affected Our Proposed Idea

Narrative

Before we started working on our trailer we watched quite a few different horror films and trailers, such as The Crazies and Halloween, to see what type of narrative structure they followed. This really helped when we were deciding on the narrative structure for our trailer as it gave us the opportunity to see a lot of options for different types of narrative structures, like the classic realist/classic Hollywood structure. 
Watching different films and trailers also helped us decide that we wanted to loosely follow Todorov's narrative theory. However, we don't show every part of Todorov's theory as it is only a trailer and we wanted to make sure there was suspense and tension, we didn't want to give away all the story so we chose not to include a new equilibrium, this also gives the people watching it a chance to imagine what actually happens for themselves.

We wanted to introduce the main settings and characters quite early on in the trailer so the opening shots are happy shots of the family in their house, which is the main setting we used for our trailer. However, throughout the trailer the mood/atmosphere changes and becomes a lot darker as we introduce the villain of the story. It also starts off quite slow and calm but speeds up towards the end with lots of fast cuts, which are all in a jumbled up order so nothing is given away about the plot, this is when the disruption part of our narrative structure is introduced and then it carries on to show the recognition of the disruption. Following this structure gave us the opportunity to make what seemed like quite a happy trailer turn into something a lot darker and different from what it began as. 

Genre Conventions

Throughout our research we developed a firm understanding on what impacts conventions have on the horror genre and what is produced as a result of this. When considering how genre conventions influenced our ideas, we tried to stray from the usual conventions, such as the expected locations and settings that you would usually connote fear and horror. Instead, we took normal, everyday locations and used them effectively in an attempt to evoke horror in an unconventional way. For example, our plot is centered on a stalker targeting a 'broken' family, of whom he watches from a distance in their local supermarket. However, we used a house to film other aspects of our trailer which do conform to the conventions of the horror genre. When considering Todorov's theory of the series events that take place within a media text, we used the setting of a normal home to represent the horror genre, with long shots used at the beginning to establish the equilibrium before using POV shots, over the shoulder shots and tracking shots to build tension throughout the disequilibrium. To add to this, we also filmed these scenes without a tripod when doing critical shots to create uncertainty and to build anticipation. For iconography we included a young girl as one of the main characters, as she connotes innocence and vulnerability, of which we expect to see from children in the horror genre. Additionally, we used different props to add to the iconography, including weapons and other objects such as tape and rope, which were used to restrain the victims. For the disequilibrium we shot with dark lighting to add to the mise en scene and to represent the horror genre, as well as building suspense and anticipation. 

Audiences and Institutions

In order to make our film as successful as possible, we had to consider the most appropriate audience and how we would tailor our trailer to appeal to them. As our trailer includes violent scenes, but nothing too explicit, we decided on a 15. From extensive research we discovered that the target audience for horror films is teenagers and young adults, and most horror films which are similar to ours are of the same age rating. By making it a 15 we are allowing a younger audience to view the film, but with this we will ensure that there are no explicit scenes of murder or violence and all language used is mild. However, this also ensures that a wide range of different audiences will still be able to view the film, because it is still a horror film and we have used a well-known actress for the main character which broadens the target audience.

After researching the most effective times for horror films to be released, we established that films typically do worse in the box office in the 'dump months' which include January and February. However, just one month before, in December, is thought to be the perfect time for new films to be released in the cinema. Statistics show that films released in December make on average around $1.2 billion, while films released in the dump months make an estimated $300-$600 million. As a result of this, we decided that in an attempt to make the film a success, it would be released in December.

Representation

Whilst developing our trailer we have considered relevant theories in terms of representation.  

Beginning with the ideas of Jeremy Tunstall. He stated that women within media texts are shown as Domestic, Sexual, Marital and Consumers. Our female lead is a married to a man therefore showing a heteronormative representation and conveying her marital status. She is clearly shown as a consumer of products as we show her shopping and buying products within a supermarket environment. She is also shown seen as domestic as we portray her cooking dinner for her family (implied by the over the shoulder shot and the dad stating “mmm smells delicious honey” and caring for her child by cooking the dinner, etc.

Within the horror genre it is a convention that women are shown to be unable to defend themselves against a dominating male role. In a way this is true with the mother in our story as within the trailer we see a shot of her being hit with an object by the male psychopath and being tied up. However, with our younger female character the daughter, we see her within the trailer numerous times being caught by the man however we also see a shot of her running away from the house which could imply that she escapes from the man and fights back?

We have also considered Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory when discussing shot types of the female characters. We have strong emphasis that the woman is in danger and vulnerable as she is unknowingly being watched. We have uses certain close up shots to rectify this male gaze idea.

In ‘Men Women and Chainsaws by Carol Clover she states there is a repressed sexuality of the murderer. In some ways this is evident within our trailer, our main character has had an isolated upbringing and has an overwhelming desire to be loved, therefore attaches himself to a family who he presumes to be single parent, therefore he can complete the family unit and finally feel loved. However outbursts in a violent tangent when he discovers that the family unit is complete without him. 

Story Boards

Location Releases

Talent Releases

Budgeting

Risk Assessments

Shot List

Trailer Planning Sheets

The Woman in Black