3. DISTRIBUTION

1. Firstly I have researched the FDA website to help me understand more about distribution. I also commented on my visit to the BFI in London. 

2. Secondly, I completed a case study on the distribution of a low budget film Tortoise in Love (see below)

3. Thirdly, I completed a case study on a big budget film Jurassic World (see below)

4. Fourthly I researched modern ways of distribution using the internet.

5. Fifthly I chose which distribution company I wanted to use.

RESEARCH ON FDA WEBSITE:

Our movie will be distributed by a distributor. I researched distribution on the FDA website.

The task of a film distributor is to bring the movie into to the movie market space, this is all mentioned in the videos on the website that I have watched. A part of the distributors role is to identify the target audience. Some movies are destined for international or global market whereas the UK targets different audiences like "arthouse", "multiplex", and "prestige. Mark Batey says "the process of bring a film to market is fast, highly competitive with each film being different." a distributor also acquires the film.

• if the distributor is a "major" and attached to one of the big six then they will normally work on the film made by that studio, they might also acquire the rights to make it outside the studio. 
• if the distributor is "independent" then they are most likely to be distributed by a film festival. 

the distributor has to decide where to position the film in the market place. It's about what the selling points of the movie are, its about the stars, genre, if its a part of a sequel, and also its about the last movie made by the director and producer.

The distributors need to think about who is going to see the movie. Mark Batey considers that one of the key things is defining the audience and what segment of them would appreciate the movie. Age is one of the main factors of audience consideration, mostly of young people, however there can be a mixture of more mature people. 

BFI TRIP:

At my trip to the BFI on the 9th of February, and study lead by Mathew hall. We were given 3 definition of multiplex arthouse and crossover. By far the larger audiences are the "Multiplex" audiences that are in large centres like shopping malls or places like odeon. These audiences like blockbusters and mainstream entrainment. matt hall also suggested the idea of a "Crossover" audience, that is audiences who are persuade to see a film because of prestige because of oscar or Bafta nomination. These films may be non serious genre films, or follow a big actor who has decided to do a big film because of their interest. "Arthouse" audience are indie small, low budget films. Our film would be one of these as it has a small budget and would probably only be distributed online. I believe that our film will appeal to audience that enjoy films like Taken. 

Another key decision is when the film is distributed because the market is very busy where 700 or more movies are released a year. For example a lot of movies are competing for awards as they want to be remembered for February Awards season. Horror movies are mainly targeted at Halloween time and romance around Valentine's day. Children's films are targeted at around summer time when children are not at school.  

Distributors create a distribution strategy depending on the audience. For example P&A which is very expansive, social media, teaser trailer to attract audiences, events, interviews, appearances etc. For our film we have made an Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr page to attract audiences. we realise that it is very important for our younger audiences to be interactive. Mainstream films may well be teamed up with media partners by the distributors.

CASE STUDY:

I looked at two different case studies with different distribution strategies.

Tortoise in Love (2012): I went to the BFI website were I looked at the booklet for this small budget movie. The film was created in a small village called Kingston Bagpuize in Oxfordshire and directed by Guy Browning. The population of the village helped with the making of this classic romantic British movie  by sorting out props, make up, filming and catering. However professional actors were needed and there for investors put money in a mini mogul-scheme. 

The film applied for the BFI P&A fund which helped it get to Leicester Square. The film was simultaneously viewed in small village halls all around the country which made a small profit. 

Jurassic World (2015): The distribution of this big budget film resulted in a box office rating of $204m. This Colin Trevorrow directed movie was very successful. I studied a presentation by Gareth Lowrie of Universal Pictures. The distributes knew that they had competition with Star Wars, The Avengers and Spectre. Therefore the distributors decide to not just have trailers, posters and interviews. They decided to transform London's Waterloo Station into a massive Jurassic Park with crates with dinosaurs and shops to buy cinema tickets or merchandise. This strategy also involved social media with hashtags on twitter, Instagram and Facebook with the #jurassicwaterloo.  Jurassic World's marketing team took advantage of Youtube channel which has a series of corporate/ educational videos about the park's staff and personnel. This was a huge success and drove more people to watch the movie.

The marketing campaign considered the following things: what outdoor media should we book? When should the campaign begin and end? What has worked well in the past? What can they use to make this really stand out? They researched who would go watch the movie as there were many other movie being released. The "Rule of Engagement" says that this needs to be innovative and make dinosaurs "cool" again. Another way that the distributed made this movie bigger is by launching a website that shows live action of the Jurassic park, travel, stay, shopping and night life. The website itself is interactive and designed like an actual park to attract more audience. Click here to visit the Jurassic World website.

CONVENTIONAL VS NEW METHODS:

I have researched into Distribution using the new methods that have appeared over the last few years. See emaze bellow:

OUR DISTRIBUTION COMPANY:

We have chosen to Distribute our movie with Warp. This is because our film would be a prestigious film if it gets produced. Vertigo is mainly used to distribute more generic movies such as rom coms and comedy movies whereas Warp distribute bigger budget, adventure and horror movies. Click here to read more about WARP.