3 DISTRIBUTION

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

My film would be distributed by a distributor.  I conducted extensive research in to film distribution.

Distribution is when distributors get the film into the theatre chains, broadcasters, video stores and video on demand (VoD) operators.  In general a producer uses a sales agent to license a film to distributors outside the producer’s own country. As I made a film opening, I would look to find a distributor to distribute my film.
Distribution is a very competitive business of launching films into the market place. The distributors make the film well known by making it something to talk about otherwise they wouldn't be as popular. I researched distribution on the FDA website looking at a video interview of Stewart Williams talking about the distribution of films.  I also learnt about it through the FutureLearn course entitled The Business of Film where I was given information cut down in to steps to be read and learnt easily and after each the week there would be a test which would test the knowledge that i has learnt. The best way I learnt was at an AL study day at the BFI delivered by Rob Miller where he spoke about many different types of distribution and took us through the main parts of the the film industry and showed us case studies.

I looked at the case study for Jurassic World and how it was distributed. The distribution started with posters and trailers but then it was taken up a step. Waterloo was transformed into a part of Jurassic World, they started off with a tease. There was a box in the middle of the station with no explanation, attracting attention from he public. The box opening eventually revealing the content of the dinosaurs breaking out of the box.

 In brief, distributors are responsible for identifying the audience and think about why they would go to see the film. They also have to guess the amount of money the film is going to make and get cinemas to play the film in order to make money. They will also have contacts to to help promote the film and make it more well known through other people to get as much interest as possible.
I watched many different interviews on the FDA website which i found very helpful for researching distribution. I learnt that distributors have to work out what the most effective way is of getting film better known, they can spend their budget on posters, trailers, adverts and internet sites.
Stewart Williams (who is a deputy managing and marketing director) talks about the different ways a film can spread. He says that the power of word and mouth is one of the most effective and important for the speed of films as it has been researched that most people make up their decisions on seeing a film by their friends telling them that they should see it. Distributors also can advertise the films using social media such as Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. They will create pages for the films for people to then follow and more people will know about the film coming out.

As I have been researching the big 6, I have learnt that they have many options of distribution techniques as they have very high budgets so they have more money to spend than the films with a lower budget. The big mainstream films which are produced by one of the big 6 have more opportunities such as they can plaster the whole of London with posters and create settings from the film just like they did in waterloo for the ghost busters and get so many advertisements out because money isn't a problem. For films with smaller budgets it is much harder to get attention as they won't have enough money to do as much, they might not even have a distributor at all. These films will get help from organisations like the BFI. For my film I will have to make it popular with out a distributor.      

After having researched many aspects of film distribution,  I would pick Metrodome to distribute my low-budget feature film. Metrodome produce films that aren't predictable or stereotypical, this would be best suited to my film because my film isn't the normal typical plot, it has a twist which is very unexpected. Mertrodome has nothing to do with genre or format, but providing a distance window on the world.