Q.3 Evaluation

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A film distributor is a person or company which is held responsible for releasing a film. It can be released for the cinema, on DVD’s, T.V or any main media output. The first process of distributing a film is agreeing a contract with the film makers, then the distribution company shows the movie to prospect buyers, they negotiate to find a good deal. Then the theatre shows the movie for a certain amount of time, and then we the viewers then buy a ticket to watch our favourite films. At the end of the engagement, the theatre sends a message of all the viewers and makes payment on the lease agreement.

When a film is distributed it has to be advertised globally, without advertisment the film will be unkown and then nobody would view your film. There are many ways of advertisment likew through word of mouth, newspapers, the intermet, posters, trailers etc. Also placing a film in a popular cinema is a good form of advertisment wich is a part of distribution. The Bethnal Green entertainment centre Rich Mix http://www.richmix.org.uk/shows a variety of arts such as poetrty, dance, thatre and most importanly film. This would be a good place to distribute my film because they are a very cultural based company, and our film is very cultural geographically and socially wich makes our film ‘Forsaken’ suitable.

My film ‘FORSAKEN’ is a low budget independent student film, it is not well known so it will not be shown in cinemas or big T.V stations such as Odeon or Sky Drama. My cast is of a low budget and it is not holding any household names like Will Smith, or Johnny Depp which would get more viewers intrested. Subsequently when distributing our film it will have to be low budget and finically realistic. Although  this is the case, independent production companies and major studiocompanies compete for a chance to show there products in the cinemas, which still gives a chance to less financially able but more artistic directors to get there film placed in the cinemas.

Dogwoof pictures http://www.dogwoof.com/which could be a suitbale choice of distribution for our film the film distributour company based in the U.K, it is an independent company formed in 2004. The films Dogwoof distributed were films such as ‘Mouth to Mouth(2005) and ‘Kings Game’(2004) which are very low budget independent films similar to our ‘Forsaken’. They are a very sucessful independent film company winning awards at the BIFAs for there films ‘Enemies of the  People’ and Mugabe and the White African, for best documentary this year and last. The good work of the company has also been acknowledged by the Daily Telegraph saying ‘’London-based film-distribution company Dogwoof has carved out an impressive reputation for itself as a purveyor of timely and incisive social-issues documentaries’’ which is a big compliment and more reason for this company to distribute our film.

Youtube is an video http://www.youtube.com/sharing site which is financiallysuitable for our film and is very popular around the world, it is also profitable if you obtain a certain amount of video views. It is said that there are 200 million videos on youtube, and countless views which means that are film has a good chance of beeing viewed.

Another institutution which may be intreseted in distributing our film is The British Film Institution(BFI) this is an charitable organisation established by Royal chater to encourage the art of  film making, televison and moving pictures in the United Kingdom. The company own both the IMAX and the BFI southbank surround ing the river thames. The BFI Southbank shows films from all over the world particularly critically-acclaimed historical & specialised films that may not otherwise get a cinema showing. They also distribute archival and cultural cinema to other cinemas, to around 800 venues a year arouss the United Kingdom. They distributed the 1968 classic ‘Stolen Kisses’ which had a low relatively low budget like our film ‘Forsaken’.

Channel 4’s Film 4 http://www.film4.com/productions is a type of film distributour in that you can watch films on there website and on the television channel, they also encourage short films like our film ‘Forsaken’ which is great because they will be experts at  distributing our type of film.The short films Film 4 have distributed are ‘Kingsland’ and ‘Hallo Panda’. They also show full films which have low budgets like Peter Mullans ‘Neds’ which is similar to our film. Film 4 is also well known and big in the U.K wich is our predominate market, also on the 20^th july 2010 the channle was placed on Virgin Media which is a massive to T.V  providers, which subsequently means more exsposure.

All in all getting you film distributed is a very long and hard task, distributours don’t want to distribute your film unless there sure of large profits. And making an agreement with both parties and there are a lot precedures which have to be taken up such as licensing, marketing, copyright and logistics. The company I would perfer to distribute my film is Film 4 because they have helped many short films and also British low budget films, and also they are very popular in te U.K.