Distribution means getting your film seen and noticed by the public e.g. promoting your film through posters, trailers, games etc...
I began by researching independent production companies to see how they distributed their films compared to how mainstream production companies distributed their films. We took some ideas from both to see how we could of distributed our film, bearing in mind that we are media students and don't have the money to properly get our film across.
independent production companies:
Fantastic Film:
Fantastic Films is an OSCAR™ winning film production company. Fantastic films is based in Dublin and Ireland. They are involved in the financing, production and worldwide sales of theatrically positioned feature films. Their goal is to make fantastic films LTD a brand that ensures independent excellence and maximum return to there international buyers. They achieve this by producing a few films a year that are 'worthy' of the fantastic label. This is able to give fantastic films LTD the attention it needs and wants. Fantastic Films attend major film and television markets and also make regular trips overseas to meet their buyers on their own production to discuss current projects and to keep on top of territory-specific tastes and trends. They will consult and assist producers with the creation or improvement of artwork and trailers to minimize costs.
Fantastic Films have recently made a remake of the 1966 film Eldorado, apart from it is a parody of a number of films such as The Blues Brothers, Sweeney Todd and A little shop of horrors.
Eldorado poster: Eldorado Trailer:
I watched the trailer of the Eldorado trailer and I recognized that Fantastic Films LTD is mentioned straight away as soon as the trailer begins. I then saw that they have mentioned that it will be in 3D, showing that they have pushed the budget up a little bit in order to make the film modern. I identified that at the end of the trailer it mentions another production company called A house of fear film production showing that they have teamed up with another production company in order to make the film. This means that the budget to make the film was higher, so to collaborate with another company has gave them the chance to create a much better distribution line to get a higher success rate.
Black and Blue Films:
Black and Blue Films is one of Britain's leading independent production companies. It was launched by Martin Kemp and Jonathon Sothcott in January 2007 to make quality films and TV. Although they haven't been around for that long, they aimed to make 6 films a year by 2011. They decided to remake the film Expose as their first feature film as Jonathon owns a stake in the original film, however Black and Blue Films is very different to the original, it was used as a 'jumping off point' rather than a 'model'. They believe that Vertigo-another independent production company is their role model and aim to be as successful as them. Expose is an independent horror remake of the 1976 film directed by James Kenelm Clarke, set around the life of a writer who’s life becomes a nightmare when her new assistant comes into her life.
Expose Poster: Expose Screen Grab:
I have done my research and I have found that Fantastic Films is more successful than Black and Blue films as they have produced and released more films however, they both make a broad range of films instead of sticking to a certain genre.
Major Media Institution:
Lions Gate:
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. As of 2012, it is the most commercially successful independent film and
television distribution company in North America and second most
profitable movie studio. The company bought a number of small production facilities and distributors. Lions Gate is a production company of films and Television .
Lions Gate first major box office success was American Psycho in 2000, which began a trend of producing and distributing films too controversial for the major American studios.
American Psycho Poster: American Psycho Trailer:
After watching the trailer of American Psycho, I noticed that Lions Gate isn't mentioned at all which possibly means that Lion Gates mustn't of been a very popular production company at that time as nobody had ever heard them before their first proper success of American Psycho. In fact, the trailer doesn't mention the film title until just after half way and doesn't mention who produced the film until near the end.
Twisted Pictures:
Twisted Pictures is an American independent production company, mainly creating films of the horror genre. The company was founded in 2004 by Evolution Entertainment's. They are known for producing the Saw film series.Twisted Pictures was formed after the box office success of Saw in 2004, which lead to a nine-picture distribution deal with Lionsgate.The company went on to produce six sequels in the Saw film series.
Saw Poster: Saw Trailer:
I watched the trailer of Saw and I identified that Twisted Pictures wasn't mentioned. This is probably because Saw 2004 was one of the first films that Twisted Pictures produced, so therefore, wasn't that popular and well known to be on the trailer. The trailer started off as telling you what the cause of Saw is, by adding text that linked in with footage of what happened in the film to give you an idea what the film may look like.
Our Poster:
Above is an image of our Film Poster. In order to design this we have researched a range of other horror film posters to generate our ideas. Other posters within our sub genre haven't used a specific image to show what genre it is e.g a zombie movie would have a picture of a zombie on the poster, whereas with psychological it is pretty tricky to establish what kind of genre it is as the horror is all controlled by the mind. Instead of putting our main character on the front of the poster we decided to keep it quite simple by adding related things to our character such as ink spillages related to the type writer she is using in our title sequence. We created our poster on Photoshop where we decided to use a tea stained background to link in with the cup of tea she goes to make in our sequence, the tea stains show that she has been working for a long amount of time, showing history beyond that when thinking outside of the box. We downloaded a type writer kind of font to write the text with and added an ink spillage to link in with the main character job (student writer/novelist). We then added blood stains to get the point across to our audience that it is a horror film and that it implies warning and danger within our film sequence. After we got the main images and text written, we then added the production company name, age certificate and the release date of our film. We decided to release our film on the 14th July as that will be when many school/college students will be finished for the summer and will be more likely to visit the cinema in their time off. We chose to give our film certificate 15, as its not too gory to be an 18 but to frightening for a PG/12 certificate. So we settled for an age when appropriate. Seeing as we are a media students we are on a low budget so our audience will be very niche. Our marketing and distribution would probably we seen through flyers/leaflets and be placed around near by places and in school and colleges as well as Facebook and other social networking sites and our blog. If we were to be a multinational production company, our film would be noticed towards a mass audience and would be seen on billboards/buses/magazines/newspapers/YouTube etc.
Also above are some posters from the films i have researched and I have noticed that they are all very similar. Each one of them, symbolize what the film may be about, almost giving telling what the film is about from the image, spoiling it for the audience. For example, Eldorado show images of the main characters and the car in the middle represent that it is quite a action/crime film. Expose shows the image of the main character holding a knife which automatically gives away that it is a slasher/horror film and that somebody is going to get badly hurt. American Psycho also clones this idea by having the main character holding up a knife, this shows it is also a slasher. Saw is quite different by still uses the dark colours representing its daunting effect on the audience. The image in the middle shows that a character/s is going to be tortured in a uncomfortable way (the head brace gives this away). By using the head brace 'jigsaw' it shows that it will have some effect on your mind and is almost like a psychological but a lot more taunting.
Other Distribution:
I researched into other distribution options and I came across some local film festivals where we could show our film. Film festivals are very helpful for people who want to get their short film noticed to a broader audience. A local film festival that is useful to us is Mayhem Festival which is based at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. The distributors I have already mentioned are all on a much higher budget than us so therefore have a better chance of getting their film recognized. There ways of distributing is not really an option for us as we are low budget media students. Instead, we could distribute our film through social networking sites by uploading it on to YouTube/FaceBook/MySpace and our blog in order to get our film seen and noticed by other audiences.
Another way in which we could distribute our film is through Bang Film Festival. It is a film festival for much smaller films such as films made by students in helping them to get a wider range of audience. This is a good way to distribute our film as it especially made for students wanting to get their film recognized. We could also put our film online so our friends and other people around our age can see and know about it.
Release Diary:
The release date is very important when making a film as you need to to release a film when you know that you will earn your gross back on what you paid when making the film. You need to be able to earn your money back in order to make another film and to cover the cost of production. Term time and Halloween would be a fantastic time for our film to be released but not so much as that will be when other production companies from a more mainstream audience will be releasing their films. So I think it should be released in the cinema the weekend before Halloween (27/10/12). DVD releases are usually a few months after the cinema release date, so I think our film DVD should be released around February half term (for students) on the 09/02/12.
Advertisement Campaign:
Our trailer would be shown before a horror film of any sub genre but more towards the psychological genre. Our trailer would be shown before films of the same age certificate as that would be more appropriate for the audience watching as it would appeal more towards them.
Above is the trailer to The Devil Inside. Our film would be very appropriate to be shown before this film as The Devil Inside is also of a psychological sub genre back ground as the main character gets possessed by a 'Devil', which is very similar to our plot line of our film as our film is a psychological, so the horror is all in the mind and body.
Production Company Logo:
Above is a picture of our production company logo A JEC production. We made this logo in the same way as our poster. We decided to use the tea stained background as most horror films are usually down to the history beyond that, so we figured that it worked very well within the horror genre as it is old and vintage and that is the new style nowadays. We decided not to keep the ink and blood spillages as that was only relevant to our film that we made and it wouldn't link in with any future films we may make. When i researched other company logo's, I noticed that they kept theirs plain and simple as they are the ones that you can easily recognize. We put our logo at the start of our film as when we researched other films, they did the same; that way the audience are able to identify who produced the movie.
Also above are some posters from the films i have researched and I have noticed that they are all very similar. Each one of them, symbolize what the film may be about, almost giving telling what the film is about from the image, spoiling it for the audience. For example, Eldorado show images of the main characters and the car in the middle represent that it is quite a action/crime film. Expose shows the image of the main character holding a knife which automatically gives away that it is a slasher/horror film and that somebody is going to get badly hurt. American Psycho also clones this idea by having the main character holding up a knife, this shows it is also a slasher. Saw is quite different by still uses the dark colours representing its daunting effect on the audience. The image in the middle shows that a character/s is going to be tortured in a uncomfortable way (the head brace gives this away). By using the head brace 'jigsaw' it shows that it will have some effect on your mind and is almost like a psychological but a lot more taunting.
Other Distribution:
I researched into other distribution options and I came across some local film festivals where we could show our film. Film festivals are very helpful for people who want to get their short film noticed to a broader audience. A local film festival that is useful to us is Mayhem Festival which is based at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. The distributors I have already mentioned are all on a much higher budget than us so therefore have a better chance of getting their film recognized. There ways of distributing is not really an option for us as we are low budget media students. Instead, we could distribute our film through social networking sites by uploading it on to YouTube/FaceBook/MySpace and our blog in order to get our film seen and noticed by other audiences.
Another way in which we could distribute our film is through Bang Film Festival. It is a film festival for much smaller films such as films made by students in helping them to get a wider range of audience. This is a good way to distribute our film as it especially made for students wanting to get their film recognized. We could also put our film online so our friends and other people around our age can see and know about it.
Release Diary:
The release date is very important when making a film as you need to to release a film when you know that you will earn your gross back on what you paid when making the film. You need to be able to earn your money back in order to make another film and to cover the cost of production. Term time and Halloween would be a fantastic time for our film to be released but not so much as that will be when other production companies from a more mainstream audience will be releasing their films. So I think it should be released in the cinema the weekend before Halloween (27/10/12). DVD releases are usually a few months after the cinema release date, so I think our film DVD should be released around February half term (for students) on the 09/02/12.
Advertisement Campaign:
Our trailer would be shown before a horror film of any sub genre but more towards the psychological genre. Our trailer would be shown before films of the same age certificate as that would be more appropriate for the audience watching as it would appeal more towards them.
Above is the trailer to The Devil Inside. Our film would be very appropriate to be shown before this film as The Devil Inside is also of a psychological sub genre back ground as the main character gets possessed by a 'Devil', which is very similar to our plot line of our film as our film is a psychological, so the horror is all in the mind and body.
Production Company Logo:
Above is a picture of our production company logo A JEC production. We made this logo in the same way as our poster. We decided to use the tea stained background as most horror films are usually down to the history beyond that, so we figured that it worked very well within the horror genre as it is old and vintage and that is the new style nowadays. We decided not to keep the ink and blood spillages as that was only relevant to our film that we made and it wouldn't link in with any future films we may make. When i researched other company logo's, I noticed that they kept theirs plain and simple as they are the ones that you can easily recognize. We put our logo at the start of our film as when we researched other films, they did the same; that way the audience are able to identify who produced the movie.
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