Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The Driver Tabitha Green The driver opening title sequence

The difference between Mainstream and independent distribution companies? Independent distribution companies such as Revolver are known for showcasing new, emerging talent such as ‘Kidulthood’ to smaller/ niche audiences such as people within the UK. Films which are likely to be promoted by an independent distribution company are likely to be character and narrative driven rather that packed full of technology and special effects. Click here to see the trailer for the independent film ‘Kidulthood’.Click here Revolver is known for creative and unique advertising techniques such as their attempt to break the world record for a zombie gathering in Leicester Square (to promote The Zombie Diaries). They also offer unusual and untoward prizes etc to attract attention over other distribution companies. An example of when Revolver did this was offering a trip to Amsterdam and a free bag of marijuana as a prize at the release of ‘The Wackness’ and when they were promoting ‘Dead Man Running’ starring Danny Dyer by dropping hundreds of customized £5, £10 and £50 on crowds in London and Manchester. Click link to watch youtube clip of the ‘revolver’ trailer- In contrast, mainstream distribution companies such as Paramount (promoters of ‘Shutter Island’) have a medium to big budget and promote films with very ‘big names’ in them which is a main advertising technique used by these companies eg. Getting the main actors to do interviews on popular TV shows. They use a high profile marketing campaign such as Billboards, Posters, large visual campaigns with famous actors and award shoes etc. The type of films which are advertised by these mainstream companies often are heavily laden with cutting edge special effects which also plays a part in the target audience to which the company advertises the film, eg, Harry Potter.

How ‘The Driver’ will be promoted As our film is new and producers and actors will be new in the world of cinema, we decided that we would prefer our film to be promoted independently by MGT productions. MGT productions is a new distribution company which we will set up specifically to promote this film. The reason we would like to use an independent company is that we would like to use creative techniques to create a buzz about our film. For example we could have replica packages made and hidden at the cinema premiere of the film to create extra excitement amongst the audience. As our film is a crime thriller, we expect that it is going to appeal to a huge range of different audiences however predominantly to teenagers and young adults. As social networking is an ever expanding technology which is very poplar with younger adults and teenagers, therefore by posting trailers and reviews of our film on sites such as Facebook and Twitter is not only free, but can easily be accessed by a whole range of people and easily shared by millions to create a widespread buzz about our film. I believe that spending millions of pounds on a mainstream production campaign would not be cost effective for our film as the actors and directors are not well known so the techniques such as large bill boards and posters wouldn’t be effective as the unrecognisable names and faces wouldn’t catch peoples attention.

Evaluation of our distribution techniques Facebook will be our main advertising technique as we are using a low budget distribution company (and it’s free). It is a very good technique because then a huge percentage of the population has access to our film. Thriller Film festivals would be a good technique for our film to be advertised as the audience there would be interested in that thriller genre. Another way to display our film to audiences is playing it on the summer big beach screen in Brighton. As this event attracts many young people that may be interested in the type of film of which the driver is included. Hopefully after the first year, our film will be making enough money to cover filming expenses.