Question 3 What Kind of Media Institution May Distribute Your Media Product and Why? By Phoebe Farrington

Main Stream Films Main stream films often have large budgets and high production values. They pretty much always have well known/famous actors in them for example ‘Shutter Island’ has Leonardo DiCaprio starring in it. Because of the extensive budgets, these films are able to use special effects like CGI, which attracts vast amounts of audiences. The massive budgets also means a lot of money can be put into promoting the film through push and pull marketing like trailers, posters, large viral campaigns and TV adverts. Mainstream companies can also use synergy and cross media convergence to promote their films. More examples of mainstream film productions include;  Seven - New Line Cinema  Shutter Island – Paramount  The Born Supremacy - Universal

Independent Films Independent films are generally on a low budget and have upcoming actors in as opposed to well known actors. The genre and content is more appealing to a niche market and isn’t necessarily for the wider demographic. Because the budget is on a smaller scale, special effects like CGI are much more conserved and not so extensive. The budget is also reflective in their promotion, with smaller adverts and less TV publicity. They are more commonly displayed in festivals rather than in big cinema brands such as the Odeon and Cine World. They are more likely to use pull marketing and cross media convergence which is much more cheaper and achievable by independent films. This may pull people to watch our film as it means tickets would not be over priced, as opposed to a more mainstream cinema brands that could make it too expensive to be seen for a new upcoming film. Examples of independent films productions include:  Kidult hood – Revolver  Adult hood – Pathe  The Holding - Lionsgate

My Films Category… Whilst we were making the titles, we decided it would be most appropriate for our production company to be independent as our film was of a low budget and didn’t fit into the main stream film category. We used an upcoming drama student to act for us, and used free locations like the public woods to film in. This means we didn’t have to spend a lot of money on any props, locations and or hiring cast. As well as this we felt our film would fit better into an independent company as we knew we would have to use pull advertising for our film.

Production Company and Distribution I started looking through independent film production companies to decided which one would look best on my opening title sequence. I looked at a few, however I thought it would be better to create our own production company. I decided on 104 STUDIOS as it looked the most fitting in the font we had chosen for our titles and it also seemed simple but look professional. The basis of our own production company was that it was a low budget, company that specialises in particular with UK based upcoming films. We also thought that it would be better distributed on UK – DVD release as it is on a smaller scale and the costs are minimal, therefore appealing to a wider audience. We thought it could also fit into the film festivals such as Rain Dance and London Independent Film Festival, as well as locally – the Brighton Film Festival, to get it a reasonable amount of publicity as a ‘new brand’ and a new film. The Distribution company we decided on was Pathe. We chose Pathe because we thought that because it’s an independent company it would suit our low budget film and be able to suit the best possible market for our film. Also Pathe has created films such as Trance, which like ours deals with small independent films, that express upcoming actors and are on UK-DVD release. Trance is also similar to our film in respects that it is a psychological thriller and has upcoming actors in it. It also has a reasonably complex narrative that has several enigmas making the film unpredictable and exciting.