What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Evaluation, Question 3: ‘Captured’ Alicia Badcock

Mainstream films can best be defined as commercial films that are made by major entertainment studios and companies that are owned by international media conglomerates (a company that owns several smaller businesses who’s products or services are usually very different). Mainstream films usually have a medium to big budget so they can have all the main, well known stars, actors and actresses. The content of the film attracts a wide mainstream audience, so they tend to make a greater profit. The special effects throughout the film are of much higher quality than in an Independent film, again due to finance. The quality of a film is referred to as its ‘production value’, and mainstream films have a high budget therefore a high production value, because of greater investment of resources. They also have high profile marketing campaigns for example, trailers, billboards, posters, large viral campaigns, television adverts, awards etc… Some examples of mainstream productions are, Universal; Paramount (Shutter Island); New Line Cinema (Se7en). Once a film is made, it needs to be distributed (for cinema/DVD release etc.) by a ‘media institution’ (a film company) that has experience of marketing and distributing films that are similar to your film. Mainstream: Independent: On the other hand, Independent film companies have a low budget which means the film will have no expensive special effects- characters and narrative drives the film, and the characters will not be as well known but will have experience with the film industry. The films will be new, with emerging talent but will have lower production value, which reflect the low budget. They will not have high profile marketing campaigns, but small ones for example, viral marketing, a website, niche media texts, festivals and awards. Some examples of Independent production companies are, Optimum Releasing (Kill List); Lionsgate (The Holding); Revolver (Kidulthood); Pathe (Adulthood)

‘Captured’ Our film ‘Captured’, conforms into the Mainstream category. This is because the location of our film, the characters and the narrative could be set anywhere, not just in a specific place i.e. Working class youths in London City, England. The narrative is very typical of the mainstream Thriller genre which means that any production company could make and own our film, meaning it will attract a wide mainstream audience. The film company that might distribute our film is Fox Searchlight Pictures. The reason for this is that Fox Searchlight Pictures also distributed a film called ‘One Hour Photo’ which is a psychological thriller, just like ours. ‘One Hour Photo’ is a 2002 Psychological Thriller film written and directed by Mark Romanek and produced by Christine Vachon, starring Robin Williams. It was distributed in the United States. The films budget was $12,000,000. and made a total Box Office profit of $52,223,306

Our film will be distributed to a wide mainstream audience, worldwide and will therefore be distributed to the mainstream cinema chains, multiplexes/ large festivals and award ceremonies, and they will last for longer runs, i.e. they will stay showing in the cinemas for a longer period of time than some of the independent films would. For example, our film may show in the ‘Cineworld’ chains, or the ‘Odeon’. Because our film is part of a mainstream production, our Box Office figures should be relatively high for a film like ours. As our film is very similar to ‘One Hour Photo’, we should get a Box Office income of around $50 million, from our starting budget of around $10-12 million, ‘One hour Photo’ started with a budget of $12 million, and had a Box Office Income of $52,223,306.