3 DISTRIBUTION

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

The type of media institution to distribute our movie would be an smaller media company who specialise in distributing independent films like Curzon who distribute many independent films by putting them on exhibition in their cinema theatres. As well as Curzon being an independent cinema chain, they also have their own distributing arm called Artificial Eye. Another example of an independent media company is Everyman, however as well as exhibiting independent movies, they also show off big blockbuster movies that are produced by the big six of Hollywood, which is why Curzon is a better option due to their speciality being independent films. However the distribution company that we will use will be verve due to their speciality in distributing independent movies.


Distribution is the process of allowing audiences to view the film, whether it be in the cinema or later on becoming a hard DVD copy. When distributing a feature film there is a lot of thinking and strategy put into when the movie should be released. Distributors who are selling the movie to the cinemas need to think about many different aspects of when and how they should release their film. An example of a question a film distributor would be: 'what is the weather like on that weekend?' or 'are there any other major films being released around that time as well?'. Both of these questions are major parts of a distributors job. If the weather is nice that day of the release, not many people would want to see it due to people wanting to be outside. Then, if any other feature films are being released then, there won't be as many customers to go and view the film.

Another part of the distribution process, is making the movie known to large audiences. This can happen in many different ways, the distributors usually use social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter. Both have millions of users. Film distributors set up pages on Facebook and Twitter for each individual movie so that people can discover the movies easily. These pages post about the movies in ways that excite audiences and create 'hype'. Film distributors may show short clips of the films, as well as behind the scenes clips to excite audiences as well as make people talk about it. Sometimes film distributors make the famous actors 'tweet' or post about what might be happening on set which creates almost a personal relationship between the actors and the audience which also adds to the 'hype'. This 'hype' and talk of the movie creates an immense amount of awareness which is what also is another main part to a movies success. Trailer release dates are very important due to the fact that they are the main reason people get to know about a film. Trailers need to be released when there aren't many major Hollywood movies out at the time. Distributors can't release the trailers too early otherwise people will get bored of waiting for the movie and that will decrease the amount of hype for the movie. But distributors can't release the trailer, so close to the release of the film because not as many people will be informed about the movie before it is released which will effect the popularity on the release date.

I also looked at case studies such as Jurassic World where we looked at how it was distributed. Gareth Lowrie of NBC Universal, explained the campaign to his audience at the FDA (Film Distributors Association). He explained to us at the BFI film study day that they used props from the movie and other props created by set designers and put them into Waterloo station. This create a lot of excitement around the movie as there were prop dinosaurs in the station. On large posters next to the set, shows all of the different social media platforms that Jurassic World had where users can follow and like the pages that Universal studios had set up. People could also add a certain hashtag to their photos so that other people on Instagram could see photos taken with the dinosaurs in London Waterloo station.

Another case study I looked at was a film called 'Tortious in Love' which was created by a small town on a budget of £500,000, which isn't much at all when creating a movie. In this case study we looked at how the village distributed their film around the whole of the UK. They used fund from the BFI to set up 'print and advertising' (P&A) where they distributed their posters for their film all around the UK, but mostly to villages in rural areas which is where the movie was filmed and created. The distribution was highly succesful so they set up a massive movie premier for the movie in hundreds of small town halls in villages all around the country, as well as a large film premier in Leicester Square. In these premiers the villages would start the movie as it started in Leicester Sqaure. This meant the thousands of people were watching the movie for the first time all at the same time. This gave the movie a large presence on social media which made the inexpensive movie to make, a great success.