What kind of media institution might distribute your media product

and why?

Question 3: Evaluation

VUE

Vue cinemas distribute mainstream four-quadrant films such as ‘21 Jump Street’ and ‘We Bought a Zoo’ which appeal to a very wide audience to therefore generate the most amount of profit per screening. Most of the films have a very simple narrative so that it can be enjoyed by many demographics. I do not think that his institution would suit our media product due to the fact that our film would not appeal to such a wide audience due to the fact that it has a young girl as the main character and also the genre of Thriller would not appeal to everyone.

Working Title

Working Title offer many different films but mainly offer an Action/Adventure or Comedy type film. This is due to them wanting to appeal to a wide audience as most of these films are usually produced and funded by large production companies such as ‘Universal’ – so that they are mainly profit-focussed, mainstream films. I don’t think that Working Title in the capacity of a large mainstream profit company is suitable to our film due to our film not being completely appealing to everyone, it’s a very niche genre. However, with the release of ‘Tinker Tailor Solider Spy’ by Working Title showed them in a different light and back to their roots of releasing good talented workmanship and niche genres, however this was not backed by a main distributor because it wasn’t a four-quadrant film.

Warp Warp films focusses more on talented film makers and mainly British film and are plot oriented in their productions. This means that their audience is more niche and not so mainstream due to not everybody liking every genre that they might release.

This would be a very good production company for our media product because our film isn’t completely aimed at a mainstream audience and is about the struggle of a teenage person, such as in ‘This Is England’ and ‘Snowtown’ – both being productions from Warp Films. Our film would relate to the audience of teenagers, but also middle aged people both male and female therefore it would suit the type of audience that Warp films attract.

Warp are also an independent film company so they don’t have the pressure from a large investor – therefore they are able to showcase talented film makers and fantastic films for different audiences.

Cinema City

Cinema city are an independent art-house cinema company, part of the PictureHouse network who are able to control their own programme and show plot oriented films that have specific genres for niche audiences.

I think that this type of cinema would be perfect for our film because it would attract the kind of audience that our film is aimed at and therefore they will get the most out of the experience of the film, however they could have the same experience inside a multiplex cinema due to our demographic being quite open.

Internet

The internet offers many modern day ways of distributing and exhibiting film and media products such as the company ‘LoveFilm’. They have cornered the market in terms of internet distribution as they offer everything from Online rental to next-day delivery on films to watch at home – offering the audience a wide range of ways to consume film. The use of social networking such as ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’ and ‘Youtube’ enables the distributor to target such a large audience because these social networking devices are linked together and are highly publicised - making it a very good way to contact the audience and distribute media. Also the use of games consoles and handheld devices such as Xbox, Playstation 3 and iPods means that people can consume film and media products on-the-go and also means that the distributors can target specific media towards specific audiences – also meaning they can be submerged in media constantly. I think that our media product would distribute well via the Internet due to the main target audience for a lot of these social networking websites and handheld devices is the 18-25 market – which is around the same market that our film is aimed at due to the them being able to associate with the main character of ‘Darcie’.

Other Films

Animal Kingdom is a gritty Thriller just like ours and aspects of both can be seen as similar.

Snowtown, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and This Is England are considered to be films that are recommended to be similar also – that the same demographic would enjoy.

The main demographic for this film is Males under 18 and Males aged 18-29 due to the fact that they can relate to the character of Joshua ‘J’ Cody. The teen/young demographic would be similar for our film due to the main victim/character being a young girl.

Other Films

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is a film that has very similar characters to ours as the main character is a young girl and it also involves an older male. The audience for this film was mainly females under 18, however females aged 45+ and also males of the same age proved to be a popular audience type and enjoy the film also.

I think this is due to the fact that the audience can relate to the woman (main character), but also find themselves connecting to the same and the collective fear of being raped and stalked by an older male. The demographic of older men shows the interest in not only the situation, but also that they are being shown the dangerous situations young girls can be put in – creating more sympathy for the main character. This film has a similar audience to what we would expect to our film, however this was shown to a mainstream audience in multiplexes – showing that we could possibly to the same.

OverallOverall, I think that our film would need to be produced by a company like Warp Films due to the fact it is a sophisticated genre and could be a more niche film and we would want a production company that would understand that.

In terms of Distribution and Exhibition, I initially thought Cinema City would have been perfect and still I think that the niche audience to our film would get a better viewing experience inside an independent art-house cinema. However, I also think that there is a place for our film in the mainstream multiplex due to ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ having a similar audience and being shown in multiplexes and getting a very good response.