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HAMMER FILM PRODUCTIONS AND WHY THEY WOULD RELEASE OUR THRILLER.

Hammer film productions is a well known horror film company who were founded in 1934. They are well known for making British horror films are mostly known for their series of Gothic “Hammer Horror” films made from the mid 1950’s until the 1970’s. Films such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy, are the company’s most well known films and were hugely popular with the over 40 age bracket as they grew up with this company being the main horror film company. Even now the company is still as popular as ever as they produced more recent films such as Let Me In (2010), The Resident (2011), and The Woman in Black (2012).

We chose this production company as the company who would have produced our thriller because they are well known for British horror and thriller films and they haven’t expanded to produce films outside of the UK industry.

One of our inspirations for our thriller is The Woman in Black and as Hammer film productions produced this, I think they would be interested in investing their money and time into our thriller ‘Message Received’.

Having our thriller produced by Hammer film productions would also give us a bit step in the film industry as we would get a wide range of ages coming to see our film as the older age group would be drawn by the fact that Hammer had produced it and they would know the older horror films made by them, and the younger generation would be drawn in by the influential value of The Woman in Black.

PRODUCTION COMPANY NAME, LOGO, AND THE ROLE OF OUR COMPANY IN GETTING THE FILM MADE.

This Is our company name and logo.

We chose this name after much deliberation and research as

we wanted it to sound professional enough to be an actual

film company and we didn’t want to take a name that had already been used in the media and film world. Sophie then created the background of the logo that related to the title as supernova can be associated with the galaxy and outer space.

The role of our company in getting this film made was to actual produce and create the film to an acceptable and professional standard to show an audience. We had to undergo a number of stages to get the final finished product. For example; coming up with the initial story idea, to shooting, casting, then changing our initial idea again because we didn’t feel it was clear or creepy enough, then re shooting, making posters, making a selection of final cuts and editing. So as a production company we had to actually create the entirety of the film.

WHAT DOES A PRODUCTION COMPANY DO?

A production company provides the basis for works in the areas of the performing arts, new media art, film, television and radio.

A production company needs to have funding either through earnings, studio investors or private investors and has to have been involved with big budget productions in the past, to be considered a major production company. These company’s often work with well-known and expensive talent.

It handles budgeting and scheduling, the supply with talent and resources, the organization of staff, the production itself, post-production, distribution, and marketing. Production companies are often either owned or under a contract with a media conglomerate, film studio, entertainment company, or Motion Picture Company.

DISTRIBUTORS. A distributor is someone who delivers the content to the audience. A professional

film distributor would determine the marketing strategy of the film, the release date and decide how a film is going to be exhibited or made available for viewing. Whether that be putting a film straight into cinema’s, television or DVD.

A distributor who our company could use to distribute our film would be Entertainment One (also known as eOne). They are a distribution company that are operating in thirteen different countries. I thought that this company would be the most apt for a company interested in distributing our thriller because eOne Films show film content and distributes across multiple countries including Canada, the UK, the Benelux and the United States. Distribution channels include theatrical distribution, home entertainment through DVD/Blu-ray rental and retail, television, and digital downloading service.

They also helped distribute The Woman in Black along with Hammer film productions which we chose as production company so they have experienced working with thriller films and we could get our product distributed around to thirteen different countries.

WHERE THE MONEY FOR OUR FILM MAY HAVE COME FROM.

The money for our Thriller would come from crowd funding like Kickstarter. Kickstarter is an online threshold pledging system which funds money to companies creating some form of creative project. Our company is making the first two minutes of a Thriller to get publicity for future films and the rest of the thriller. So we set up Kickstarter to get the film made and get the money for the film.

Following the publicity we receive from using Kickstarter, we would hope in time, providing our publicity was a hit, that a major film company such as Universal would want our company to make a film for them in the future. This would then give us more money to create more films for ourselves and Universal and finish the rest of our original thriller started on Kickstarter; Message Received.

NAMES IN THE TITLE SEQUENCE, THEIR JOBS AND WHY WE HAVE PLACED THEM IN THAT ORDER.

When we started to edit our thriller, we had to have a run of flowing titles to show the audience who did what in the film. We had each persons name, in some cases multiple times, to show what jobs they did and we placed them in the order that most films use for their credits to show a form of professionalism. The order is as follows:

• Name of the studio- Hammer Film Productions Videography By- Hannah Smith

• Name of the production company- Supernova Pictures Producer- Sophie Johnston

• Starring- Elizabeth Garrard Executive Producer- Elizabeth

• Film Title- ‘Message Received’ Garrard

• Featuring- Hannah Bux, Sophie Johnston, Jordan Winnett Story By- Sophie Johnston & Hannah

• Casting By- Elizabeth Garrard Bux

• Music By- Hannah Bux/Youtube Directed By- Sophie Johnston

• Costume By- Elizabeth Garrard

• Set Designer- Hannah Smith

• Editor- Elizabeth Garrard

• Assistant Editor- Sophie Johnston

• Cinematography By- Sophie Johnston

WHAT IS OUR FILM SIMILAR TO ‘INSTITUTIONALLY’?

The films which I feel were similar to our Thriller are films such as: The Woman In Black, Ouija, Paranormal Activity. Though The Woman In Black is more of a traditional gothic horror genre, and Ouija and Paranormal Activity are fairly modern films set in our ‘reality’, we feel that these three films are similar to our Thriller.

Ouija is probably the most similar to our Thriller as our storyline is based around a séance and Ouija is based around a board game that summons extra-terrestrial life forms/spirits. In this film they also used the props of candles to give the same eerie atmosphere that we wanted in our Thriller. The way The Woman In Black was marketed was the nearest to how we marketed our Thriller in terms of our poster campaigns. The Woman In Black poster has Daniel Radcliffe (the main star) in focus, with a bold title and eerie colours used throughout. They also placed these posters in bus shelters where we would place ours as we have a similar target audience to The Woman In Black. Paranormal activity uses POV camera shots and lots of high angled and low angled shots to show that the protagonist is becoming in more and more danger which is what we used to show how Lizzie was gaining prevalence and that she is a danger to the story.

THE MAIN SELLING POINTS OF OUR FILM, AND WHY THEY WOULD BE BROUGHT INTERNATIONALLY.

As we influenced our thriller around The Woman in Black, Ouija and Paranormal Activity, the main selling points of our film will be the sense of tension and use of close up’s. Also we use a lot of low-key lighting to show the darkness of the setting.

Our film would be brought internationally because the genre of our film is a thriller and horror/thriller films are very popular around the world. Also, the USA, one of the biggest film capitals in the world, know that England are most well known for our Horror and Thriller genre films therefore we would already have a advantage in getting our film sold internationally. However not all countries are interested in horror/thriller films so we would have to really sell ourselves to the other countries in order to make sure our thriller is sold to the best of its capability's.

WHY AN ONLINE COMPANY LIKE NETFLIX AND AMAZON STREAM BE INTERESTED IN OUR FILM.

Sites such as Netflix and Amazon Stream are very popular among the general public. This is because this is a way of watching films in the comfort of your own home only paying a monthly subscription fee for the use of these sites. It is important to get your film onto sites like these as people now result in not going to the cinema as it is to expensive.

Netflix and Amazon Stream produce and have on their websites quite a range of different independent and unheard of films. Netflix spend approximately $2B a year on the content they have on, and Amazon Prime spend $1.3B on theirs. So both of these sites would be excellent to have our film on.

Searching down Netflix, they pretty much have every Thriller/Horror film you could think of. So competition to get our film onto the site could be heavy. However, I feel the plot of our thriller is quite original and providing we sold it right, I believe Netflix would invest into showing our thriller on their site.

Amazon Stream doesn’t have as many films as Netflix as a whole, therefore trying to get them to buy a film rather than a television series could be quite difficult. However they are beginning to make a range of films produced by Amazon Prime directors and producers. With the exception of films they make with well know actors in, they will all be fairly low budget like ours therefore they wouldn’t have to invest a lot but our movie would still be out there which is good publicity for our company.