AS MEDIA EVALUATION

QUESTION THREE

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

FILM GENRE

The genre of our media product is Thriller. This would impact the audiences that would watch our film, and the institutions that would show it. As for our thriller film, it is quite deep and the one character of the film is quite dark. The film also represents drugs, and the culture surrounding it therefore our film would appeal to an older audience, which would have an impact on the institutions that would distribute our media product.

TV CHANNELS It would be very unlikely for our media product to be distributed in huge cinema chains, or even any cinemas, as it is a very low budget film and we would not have the funding or the popularity as an established film company or anything near that. However institutions that would perhaps show our film would be some TV Channels such as Film 4 as they tend to show thriller films and often low budget, or independent films. They also usually show thriller films late at night, which is useful for our film as it reaches a more appropriate target audience later at night due to its elements of cinematography such as dark lighting, fast paced editing and a variety of shots including a close ups of props. This also avoids a prime time spot for our film, which we would be unlikely to get anyway, as it is low budget and wouldn’t be shown at the most popular time, so this would be one way our film would be distributed by institutions like smaller TV channels.

FILM WEBSITES Other institutions that may distribute our media product could be online film websites such as Netflix and Lovefilm. These are both quite cheap to have a film shown on, and they tend to show quite a lot of low budget films, and not many big screen numbers are shown on these sites, which would benefit our film as it may therefore attract more interest from our target audience. Sites like these can sometimes really benefit a film or companies success, as if it becomes popular through these smaller institution it may become a big film that could be shown in cinemas.

DVD’S After being distributed by institutions such as TV Channels like Film 4 and Film websites such as Netflix and Lovefilm, our film could then potentially be produced as a DVD and sold in local shops such as HMV and local Supermarkets. The film would get a better reception from this, as a lot of different people would go to local shops, and also from our target audience research through questionnaires and videos we are aware that quite a lot of people like thriller films, so would therefore want to buy the DVD. This would be much more effective for a very low budget film, compared to cinema release, because as well as being expensive, it would be difficult to sell to audiences, as many wouldn’t want to pay to watch a low budget film, and would prefer bigger films, with famous casts unless it has been popularised.

FILM FESTIVALS This is another institution that would distribute our film, such as the Cannes film festival and Sundance film festival because they are set up for independent film projects, and would give us an overall response for our film, and the opinions people have, before trying to sell it somewhere else. This would benefit the popularity and interest in the film, as there could be a wide range of people at a film festival that may be interested. This could also be beneficial to our target audience research before selling the film elsewhere, so this could potentially be the first thing we would do.

CONCLUSION

Overall, we think that the main institution to distribute our thriller film opening, would be TV Channels, like Film 4, as it is best for the target audience we want to show it to, and the time it would likely be shown being appropriate with the Watershed allowing the film to progress. Also, as a starting point, we could potentially use film festival institutions as this will give us an idea of what people think about our film, and we would be able to compare with other low budget films.

However, overall we think that the best way to go when producing our film would be through TV channels such as film 4 as by looking at the films film 4 often plays we believe our thriller would fit into this and therefore be successful.